Why We Can't Talk About Gun Control

Feb 2nd, 2013

We've tried reason, we've employed statistical truth, and we've even called out the leading opponents of any new reforms or enforcement for having previously backed the proposals they now are against.

Neil Steinberg throws up his hands and sees the failure of dialog as a symptom of a pathology:

"...we are not dealing with rational people. Guns are part of the right-wing lunatic fringe of fear, the Obama-loathing, government-hating, minority-despising, science-scoffing quarter of Americans existing in a shadowy permanent grief state over the 1950s, over a white-bread America where they were king that never was and never will be. Guns are the talismans that ward off change in the world, that protect them from all their stalking fears, the wand of hope that someday society will indeed break down — isn’t it fracturing already, with gay marriage? — and they will assume their rightful place as unquestioned kings once more, with their AK-47s set proudly on their kingly hips and their freeze-dried meals nourishing them through the long night of the tardy Mayan zombie apocalypse.

What statistics are going to crack that nut? What numbers are going to change those minds? When they say gun control never works, and you point to the rest of the civilized world, where guns are restricted and gun deaths a trickle, they blink. What rest of the world? Oh, you mean Europe? Where European-style socialism rules? There is no fact that will cut this knot."

Perhaps the "gun-nuts," as some us are prone to calling these fanatics, are exactly that.

They are nuts.

In A Nutshell

Feb 1st, 2013

The Truth Finally Gets Its Pants On...

Jan 31st, 2013
3:00 pm CST

Mark Twain was right...

As is always, depressingly the case, it took the truth a lot longer to get its pants on before a lie went around the world...


NO, Obama is NOT tearing down Reagan's "childhood home" to "put up a parking lot."

In A Nutshell

Sept 20th, 2012

The Saga Of Jonathan Krohn

July 10th, 2012

I remember when I first saw footage of then-conservative wunderkind Jonathan Krohn speaking to CPAC in 2009. At the time, as right wing media lionized him and center media puzzled over him, two things seemed clear to me; First, he had rehearsed the standard points of a movement which he found attractive quite well. Second, he was incredibly bright. He had, after all, written a book on the subject which is somewhat more than I had accomplished at that age.

As passionate as I may be about some of my positions today, I remember with a shudder just how strident I was as an early adolescent. I commented at the time that it was perfectly likely he would change his views before long.

Change he did. As anyone of a political timber knows, he spoke to Politico last week and described his transformation:

"I think it was naive. It’s a 13-year-old kid saying stuff that he had heard for a long time.… I live in Georgia. We're inundated with conservative talk in Georgia.… The speech was something that a 13-year-old does. You haven’t formed all your opinions. You’re really defeating yourself if you think you have all of your ideas in your head when you were 12 or 13. It’s impossible. You haven’t done enough."

It took a certain amount of grace for him to publicly revisit his positions in light of how much he had not only embraced but profited from partisan spectacle in the past. It's an interesting story. 

As I read the comments on twitter and in the initial Politico reporting, there was a certain amount of vulgar, right wing indignation. Just as there had been its opposite in 2009, the political public in the internet age do seem to take these things personally. 

The story should have faded. However, the "conservative" media ensured that it didn't. They went way beyond simple reporting and commentary and into the realm of character assassination. 

This weekend, young Mr. Krohn was compelled to pen a response for Salon:

"I have been treated by the political right with all the maturity of schoolyard bullies. The Daily Caller, for instance, wrote three articles about my shift, topping it off with an opinion piece in which they stated that I deserved criticism because I wear “thick-rimmed glasses” and I like Ludwig Wittgenstein. Why don’t they just call me “four-eyes”? These are not adults leveling serious criticism; these are scorned right-wingers showing all the maturity of a little boy. No wonder I fit in so well when I was 13.

