;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 10, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Fox Business will carry [tonight's GOP] debates live [at 7 & 9 pm ET]. Several cable providers are making the network available during the debates to subscribers who do not normally get it.... The network will be streaming the debate live on its website, and cable logins will not be required to watch.... The debate will also be streaming on the Fox News app, available on mobile phones and tablets." ...
... David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "Tuesday night's main event will be moderated by Fox Business personalities Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto. In an interview with The Washington Post, they said they aimed to do better [than the CNBC moderators] -- and that they wouldn't put up with whining.... Tuesday night's debate could be a last stand for [Jeb] Bush, who came into the race as the well-funded front-runner and has never shown a fire to match his fundraising."
Jesse McKinley of the New York Times: New York "Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo plans to unilaterally create a $15 minimum wage for all state workers, making New York the first state to set such a high wage for a large group of public employees."
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama will ask the Supreme Court to clear the way for his long-delayed immigration overhaul, administration lawyers said Tuesday, setting up another high-stakes legal contest in the nation's highest court over the fate of one of the president's signature achievements. The Department of Justice said in a statement that it will appeal a federal appeals court ruling that blocked Mr. Obama's plan to provide work permits to as many as five million undocumented immigrants while shielding most of them from deportation."
*****
Dan Diamond of Vox: "Politicians might battle over the 'real' unemployment rate, but don't be fooled: The BLS data is trusted by economists.... Obama can now argue that under his watch, unemployment has been cut in half [from 10 to 5 percent].... President George W. Bush inherited 4.2 percent unemployment in January 2001. That rate had grown to 7.8 percent when he left office eight years later and hit 8.3 percent in the first full month of Obama's presidency.... Bush made the decision to enact major tax cuts, launch two wars overseas, and spend about $1 trillion on homeland security -- and each one of those moves significantly increased the US deficit and contributed to a weaker economy. Meanwhile, Obama's January 2009 stimulus package and the March 2010 Affordable Care Act clearly affected the economy, too, and seemingly in more positive ways."
Ron Johnson Continues Successful Five-Year Effort to Prove He's America's Stupidest Senator. Elise Foley & Roque Planas of the Huffington Post: "It's not so bad to deport children to what was until recently the murder capital of the world, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)..., Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairman..., said Friday, since Honduras is 'a beautiful country' with 'gorgeous resort zones.'" CW: Why do you kids hang out in those "gorgeous resort zones" instead of living in hovels surrounded by thugs & murderers?
Josh Gerstein & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "A federal appeals court has rejected President Barack Obama's effort to move forward with a series of executive actions he announced last year seeking to give quasi-legal status and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. The 2-1 ruling Monday from the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit is a defeat for the Obama administration, but one that may have come just in the nick of time to give the Supreme Court the chance to revive Obama's attempt to make it easier for many immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally to live and work here.... Delay in the issuance of the appeals court's ruling was raising doubt about whether the Supreme Court would have an opportunity to resolve the case in time to allow Obama to move forward with the programs before leaving office." ...
... The New York Times story, by Michael Shear & Julia Preston, is here. ...
... Greg Sargent figures that, besides the untold hurt the appellate court's decision rains down on millions of residents, the Supreme Court's decision could drop a "massive bomb" on the GOP in next year's elections.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for a police officer who shot and killed a fleeing suspect from a highway overpass. The court's decision was unsigned and issued without full briefing and oral argument, an indication that the majority found the case to be easy. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling endorsed 'a "shoot first, think later" approach to policing.'... A [Texas] state trooper, Chadrin L. Mullenix, took a position on a highway overpass, where he was told to 'stand by' and 'see if the spikes work first.' Mr. Mullenix instead fired six shots, killing Israel Leija[, who was fleeing by car from police who had attempted to arrest him minutes earlier.] The car then hit the spike strip and rolled over twice."
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is a stickler for evenly distributing the workload of the Supreme Court, but he plays favorites among his eight colleagues when assigning the court's most important decisions. Not surprisingly, Roberts calls his own number more than anyone else's and assigns the next-highest number to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the pivotal justice on the ideologically divided court, according to a new study by Harvard law Prof. Richard J. Lazarus published in the Harvard Law Review." (Also linked yesterday.)
Eric Yoder of the Washington Post: "Salaries of federal employees continue to lag behind those of similar private-sector jobs by 35 percent on average, an advisory committee has said in presenting what amounts to the latest data point in a long-running debate over how the two sectors compare."
