You Can Fool Most of the People Most of the Time

At least on certain issues.

I'm not inherently a great pessimist, but with few exceptions each passing month for over a decade now has seen my optimism whither, at least a little.  So I can't help but see the manure-colored lining in this otherwise rosy, fluffy cloud.

Steve Benen reports that according to the new NBC/WSJ poll, Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans on domestic issues, sometimes by large margins.  Here is a graph.  (As always, click to embiggen.)

 

Graph 1   Who Do You Trust?

But the causes of my pessimism are four-fold.  First, as Benen goes on to note, the same polling reveals that in the popular mind "Republicans have an advantage on the (sic) reducing the deficit, 'controlling' government spending, and national defense."  Well, there's three reasons for pessimism right there.  A) Reducing the deficit is an issue of exactly zero urgency, and attacking it now will certainly cause economic hardship, especially for those at the bottom. Further, Republicans have been huge debt increasers for decades, while Dems have not.  B) We absolutely do not have a spending problem.  We absolutely do have a revenue problem, as graph 2 plainly indicates.  I think the Republicans have become convinced of their own lies.

Graph 2   Federal Gov Current Recpts by GDP

C) From FDR through LBJ to BHO, Dems have been every bit as war-mongerish as their Rep counterparts; BHO has continued his predecessors war initiatives almost seamlessly;  and 9/11 happened on W's watch.  This just makes me want to cry.

But I have a bigger list.  Second, a look a graph 1 reveals some disturbing details.  A)  Joe BeerCan must not connect "Looking out for the middle class," Medicare," "Health Care," "Medicare,' or "Social Security" with "Economy" or the results for those categories would line up better.  B) Considering Paul Ryan and the never-ending series of Republican contrived cliffs, scoring Dems only marginally better than Repubs on the economy is, all by itself, cause for despair.  C) As is the close call on taxes.

Third, and I've already alluded to this, there is almost no daylight between the two parties on foreign policy issues.  Still I have to give a slight nod to the Dems, based on practicality, because: John Bolton.

And last, though I firmly believe to the bottom of my heart that the Dems are superior on absolutely every issue, problem and question that might rise, they still aren't that damned good.  Case in point: the new head of the Michigan Democratic party is a venture capitalist.  As Bill Maher sagely put it, while the Democrats have moved to the right, the Republicans have moved to the insane asylum.  They demonstrate this anew, almost every single day. 

The lessons of history and even a casual observation of the current failures of European austerity show that progressive policies are the clear and present necessity.  But even if we had strong Dem majorities, we still have Reaganite B. Hoover Obama in the White House, and a genuine progressive movement in congress the exact size and shape of Bernie Sanders. 

As one of my college professors put it long ago:  Booze is the only answer.

Random Thoughts - Republican Violence Against Women

A small number of Republicans voted for the

Violence Against Women Act.

Then they actually read the thing and discovered

it was prevention, not encouragement.

What the Hell?!? Friday - Just Cruisin' Edition

A Cruise Missal is a prayer book taken along in case you need divine intervention to survive the event.

~  :  ~  :  ~

Life is a Cabaret

Be glad it's not a Carnival

Dos Amigos: Fil y Buster

Harry Reid learns the hard way what happens when you make a gentlemen's agreement with unprincipled lying repugnant thugs.

But, in his defense, who could ever have seen this coming?

Republicans, All Wrong, All the Time, Part 34 -- Thus Spake The Rube

For the hundredth time the foreign-born Muslim commie Nazi extends an olive branch across the aisle, and for the hundredth time it's dashed to the floor, stomped on and set ablaze - along with the latest spokes-liars trousers.   It became a conflagration that the infamous water-stop could not staunch.

Early in Marco Rubio's alleged rebuttal to B. Hoover Obama's latest exercise in political theater it became painfully obvious that his pants were on fire.  This was even before it became obvious that his diatribe was utterly incoherent.  Steve Benen explaines.

By any sensible measure, Rubio's entire pitch was incoherent gibberish. He thinks President Obama is hostile to free enterprise and wants to increase the deficit, neither of which makes any sense. Rubio thinks the housing crisis was caused by big government, which is simply idiotic. Rubio celebrates his family's history of dependence on government social programs like student loans and Medicare, while articulating a policy agenda that guts government social programs like student loans and Medicare.