I shouldn't be too surprised. Political divisiveness in America today is a childish thing anyway. The never-ending war between the left and the right seems to me like a couple of drunken college boys fighting over which one of their fraternities is cooler. Think about it: Once you join a side, you have to obey the house rules, go to all the parties, and defend your status as a member of the greatest club on campus. And this is what drove me away from conservatism to my admittedly center-left position of independent mindedness (if that’s a thing)."

I highly recommend the rest of his piece and not for the obvious political reasons. Mr. Krohn is a helluva writer. He's still basically a kid. His views will likely transform any number of times over the next twenty years. That's what happens to people who suffer the curse of critical thinking. But even if I find myself at ideological loggerheads with some future missive, I suspect it will be a good read.

In the meantime, we have seen the full weight and fury of the so-called "conservative" media directed into a campaign of ridicule against an American who is, by every legal definition, still a minor.

That says more about them than it says about him.

Climate Change, Nasa And Sketchy Astronauts

April 11th, 2012

HT to Oliver Willis

This morning over at NRO, Jonah Goldberg is hyping a Washington Examiner (yeah, they're not biased) article which opens as follows:

"In an unprecedented slap at NASA's endorsement of global warming science, nearly 50 former astronauts and scientists--including the ex-boss of the Johnson Space Center--claim the agency is on the wrong side of science and must change course or ruin the reputation of the world’s top space agency.

Challenging statements from NASA that man is causing climate change, the former NASA executives demanded in a letter to Administrator Charles Bolden that he and the agency "refrain from including unproven remarks" supporting global warming in the media."

Okay, it sounds big and dramatic. In fact, it's as breathless as print propaganda gets. It's still certifiable horseshit. Who is behind this effort? This is who:

"Former Apollo astronauts Walter Cunningham and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt are listed as the main contacts for the letter, and their past advocacy against climate change science calls into question the scientific validity of the petition.

In 2009 Schmitt appeared on the talk show of 9/11 conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and said that he believed that the environmental movement was a front for Communism.

"I think the whole trend really began with the fall of the Soviet Union. Because the great champion of the opponents of liberty, namely communism, had to find some other place to go and they basically went into the environmental movement," Schmitt said." EMPHASIS MINE

Uh huh. 

What's the real latest information on this critical issue? Well, there's this...

And then there is THIS and THIS and THIS (which is especially depressing) and THIS.

But let's be honest. We really have no time for provable, empirical climate science when we are hot on the trail of the far bigger threat... the vast and insidious global Communist conspiracy.

WTF?

Understatement Of The Year Nominee

April 5th, 2012

I have to tip my hat to Right Wing Watch for this gem:

"As we have noted several times in recent weeks, David Barton has a problem accurately reporting on contemporary issues that are easily verifiable..."

Wow. This is politeness on a scale that deserves no small amount of praise.

David Barton convulsively lies every single time that he opens his face-hole. RWW has tirelessly and ceaselessly exposed his lies for quite a bit longer than the last few weeks.

Frankly, I suggest that they have every right to take a lot more credit here.

As to the particular matter at hand, David Barton was lying. Again. Really blatantly.

Arizona - The American Right's Insanity Incubator

April 4th, 2012

Admittedly, there is plenty of "conservative" crazy to go around.

In Florida, the push is on to drug test, well, pretty much everybody who works for state government provided that they are not legislators.

In Michigan, I am not making this up, the Republican Governor has just signed a law which seems to have been designed for the sole purpose of absolving the brother of that state's GOP party chair from responsibility in a multi-million dollar real estate boondoggle.

From coast to coast, the war on women rages, arguments that the poor should be taxed more are regarded as reasonable and, as Andrew Sullivan has examined HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE, standard GOP talking points about the sitting President are so far removed from reality as to be the equivalent of fiction.

There's also the Ryan plan, a scheme so fantastical in its absurdity that it contains statements like this one on page 16:

"The U.S. military is threatened by an uncontrolled debt burden that weakens America - but defense spending is not the driver of that burden." EMPHASIS MINE

Remember, this a "serious" and "non-political" document.