... MEANWHILE. Rupert Neate of the Guardian: "Pity Wall Street's bankers. Their year-end bonuses are expected to fall by 5 to 10% this year -- the first drop since 2011, according to a survey released on Monday. But before you reach for the tissues, realise the average bonus (on top of salary) paid to New York's 167,800 bankers last year was $172,860. The average US household income last year was $53,657, according to the US Census." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Tom Krisher of the AP: "Volkswagen is offering $1,000 in gift cards and vouchers as a goodwill gesture to owners of small diesel-powered cars involved in an emissions cheating scandal. The offer announced Monday goes to owners of 482,000 cars in the U.S., many who are angry at the company because they paid extra for the cars to be environmentally sensitive without losing peppy acceleration.... The offer also includes free roadside assistance for the diesel vehicles for three years.... Volkswagen already is offering $2,000 to current VW owners to trade in their cars for new vehicles, and the gift cards and vouchers would add $1,000 to that." CW: I can't figure out from the story how a VW owner can use these "gift cards" other than on buying a new VW or Audi. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jonathan Ferziger & Margaret Talev of Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that while their differences on the Iran nuclear pact are 'no secret,' their countries must work together in fighting terrorism and seeking peace with the Palestinians. The split between the two leaders is on the 'narrow issue' of the nuclear agreement with Iran, Obama said as he met with Netanyahu in the Oval Office Monday for the first time in 13 months. 'We don't have a disagreement on making sure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon,' he said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Dana Milbank: "Earlier this year, the Israeli prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] did more than any of his predecessors over nearly 70 years to turn his country into a partisan political issue in the United States.... Now, as Netanyahu visits the United States, he decided to accept, on the same day he met [President] Obama in the Oval Office, an award from a group of neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute who applaud his stand against the Obama administration. The acceptance of the award, which has previously gone to, among others, Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia, led the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg to conclude that 'Netanyahu has decided to troll Obama.'"
Rebecca Ruiz of the New York Times: "Top Russian athletes, including Olympians and winners of prestigious events like the Chicago marathon, have for years participated in a systematic doping program that involved some of Russia's sports officials, the World Anti-Doping Agency said on Monday.The agency released a lengthy report here that described a pervasive doping culture among Russia's sports programs, evoking notorious drug regimes like the state-run doping system of East Germany." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Rainforest Trust: "On Sunday, November 8, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala will approve the creation of a 3.3 million-acre national park at Sierra del Divisor, protecting an immense expanse of Amazon rainforest. The new park -- which is larger than Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks combined -- strategically secures the final link in a 67 million-acre Andes-Amazon Conservation Corridor, forming one of the largest contiguous blocks of protected areas in the Amazon, and is vital to protecting one of the planet's last remaining strongholds for wildlife biodiversity and indigenous communities." Via the New York Times.
Christine Hauser of the New York Times: "The leader of the free world now has a personal Facebook page, and more than 45,000 people clicked 'like' on it in the first hour it was live on Monday. It seems unlikely that a man whose daily schedule often includes meetings with world leaders and briefings on national security will have much time to post pictures of his meals or comment on pet photos. But as The Times reported this week, Mr. Obama now has a 20-member social media team at the White House that aims to bring more spontaneity and accessibility to the presidency, a position that has become highly choreographed and constricted in modern times." For all you Facebook fans, the President's page is here.
Commie cups?It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas Everywhere but Starbucks. Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: "Like everything connected to Christmas, this year's 'War on Christmas' freakout has arrived early.... Starbucks won't feature tree ornaments or snowflakes or reindeer like it did on its old winter cups. Because those totally said birth of Jesus, right?... The devout went wild. One after another, folks declared on Facebook and other social media that they've had their last nonfat vanilla latte." ...
... Doodle Your Own Baby Jesus. Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "'Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus,' Joshua Feuerstein, who described himself as an evangelist, Internet and social media personality, wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday.... The protests were so loud that Starbucks sought on Sunday to clarify its decision to remove the holiday symbols. In a statement on its website, the company said it took its cue from 'customers who have been doodling designs on cups for years. This year's design is another way Starbucks is inviting customers to create their own stories with a red cup that mimics a blank canvas,' the company said.... The cups, however..., Starbucks said..., featured 'a two-toned ombré design, with a bright poppy color on top that shades into a darker cranberry below.'" ...