Forget ideology, subjectivity, and areas of opinion -- the fact is Marco Rubio's speech was filled with a series of claims with no meaningful connection to reality. The senator even thinks combating the climate crisis means asking government to "control the weather," which is just genuinely dumb.

Part way through I started taking notes, and discovered an unappetizing platter of rewarmed left-overs [or more accurately: right-overs] of Romney's failed presidential campaign, where lying and incoherence were the norm.  It was deja vu all over again. Viz:

Obama's obsession with raising taxes
Solyndra [God help us - I am not making this up]
We should open Federal lands to energy exploration
Grow Energy industry [but not renewables]
Lower Corp tax rate
Incentivise school districts
Schools of choice
Solve the debt problem [As if BHO ignored it - or, more importantly - as if it were a real problem]
Obama created the debt with excessive spending  [my personal favorite]
Need a balanced budget amendment  [the ignorance - it burns, too]
Obama's in favor of leaving Medicare just the way it is [though he clearly stated otherwise]
He also wants to unconstitutionally undermine 2nd amendment rights
The President's devastating cuts to our military [Seriously -- WTH?!?]
Moral breakdown in society - need more faith
Economic liberty

That's what I was able to capture as Rubio's litany of [mostly] decades old Republican clap-trap spewed forth almost faster than I could record it.

One of the MSNBC commentators pointed out that this nonsense wasn't directed to the American public, who I hope are beginning to see through the smoke screen, but to the hard-core right-wing base.  As such, it's Rubio's first gambit in his run for the 2016 presidential nomination.

I don't know if I should laugh, cry, or drink myself into a stupor.

Moment of Cynicism

Or schadenfreude
Or Zen

You tell me.

A regular patron and unofficial spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill has died of an apparent heart attack, the restaurant's owner said on Monday.

Libertarian Irony

Ron Paul appeals to the U. N. to get control of the domain name set up by a legion of his loyal followers.

They offer to sell it to him for $250,000.

You can't make this stuff up.

H/T to nanute

Random Thought du Jour

It would be a great step forward to have an African, Asian or Hispanic Pope. 

But I'll be content if the next one simply isn't a Nazi.

I Am Become Infamous

My blogging reached a high-water mark this week.

A while ago I wrote a snarky rant here about some stupid Krugman bashing from Mish and others.

I reworked that post to make it suitable for a wider audience at Angry Bear.  It can be found here.

Krugman picked it up from AB and linked to it from his blog.

I'm a big Krugman fan, in case you haven't noticed.

Getting a call-out from him is tres cool.

Mish Mashes the McRib

The McRib returneth.  Be very afraid.

As much as I castigate Mish for his libertarian cum Austrian fantasies, he's not all wrong, all the time.

Here, he enlightens us on the McRib, which is in fact not made of ribs.

Quoting The Natural Society, Mish shares this information.  [Quotes excerpted and not in the order presented]

But what’s really inside the McRib specifically that makes it such a food abomination? Containing over 70 ingredients, the McRib is full of surprises — including ‘restructured meat’ technology that includes traditionally-discarded animal parts brought together to create a rib-like substance.
.   .   .  
Out of the 70 ingredients that make up the ‘pork’ sandwich, a little-known flour-bleaching agent known as azodicarbonamide lies among them.
.   .   .
 In Australia and Europe, the use of azodicarbonamide as a food additive is banned. In Singapore specifically, use of this substance in food can result in a $450,000 fine and 15 years in jail.
.   .   .
Since McDonald’s knows you’d never eat a pig heart, tongue, or stomach on your plate, they decided instead to grind up these ingredients and put them into the form of a typical rib.
.   .   .  
So in other words, it’s not actually a rib. Instead, it’s a combination of unwanted animal scraps processed down in major facilities and ‘restructured’ into the form of a rib. Then, 70 additives, chemicals, fillers, and GMO ingredients later, you have a ‘meat’ product that tastes like ribs.

Azodicarbonamide. Yum!

Of course, this problem occurs because of unfettered capitalism, placing bottom line profits above any other considerations, including health and decency; and the obvious solution is more stringent regulation - maybe something along the lines of what they have in that capitalist paradise, Singapore.

I wonder what Mish would think about that.

Quote of the Day

"There are some people in politics and in the press who can't be confused by the facts. They just will not live in an evidence-based world. And that's regrettable. It's regrettable for our political system and for the people who serve our government in very dangerous, difficult circumstances."

--  Hillary Rodham Clinton