Mitt Romney has called it "marvelous" to the delight of the President.

Yup, the right wing's whack-doodles are absolutely everywhere making their mischief like pooh-flinging monkeys on a coke binge.

But there really is no place like Arizona.

Sure, most GOP controlled state houses are trying to pass or have passed invasive new restrictions on a woman's right to choose. But none of them are like Arizona's H.B 2036. Not content to merely ape other transvaginal ultra sound mandates or impose new limits on when a pregnancy can be terminated, Arizona's GOP has inserted a provision which effectively alters the fabric of time.

Over at Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard explains:

"Like the proposals before it, Arizona's legislation is modeled on the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" designed by the National Right to Life Committee. And like the other bills, it states that abortion would be banned 20 weeks into a pregnancy. But reproductive rights advocates point out that Arizona's law would actually be more restrictive than others, as the bill states that the gestational age of the fetus should be "calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman."

Not to go all middle-school health on you, but that's not exactly the same as the actual date the egg and the sperm hooked up. Figuring out that exact point one became pregnant can be tricky. Most women ovulate about 14 or 15 days after their period starts, and women can usually get pregnant from sexual intercourse that occured anywhere between five days before ovulation and a day after it. Arizona's law would start the clock at a woman's last period—which means, in practice, that the law prohibits abortion later than 18 weeks after a woman actually becomes pregnant."

Got that?

You're pregnant when you're not, ladies. So there. Harlots.

Still, this is very nearly rational in comparison with any number of other initiatives the Arizona GOP has proposed.

Got employer covered health insurance? WELL, let's protect their right to fire you if you use birth control.

Let's link any environmental initiative, even one using private funds to cover governmental interests, to a vast conspiracy involving "one world government," the U.N., Bill Clinton and... whatever.

Let's force any woman who is struggling with the Constitutionally protected right to choose to view an abortive procedure first.

Just in time for the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr, let's propose rather severe new penalties on civil disobedience.

Don't get me started on Joe Arpaio. Or Russell Pearce. It goes on and on and on with exemplars that boggle in comparison to almost any other so-called "Red State."

The state of Arizona has come to not only define, but also to predict establishment GOP extremism. They are the micro to the macro. If it's nuts, and it's happening there, it's also probably on its way to your state.

For the record, I used to love Arizona.

I once rode a horse in Monument Valley. It's one of my most treasured memories. I hoped at that time to capture the feeling, to be frank, that I thought John Wayne must have had in any of the many films he made there with the great John Ford directing.

It is a place of tremendous natural splendor. I also really liked the people I met when I was there.

But, that seems a lifetime ago.

Would I go back now?

Not a fucking chance unless I have to. I would as soon go to Kazakhstan and start loudly declaring myself to be American.

This is because it seems very nearly as dangerous to be one in either place.

The GOP Mission To Re-Elect Obama

Feb 12th, 2012

First, there was the Ryan Medicare debacle. Then came the GOP-driven debt ceiling disaster. Now, we have the "conservative" movement waging open war on contraception, a strategy which the vast majority of Americans aren't buying no matter how they frame it. In between these iconoclastic moments, we've had no meaningful legislation drafted in the House, demonization of the working poor, defense of corporations as people and an adherence to a social and economic orthodoxy so rigid that even a majority of registered Republicans oppose it point by point.

Perhaps, Team Obama should be thanking these guys.

Jonathan Chait writes:

"...President Obama has rehabilitated his own political standing in large part by highlighting the opposition of congressional Republicans. The Republican strategy has been to block and delay Obama’s agenda at every turn, and Obama has absorbed most of the backlash from a public that tends to hold the president singularly responsible for all political outcomes. Obama’s campaign of publicly highlighting Republican opposition has simultaneously helped to absolve him of at least part of the blame and made him look more like a strong leader.