Maybe we should boycott Starbucks.... If I become president, we're all going to be saying "Merry Christmas" again. That I can tell you. That I can tell you! Unbelievable. -- Donald Trump, yesterday
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
CW: If the Huffington Post is to be taken seriously as a news outlet, (1) their editors will put stories about Donald Trump back on the political page (they moved him to the entertainment page some while back). And (2) their reporters will stop asking ridiculous questions like, "Say, Jeb!, if you could go back in time to kill baby Adolf Hitler in his crib, would you do it?" (And we would not have to suffer an equally-ridiculous answer like "Hell yeah, I would! You gotta step up, man.") What? Are you all 10-year-olds?
Rees Shapiro of the Washington Post: "The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity chapter at the University of Virginia filed a $25 million lawsuit Monday against Rolling Stone magazine, which published an article in 2014 that alleged a freshman was gang raped at the house during a party."
AND Charles Pierce awards the Sunday showz prize to Chuck Todd. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Presidential Race
Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee will bring the eight leading contenders together at a time when two are confronting questions about their pasts, one faces mounting doubts about his seriousness, and another who began the race as a favorite is under intense pressure to show he can be as forceful as he was cracked up to be. Yet their ability to address those problems could actually depend on whether Fox Business Network, the host of the debate, fails to deliver on its promises for a policy-driven evening focused on sober economic issues." ...
... Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Wisconsin is a striking showcase for the GOP's dominance of state governments across the country and its iron grip on the U.S. House of Representatives.... It's no accident we're having a GOP debate here."
Jenna Johnson & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "As [Donald] Trump has become the defining character of this GOP primary, the race itself has seemed to take on elements of Trump's personality -- in particular, his aggressive, seemingly shameless rejection of the idea that he has ever been wrong. The influence is particularly strong in [Carly] Fiorina and [Ben] Carson, the two outsiders who rose in Trump's slipstream.... Like Trump, some of these outsiders' most memorable debate moments have come while uttering statements that turned out to be exaggerated or untrue. And, like Trump, they have played to a distrustful electorate by criticizing the fact-checkers, and refusing to acknowledge any facts were wrong. So far, it's working.... This dynamic -- candidates dodging questions about their honesty, and attacking the questioners instead -- was much less prominent in the only Democratic debate of the 2016 election so far." ...
... CW: Really? Let's not pretend Donald Trump is the inspiration for Fiorina's & Carson's lies. Both have been liars for decades. But it's nice to see a "news" story point out the candidates are lying' & denyin'. ..
... Steve M.: "Ben Carson has acknowledged that he didn't get the facts straight when he told us about that Yale exam he took a second time, but he blamed the co-author of his memoir Gifted Hands." His unreliable ghostwriter was Cecil Murphey, who also ghostwrote some "heaven tourism" books & coauthored a faith-healing book. "Should you trust a book written by this guy? Should you trust the biographical account of a presidential candidate who'd collaborate with a guy like this?" ...
... CW: Um, didn't Carson have editorial control of the text? Puh-leze. ...
... Andrew Kaczynski, et al., of BuzzFeed: "A former staff member of the Yale Record says that he recalls many of the details of a prank that Dr. Ben Carson wrote about in an autobiography.... In an interview with BuzzFeed News on Monday, Curtis Bakal, an editorial assistant at the satirical Yale Record who says he helped write the fake test, said he was '99% certain the way Carson remembers it is correct.'" CW: Several key details, including the year of the prank & the central point of Carson's story, are at odds with Bakal's "99 percent certainty." Whether Carson borrowed the whole story or was actually taken in by the hoax in his first semester at university, its purpose was not, as Carson claims, a Diogenes-like effort to Find the One Honest Man at Yale: Me, Ben Carson....
** ... James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "Ben Carson doesn't understand what running for president entails.... On [the] Sunday shows, the retired neurosurgeon asserted repeatedly that no one has ever been vetted like he's being right now. That is not backed up by the facts.... Carson's complaints also sounded silly because they were uttered as many reporters were poring over Marco Rubio's credit card receipts from a decade ago...." Read the whole story. ...
... The Chicago Tribune's editorial board really does a number on Carson. The board faults him for his fabrications, for his pretending that the media has singled him out, & for his lack of understanding of policy issues" "his plan for Medicare and Medicaid indicated 'he doesn't understand the concept of insurance,' according to Gail Wilensky, who ran the federal programs under President George H.W. Bush." The Trib is still a conservative paper, isn't it?
War Stories, Ctd. Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Since he was a boy, Senator Ted Cruz has said, all he wanted to do was 'fight for liberty' -- a yearning that he says was first kindled when he heard his father's tales of fighting as a rebel leader in Cuba in the 1950s, throwing Molotov cocktails, running guns and surviving torture.... But the family narrative that has provided such inspirational fire and biographical heft to Mr. Cruz's speeches, debate performances and a recently published memoir is, his father's Cuban contemporaries say, an embroidered one.... In interviews, Rafael Cruz's former comrades and friends disputed his description of his role in the Cuban resistance. He was a teenager who wrote on walls and marched in the streets, they said -- not a rebel leader running guns or blowing up buildings.... There is no question that Rafael Cruz ... was beaten in 1957 at the hands of agents for Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator.... The reason Mr. Cruz was arrested, however, is less clear, and he has offered different explanations...." Although Rafael has claimed his was arrested for trying to recruit a person who turned out to be a Batista informant, Cubans who remember the event say he was arrested for carrying a pistol.
Maggie Haberman & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Seething with anger and alarmed over [Marco] Rubio's rise, aides to [Jeb] Bush ... and his allies are privately threatening a wave of scathing attacks on his former protégé in the coming weeks, in a sign of just how anxious they have become about the state of Mr. Bush's candidacy."
Kira Lerner of Think Progress: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed legislation Monday that would have added 1.6 million new voters to the state's rolls and made New Jersey the third state in the country to adopt automatic voter registration. After sitting on the 'Democracy Act' for almost five months, the governor and Republican presidential candidate vetoed his second voting rights-related bill in three years...."
... Brent Johnson of NJ.com: "Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican presidential candidate who has touted his Second Amendment credentials on the campaign trail, rejected [i.e., vetoed] a gun control bill Monday despite a plea from former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords urging him to sign it. Christie conditionally vetoed the measure (A4218), which would have tightened a New Jersey law that bans convicted domestic violence offenders and those subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm.... In his veto message, Christie suggested toughening penalties for those convicted of domestic abuse, as well as making it easier for victims to obtain their own guns.... Conditional vetoes allow the state Legislature to vote upon Christie's suggested changes to a bill and send it back to the governor for his approval." CW: Because there's nothing better than a family shoot'em-up. ...
... BUT, hey, Christie is against bestiality. CW: A brave stand, buddy.
Beyond the Beltway
John Eligon & Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Amid a wave of student and faculty protests, primarily over racial tensions, that all but paralyzed its flagship campus here, the president of the University of Missouri system resigned Monday, urging everyone involved to 'use my resignation to heal and start talking again.' The president, Timothy M. Wolfe, had grown increasingly isolated, with opposition to his leadership reaching a crescendo in the last few days: The faculty council issued a statement of concern about him; football players said they would refuse to play until he left, potentially costing the university millions of dollars; the university's student government on Monday demanded his ouster; and much of the faculty canceled classes for two days, in favor of a teach-in focused on race relations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... The St. Louis Post-Dispatch story, by Stephen Deere, is here. With video of Wolfe's resignation announcement. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post on how the University of Missouri's football team took down the school's president. It's about the money. ...
... Steve M. "... conservative critics have countered that the [football players &] students [who fought for President Wolfe's resignation] are 'cowardly liberal lazy douchebags' (Leon H. Wolf at RedState) and charged that the students 'declared at University of Missouri that white people must be fired for being white' (the Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro); the school's College Republicans compared the protesters to Islamist terrorists: .... I'd compare them to House Republicans.... These students ... did exactly what the conservative movement did to [John] Boehner: they applied pressure until he realized that his position was untenable.... The defenestration of Boehner was, as I recall, hailed by conservatives as a great moment for American liberty, even though he'd been duly elected by both the voters of his district and the very House Republicans who went on to toss him out the window." CW: The Rule: when white confederates revolt, it's a "great moment for American liberty"; when black people revolt, they're "cowardly liberal lazy douchbag terrorists." ...