Attacking The Muppets... Again

Jan 30th, 2012

Well, that didn't take long. A short time after the Muppet's entertaining "rebuttal" of Eric Bolling's absurd attacks went viral today, Breitbart's "Editor-In-Chief" of his Big Hollywood blog, John Nolte, couldn't contain himself.

You may recall that Bolling went on multiple Fox outlets to declare that "it's amazing how far the left will go"1 using the Muppets in "brainwashing"2 our children and that explains "why we've got a bunch of Occupy Wall Street people walking all around the country. They've been indoctrinated, literally, for years by this kind of stuff."3

This is, of course, insane. Not so, says Nolte. In fact, he calls the bizarre public spectacle of Bolling's corporate-whore persona colliding with his dementia a "rather innocuous and perfectly valid discussion about the culture."

It's good to know that Andy Breitbart's braintrust freakshow is still hewing to such high standards.

Fine. This is crazy and was utterly predictable. But, it gets better. Here's where Nolte truly boggles:

"The video... puts the Muppets themselves into this controversy, which will only further alienate a very large segment of their audience."

Roll that one over for a minute. Think it through. This is supposed to be the expert on media working for Breitbart. Who is the average Fox viewer?

The Hollywood Reporter took note of Steve Sternberg's sweeping demographic study late last year:

"Fox News has the oldest audience among fully distributed cable networks. The network's average viewer last season was 65 years old, according to Nielsen. Heck, it's viewers are even older than viewers of Hallmark Channel, Military Channel and Golf Channel." EMPHASIS OURS

These aren't parents with young children. These aren't even parents with young adult children. Considering the fact that the Henson Workshop's biggest program, Sesame Street, has been consistently rating a 3.5 share in its core demo of 2 to 5 year olds for the last year and a half, it begs a question... 

Who exactly is going to be alienated here, Mr. Nolte? I'll tell you. Children and their parents who are wondering why Grandma and Grandpa Grumpus are screaming over the phone that Kermit is a Commie. That's who. Young families looking for an explanation as to just when and how the Grams went certifiably mad. That's who.

Oh well. Perhaps you feel bad for Nolte and Bolling. You can show your support by not sharing. Because sharing is Communist. And Communists make them cry.

After The Iowa Caucus - ANOTHER Lurch To The Right?

Jan 4th, 2012

It's official; Mitt Romney is in serious trouble. Sure, he "won" the Iowa Caucus by an entirety of eight votes. But, he is still in very serious trouble.

Screengrab from the Des Moines Iowa Register

It's not merely the near-upset by Santorum that we predicted might happen yesterday which endangers him. Nor is it the strong likelihood that Romney will be unable to resist pandering to the Dominionist voters who nearly defeated him.

No. What Romney should be very afraid of is Newt Gingrich.

YAY! We Have An AttackWatch Hyperbole Award Winner!

Sept 14th, 2011

Way to go, Washington Times! Your editorial team has really come up with the play that was needed to win the game. In fact, said play made all previous examples of today's craziness simply pale by comparison. And you started straight in with the headline!

Wow. Not only do you evoke Winston Smith at 13 O'Clock, you also got away with calling the first African-American President "Brother."

Pretty Clever.

From the very first line, your piece would be fantastically funny... were it not for the fact that you are so utterly humorless:

"Be careful, if you dare to criticize Citizen Obama, comrade. The Web is watching."

I am just so impressed with this piece, it simply has to get the award for... (drum roll please)

"Most Hyperbolic Freak Out Over AttackWatch.com!"

YAY!

Fox News Raises Hullabaloo Over Website Kerfuffle

Sept 14th, 2011

You know, this AttackWatch.com freak-out on the right is really just too much fun. On most levels. The truth is that the disproportionate responses are getting worse. It would seem that the fringe is now trying to outdo one another. As I predicted earlier, they are shoveling some seriously steaming loads of "fair and balanced" over at the Murdoch Device. Apparently, Chris Plante has declared that this interactive website is actually proof of Obama's "very fascist" intent to "create an army."
via Media Matters

A Website Makes The Right Wing Go Higgledy-Piggledy

Sept 14th, 2011

As hard as it is to believe, a simple interactive website launched by the Obama re-election campaign has indeed caused an apoplectic conniption fit within the American Right.