... AND, let's be clear, this was not exclusively a revolt of black football players & a few sympathetic white liberaly lazy douchbag students. Columbia Daily Tribune: "The same day University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe announced his resignation, the deans of nine different MU colleges requested the dismissal of Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin. In a letter sent Monday to Wolfe and the UM Board of Curators, the deans said they wanted to express 'our deep concern about the multitude of crises on our flagship campus' and call for Loftin's dismissal. Previously, faculty of two departments sent similar letters calling for Loftin's resignation. ...
... SO THEN ... Columbia Daily Tribune: "About six hours after University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe resigned because of racial tensions on campus, MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said he will transition to a new role. Loftin spoke at the conclusion of a lengthy UM Board of Curators meeting and said he would transition effective Jan. 1 to a new role as director for research facility development.... Donald Cupps, chairman of the Board of Curators..., announced a series of initiatives to address the racial climate of the UM System campuses. The initiatives will be implemented in the next 90 days, Cupps said." ...
... Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: "Tim Wolfe's resignation Monday as the University of Missouri System president came after months of escalating racial tension surrounding high-profile incidents on the flagship campus in Columbia, Mo., and student criticism about the administration's response. Here's a rundown of what happened leading up to Wolfe's announcement that he was stepping down from his post leading the four-campus system."
Way Beyond
Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "After days of conflicting signals about his attitude toward the European Union, Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday formally outlined his approach to negotiations with other member countries ahead of a crucial referendum that will determine whether Britain stays in the 28-nation bloc. His demands included a safeguard to prevent countries that use the euro from discriminating economically against Britain, which has retained the pound; a stronger role for national parliaments in European Union decision-making; and an end to Britain's legal commitment, as a signatory to European Union treaties, to pursue 'ever closer union,' which conservatives see as a threat to national sovereignty." ...
... Guardian coverage, in the form of a liveblog, is here.
Guardian: "Egyptian investigative journalist Hossam Bahgat has been freed from military custody following his arrest for 'publishing false news'."
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Reader Comments (21)
Waiting for Trumpdough? My apologies to Samuel Beckett.
"Arizona’s attempt to privately fund a $50 million border fence has ended in failure." ("...Five years and one recall election later, the state raised a grand total of $265,000.")
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/arizona-fails-to-crowdfund-border-fence.html
Too bad Gilda Radner isn't with us anymore. What fun she would have had as Roseanne Rosannadanna with her Richard Whatshisname from New Jersey re:voting rights, guns and bestiality. Bestiality? Really? Is there some kind of influx of people having hanky panky with their beasts of burden? And shame on Christie for not signing that gun control bill!
In an effort to look at something that doesn't involve politics, I looked into the article last week that shows the increased risk for colorectal cancer when eating meat. It says that if you eat meat every day your risk increases 17-18%. Well this is another example of how to play numbers. 17-18% chance of cancer!!! That's what many people see. Not true. The overall risk of colorectal is about 5%. So if you eat bad meat everyday the risk increases to about 5.8%. It always bothers me when the numbers of science and medicine are played with. So (and I am not joking) I decided to have sausage pasta last night (Wegman's, very tasty).
PD Pepe, you are correct in your assessment of Christie vetoing the gun control bill and a slew of others. But the worst part for NJ is that the legislature which passed most of these bills did so with a large Republican vote. But when Christie veto's a bill, none of the Republicans vote for the override. In other words, in NJ Republican legislators work for Christie, not the people who voted for them.
Have been thinking the Missouri football story qualifies as another (amusing for those so inclined) entry in the unintended consequences sweepstakes.
As universities encouraged football's transition from the kind of "Chariots of Fire" amateurism designed to build character, supporting the classical Greek educational ideal of developing healthy minds and bodies, to the entertainment juggernaut that it has become today, in the public eye and in university budgets both, dwarfing a university's other purposes--what were they anyway?--universities' power centers have shifted to their athletic departments.
I picture puzzled, how did this happen expressions on the faces of regents and board members across the nation as they confront this tail wagging dog phenomenon.
What university administrators, just like the Republican Party in the 1960's who began to invite the racists and crazies into their tent, forgot was that bit of wisdom my grandmother knew full well, that supping with the devil demands a long spoon.
Not sure from this distance I have a clear picture of all the rights and wrongs of the Missouri situation but from what I do see, there might be another irony here worth noting.
By welcoming the worst elements of the Old South into their party, Republicans lost their moral center. By elevating football and the black talent it depends on to the campus powerhouse it has become, certain universities might find theirs for the first time.
@CW,
The answer to your VW question can be found on the special website that they have set up for affected owners like me.
Owners of eligible vehicles must first register for their "Customer Goodwill Package" after which they will receive:
1. A $500 Volkswagen Prepaid $500 Volkswagen Prepaid Visa® Loyalty Card that can be used to purchase anything anywhere Visa® debit cards are accepted.
2. A $500 Volkswagen Dealership Card that can be used at "participating" dealers. I guess it can be applied toward to the purchase of a new car or for service work, parts, or accessories.
3. 24-hour Roadside Assistance for three years at no charge.
Cards 1 and 2 expire one year after issuance.
I say BFD.
So far I've received 2 solicitations from shysters to join in their class action suits. I'm waiting to see what the retrofit repairs will involve before pursuing any other remedies.
test
I'm with PD on this one.
Chris Christie vetoes a bill that could keep convicted domestic violence offenders from getting a hold of firearms and instead puts his John Hancock on a bill to keep New Jersey residents from putting the moves on cows and sheep?
It really is Bizarro World when you're talking about the Right Wing Bubble.
I couldn't find any statistics on bestiality in New Jersey (go figure), but there are plenty on domestic abuse. Over 70,000 cases are reported every year. In 2012, 40 of those cases ended up as homicides. And those are just the ones reported. So, in effect, there could be hundreds of thousands of domestic violence offenders in the state. If the number of practitioners of sex with animals is that high, New Jersey has gotten a lot weirder since I was there last.
But Republicans are always far more appalled by sex, especially anything that's not married couple, man on top, woman on bottom, get it over with quick and only for procreation, than they are by nuts running around with loaded weapons. And now, the nuts in New Jersey who are prone to beating on their significant other don't have to worry about any additional roadblocks should they choose to add a handgun or two to their methods of abuse.
But, hey, thank god our collective morals are protected in case someone takes a hankering to Farmer Brown's goat. The Farmer can rest assured no one is out in the barn fooling with his animals while he's inside chasing his wife around the house with his new Christie Approved shotgun.
Life in Right Wing World.
Marvin,
Thanks very much for the math lesson. Taking percentages of percentages causes a large percentage of mathematical misunderstandings.
Another is the use of simple averages with no regard to distribution. There are innumerable others -- don't get me started.
One highly recommend book on the subject is 'Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences' by John Allen Paulos.
The first segment of Rachel Maddow's show last night was pretty shocking: Three R presidential candidates speaking at an event where the host was spewing absolute hate towards gay people.
http://on.msnbc.com/1PlZeJh
(Hope this link works...)
Huckabee, Jindal, and Cruz were all introduced by Kevin Swanson, a truly despicable man.
Marvin and D.C.,
I'd like to be able to report that such flights of fancy as a Paul Ryan "budget" (brief pause for a chuckle) take such liberties with numbers.
That would mean there was at least an outside chance that actual figures are being manipulated. Confederates these days have learned that they don't even have to fake it anymore. No more massaging the numbers, no more fancy sleight of hand with the calculator. Just make it up. Who cares? Drop taxes to next to nil for big business, a net loss of a trillion dollars over the next decade? No problem. Just drop in a few absinthe-fueled assumptions, a couple of well-placed asterisks, and *presto-changeo*: Budget Surplus! Bows all around. Where's my Nobel?
This is not far from Ben's Bildungsroman of Baloney in which flights of fancy become moon shots. Or shots of of something. Facts, schmacts. Jesus will take care of it.
And he'll get those heathen scumbags at Starbucks too because just having Christmas colors on the holiday paper supplies isn't enough. There has to be an entire nativity scene with the Baby Jesus popping up through the whip cream, chubby index finger wagging at the sinners, otherwise you're all going to hell.
Numbers aren't the only things Confederates blithely dismiss these days.
Thanks, Nisky, for reminding me of the segment last night on Kevin Swanson, the radical activist. Your link works, but couldn't access the video which is a must see to understand how throughly sick this man is. I found his antics quite remarkable and sickening. The fact that three of our Republican candidates think it's kosher to share the stage with this man is incredulous. Here's another link with video (I encourage all of you to listen to this creep).
http://roygbiv.jezebel.com/this-anti-gay-rant-from-colorado-pastor-kevin-swanson-i-1741437014
D. C. Clark:
Don't mind a bit when you get started. Like it in fact.