Simply titled AttackWatch.com, the site is designed to allow supporters of the president to chime in about misinformation in the blogosphere, forward wacky e-mails from fringe types and generally complain about Fox. I guess.

The Continuing Decline... GOP Debate Edition

Aug 13th, 2011

More than few readers have asked me why, after live-blogging the GOP debate, I haven't done any substantial follow up? Well, frankly, I don't really know where the hell to begin.

I guess I will start here: The candidates revealed, unanimously, that they would all oppose a tax increase that was matched by cuts at a one to ten ratio. Seriously.

Kevin D. Williamson puts it better than I over at that bastion of leftist lunacy, The National Review:

"Every candidate said he would oppose a cuts-taxes plan that contained a 10:1 ratio of cuts to taxes. Chalk one up to the crazies. If Congress wanted to get rid of tax exemptions and exclusions amounting to $100 billion in new taxes in exchange for $1 trillion in tax cuts, and Republicans turned the deal down, I would personally drive down to Washington and pelt them with rotten vegetables, and possibly with rocks. $100 billion in new taxes plus $1 trillion in cuts balances the budget in 2012."

Yup. The candidates all exposed these facts:

1. They are all certifiably insane.

2. Not one of them owns a calculator.

3. Every one of them (even Paul and Huntsaman) is more afraid of tryin' to explain that fancy-book-learnin' math to their "base" than they would be to publicly accept a deal Ronald Reagan would have had to pinch himself over to ensure he was not dreaming.

It happened. Here's proof:

Uh Oh, Steve King Is Talking Again

August 4th, 2011

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) never disappoints. The new birth control insurance requirements are, of course, the end of the country as we know it.

Ridiculous Spin

July 28th, 2011

Yes, Speaker of the House Boehner is twisting in the wind. Yes, it is because of the intransigence of the so-called Tea Party Freshmen. This is the result of two different and very distinct phenomena. First, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) is very nearly and almost disastrously incompetent. Face it. He is bad at his job. He simply can't lead from his leadership position. Second, it the latest example of a radical minority, one whose views are utterly at odds with three quarters of the population on specific policy matters, preventing the government from functioning.

Enter the delusion that now constitutes the conservative echo chamber. The Drudge headline linking to the article also linked above is as follows.

Drudge Report screenshot taken at 8:45pm CST

In the eyes of the core of what I call the "saboteur right wing," this failure to govern is not only being regarded as a positive... it is affirming their fantasy that they run the show.

Raising Cain

June 13th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker

Here they come. The Republican Presidential "contenders" will be duking it out tonight in front of the American people in the second debate of the season. 

We can expect most of the afternoon to consist of "expert predictions" and "reading the tea leaves" which is amusing considering that the lineup is, for the most part, an utterly unpredictable collection of irresponsible rabble-rousers who don't stand a chance.

Brian Beutler has a fun piece this morning over at TPM:
"Not since the first head-to-CPU contest between Gary Kasparov and Deep Blue has the world waited so breathlessly for the kind of battle of the minds we're likely to witness Monday evening."

It is very disappointing to see that Gary Johnson, the two term Governor of New Mexico has been excluded from tonight's show. Frankly, his answers in the previous FOX News "debate" regarding the role of the military, the size of Pentagon budgets and the responsibility of government to adhere to the basic protections guaranteed under the Bill of Rights made me sit up and take notice. 

I guess we can't have that sort of "sanity factor" potentially marring tonight's festivities.

Here's the line-up: Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Newt Gingrich, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and of course the new darling of FOX, Herman Cain.

Let's be honest. The real draw tonight is Cain. Not even Rep. Bachmann looks crazy or unqualified in comparison to the Pizza King's series of pronouncements over the last month. You find that too bold a statement?

Then you haven't been paying attention. Last week, Herman Cain made the most amazing proposal for security on the southern U.S. border I have heard in my adult lifetime.

The Real Enemy Has A Name Now...

May 19th, 2011

Today, David Corn called it like it is. Forget "birtherism." Forget "deatherism." Forget accusations against "B. Hussein Obama" of "socialism." The hard core enemies of this President, nearly to a one, can be described most accurately as devotees to "otherism."

He writes in Mother Jones:
"Birtherism is (was?) fundamentally about delegitimizing Barack Obama—proving him a complete fraud. (It's been hard not to assume there was a racial component to the endeavor.) Yet the birthers, dependent on conspiracy theories, were easily done in by basic facts. Seen as reality-denying extremists, the birthers became a drag upon the GOP; only Donald Trump would embrace them fully—and that hardly turned out well.

Yet otherism continues and thrives. This line of attack is far more in sync with routine political practices. Otherism can be advanced with hints and suggestions. It comes in different guises. It can be gussied up with other questions: Does Obama really believe in America the Experiment, or America the Exceptional? The strategy is to fuel suspicion, not prove a conspiracy. But the goal is the same: to encourage voters to believe Obama is not a real American.

The key audience for otherists, though, is not the general public. Obama, according to the polls, remains popular, even when voters disapprove of his policies or his handling of key matters. But many tea partiers and other conservatives do view Obama as an interloper and harbor deep fears about him and his agenda. GOP presidential contenders and party leaders need to appeal to these sentiments, and some, no doubt, seek to exploit them. Otherism offers a way to do so.

Unlike birtherism, otherism remains quite useful to the Republicans. Not even the adults of the party can resist its ugly temptations."

"Quackery"

May 13th, 2011

It is certainly interesting to find as much shared ground as I have in recent months with writers from The Economist. In a piece this afternoon, the editors note with some alarm that the dominant proposals amongst elected Republicans

aren't just bad ideas, they are disastrously bad ideas:

"Views on the efficacy of countercyclical fiscal policy obviously differ, though prior to the election of Barack Obama Republican legislators had no compunction about voting for stimulus packages (though tax cuts were favoured). The turn against monetary policy is a disturbing and potentially quite dangerous development. Once upon a time, Milton Friedman—a man who basically blamed the Depression on tight money—was the leading economic intellectual of the conservative movement. Now top GOP members can't stop talking about the importance of "hard money" for recovery. Everyone from Rand Paul to Tim Pawlenty to Paul Ryan is on the bandwagon.

This is quackery. It should be noted that mainstream conservative intellectuals strongly back the use of countercyclical monetary policy, and some of the most aggressive critics of too-timid Fed policy—academics like Scott Sumner—have been on the right. Even the punditocracy is not entirely on board with goldbuggery. The National Review's Ramesh Ponurru has been a vocal critic of knee-jerk opposition to Fed policy.

The hard money approach is atrocious economics. I don't think it's outlandish (or even particularly controversial) to say that the biggest difference in the outcome of the Great Recession and the Great Depression was the change in central bank approach to policy. An economic catastrophe was averted. What's more, hard money is a great force for illiberalism. Sour labour market conditions fuel anger at the institutions of capitalism and free markets. And when countries are denied the use of normal countercyclical policies, they quickly reach for illiberal alternatives like tariff barriers.

Antipathy to the traditional role of the Fed is, quite simply, one of the worst intellectual developments to occur in either major party in recent memory. It's distressing that it's been so little remarked upon." EMPHASIS OURS

When the core economic solutions offered by the elected Republican leadership are at odds with both Paul Krugman and the editorial board of The Economist, it is time to stop taking them seriously altogether.