Reminds me of my teaching and principaling days when I created a Life Skills course for seniors about to graduate. A portion of that nine week course was devoted to a review of basic arithmetic. Always amused and bothered me that a large number of the students then currently doing well in calculus, who thought simple arithmetic beneath them, couldn't translate percentages into fractions, decimals, and ratios, regardless of the starting point, until I had them do it repeatedly. Sometime in their pasts they had apparently done the assigned problems successfully without understanding the principle involved. I tried to make the vast difference between doing something and understanding it the meta-lesson. I hope it worked.
I have long thought ignorance of what percentages mean has contributed greatly to our current income and wealth inequality, not to mention the silly discussions we have about tax plans. When one calculates a percentage, as Marvin points out, it's the base number that counts. As a principal I always received the same percentage raise the teachers negotiated for themselves. That meant, as I pointed out to them, the income gap between us always widened. I was never sure how many teachers, long past their student days, understood.
I have no doubt our demonstrable national innumeracy has a lot to do with our politics.
As my dad used to say, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure."
Ken,
The Confederate Party is desperate for more and more innumerate Americans. It needs them to survive. Well, them and the racists and haters. Nice bunch, eh?
Were most voters able to suss out the mathematical scams Confederates run on a daily basis, there'd be no need for elections. They'd be run out of town as bunco artists.
The Age of Paul Ryan has instituted yet another right-wing mathematical scam, "dynamic scoring", which lets those unhappy with the results of their policies (Confederates) change the outcome to be completely positive. The fact that this is more Laffer Curve nonsense, ie low taxes translating to high revenues, is readily apparent to anyone able to see through the haze of smoke and mirrors.
You don't even have to be a Krugman level economist to recognize when someone starts pulling "nothing up my sleeve" tricks with rickety gimcrack gimmicks like "dynamic scoring", which effectively takes the sum you come up with to 2+2 and magically makes it 189.
You might as well say that Republican chemistry says that mixing bleach and ammonia will produce Chanel No. 5.
Stupid is what they are. Stupid is what they need.
No wonder they're all for the kind of high profit, low education charter schools that Jeb Bush pushes, and Christianist school boards which recast American history and science to fit biblical requirements.
Bleach and ammonia. Breathe it in, baby.
On the eve of Veterans' Day, Jeffrey Toobin asks: "Why are so many veterans on death row?" http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-are-so-many-veterans-on-death-row.
He also introduces his readers to the website for the Death Penalty Information Center. I looked up "innocence" at this website and learned that the state with the highest number of exonerations is Florida, with 26.
One of my favorite contemporary novelists, Umberto Eco, has a new one out, titled 'Numero Zero'. A blurb from publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, states that one theme is: "A newspaper committed to blackmail and mud slinging, rather than reporting the news." Damn, imagine that.
A friend posted this on Facebook.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/9/1447844/-Dr-Ben-Carson-is-Not-Smart
I just heard a segment re Kevin Swanson on the Michaelangelo Signorelli show on Sirius and I was shocked for the reasons mentioned by other commenters. How have we sunk this far that presidential candidates from a major party are paying this ranting nut case fealty? The man sounded unhinged. I plan to watch Maddow's show from yesterday to learn more, depressing as it is.
This Confederate sarcoma, Kevin Swanson, is the Joseph Goebbels of gay haters. He is a burgeoning malignant tumor. Just watching the guy writhe and flap his arms in semaphorical loathing, spewing out his hatred, would make all but the most misshapen misanthropists squirm. The fact that three Confederate candidates for president chose to show up, sit by obsequiously and kowtow to this sort of inhuman barbarity is revolting, and proof positive of the acceptable levels of viciousness in Right Wing World today.
This shit is disgusting in so many ways and none of these "candidates" for high office should ever again be allowed to show their faces in decent company ever again.
RIP Allen Toussaint.
I knew Allen Toussaint before I knew him, or at least before I knew who he was.
I tried, without success, to get the guys in my first band (sixth grade) to work up Lee Dorsey's "Workin' in a Coal Mine", written by Toussaint. I loved it! I could barely emulate the trumpet triplets between verses on my Wurlitzer keyboard, but there was no way we could do that growling baritone sax glissando leading into the chorus.
Nonetheless, the interest in that song, allowed me, a couple of years later, to get us to cover Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang", which we could do without worrying about funky New Orleans horn charts.
One of the great American musical founts.
Thanks, Allen. You ripped it out, man.