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Monday, February 11, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Too Inside Baseball
I’ve made no secret of the things I’ve learned and the things I’ve come to realize about the defects with our side right now. We offer nothing that anyone except a few purists could care about. We offer nothing to assure people that they will have jobs in the future, much less better jobs. We offer nothing to protect homeowners, to make investments less of a rigged game, to help people send their kids to school, to ensure people’s retirement, to ensure people’s health or safety, or to protection people’s privacy or civil rights. And the public knows this. They see that we don’t offer any of these things.
You would think that someone whose job it is to analyze our political system, our parties, and our electorate would recognize this huge glaring defect staring us in the face. Yet, our pundits don’t. Everywhere I look, our pundits are jerking themselves off over Benghazi or whatever tactical advantage they think the Republicans have over “sequestration”. . . a term not one in 100 Americans has even heard. They still think there’s an “advantage” to be gained by forcing the Democrats to pass a budget. . . an issue the public again doesn’t care about in the least. Or they think Reid’s fake attack on senate procedures matters to people. Whatever.
The problem here is that every one of these people is too “inside baseball.” They live in a private club and they don’t realize that the public doesn’t care about their club. Think of it this way. Every year industries like the marketing industry and Hollywood hand out all kinds of technical achievement awards for things that excite all the experts but which the public never notices. It’s the same thing here. The public does not care about process or about achievement or about gamesmanship. . . they only care about the big picture and results. Our pundits don’t seem to get that anymore because they’ve been in the club so long they mistake the club for America. It’s not.
That brings me to Michael Barone and, by extension, Eric Cantor.
On Thursday, Cantor gave a big speech that was supposed to lay out the new and improved vision for the Republican party. This was supposed to be the unveiling of the new consumer-friendly strategy. . . the grand opening of the NEW GOP to win the people back.
That sound of crickets you hear is coming from the public.
The sound of gushing you hear is coming from the insiders.
That’s the problem.
Michael Barone wrote about the speech in rather glowing terms. First, he wastes the first half of his article by talking about the fiscal cliff being an “insider’s game” but then wrongly arguing that the sequestration issue will be different. See, this time the Republicans have the upper hand because they can stomach the cuts and Obama can’t.
Oy. That’s just wrong. That again mistakes the inside baseball stuff for the public. First, the fiscal cliff was only an insider’s game to the extent of the potential Republican victory. In other words, what the Republicans were trying could at best score points with people who are part of the club -- the public couldn’t care less. BUT, the risk of playing that game was that the Republicans would be seen by the public as harming the country to score political points. Those are stupid odds to accept... heads you win a token victory, tales you lose big. Secondly, sequestration IS the fiscal cliff all over again, and Barone should see this. The best the Republicans can achieve if somehow everything goes right is some meaningless insider-victory. Nothing they can achieve will mean anything to the public. Yet, the cost will be that the public will see the Republicans as irresponsible obstructionists who want to stop military pay, let doctors go unpaid and kill old people. Barone would see this if he wasn’t so tightly wrapped up in this insider bubble.
Barone then finally addresses Cantor’s speech and he gushes (as least for Barone) over the speech because this introduces the Republican’s “outsider game,” i.e. their plan to talk to the unwashed public. What made him so happy?
(1) First, Cantor spoke “not of educational block grants, but of having federal education [dollars] ‘follow children’ to schools their parents choose.” Then he noted that Cantor talked about some specific members of the prole class who this would help.Barone then smiles and tells us that he’s not sure how effective this will be, but he’s glad the Republicans are trying.
(2) He brought a 12-year old girl who needed treatment for cancer “to illustrate Republican support for funding basic medical research.”
(3) He then brought some Chinese grad student who is here on a visa and he endorsed the Dream Act and “citizenship for illegal immigrants brought here as children.”
Shoot me now.
Dragging kids to speeches is cute, but the public wants solutions. . . not photo-ops. So praising the photo-op is more insider garbage. The education idea is a decent one, but it only addresses a tiny portion of the debate. It ignores colleges entirely, how parents would know which schools are good, reforming schools that are ok but not great, etc. This is just the same old voucher pitch that has won a little, but hasn’t really set the world on fire.
The cancer research thing is ridiculous. For one thing, funding cancer research is not something the public is screaming for. You don’t see that anywhere on the public’s list of concerns. They are much more concerned with health care generally. Moreover, when issues of research do come up, the Republicans are usually the ones screaming that “God don’t like that” and wanting it stopped. Dragging a cancer patient from her bed isn’t going to change the public’s perception. . . only a change in policy will change that.
Third, his immigration stance is absolutely the worst of all worlds. His solution will anger Hispanics because it keeps open the door to deport them, i.e. “it changes nothing.” But it will also anger conservatives because it will stop us from deporting some of them, i.e. “it’s a total surrender.” The only thing his position is guaranteed to do is to anger everyone and to keep this debate alive and angry for another several decades.
Finally, let me point out the big problem once again. This was supposed to be a speech to the American people to get them to see value in our brand again, but what is being offered here? Jack squat. As usual, there is nothing here to assure people about their jobs, their homes, their assets, their pensions, their health, their retirements or their rights. There is a little on education if you fall into the small group who could use vouchers, there’s a nice photo-op if you get turned on by images of cancer patients, and there’s a promise that we won’t deport the kids of illegal immigrants. That’s it.
The fact that Barone doesn’t see this flaw is troubling. He’s one of our more insightful analysts, and if he can’t see this GLARING problem, then clearly it’s time for a change. It’s time we imposed term limits on pundits because these guys are so lost inside baseball that they don’t even know why fans watch the game anymore.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Open Thread -- Vox Populi (And Game)
Sometimes, the dictionary just doesn't have the word you need. But sometimes, you have the opposite problem: there's a word but no definition. Help Webster's fill in the blanks. Give us a definition for the following word:
dronophone (noun) -- ??
Friday, February 8, 2013
Film Friday: I, Robot (2004)
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
Liberal Education: A House of Cards
Earlier this week, an article appeared at NRO about how historians interpret the Haymarket Square riot--or rather, how they fail to interpret it. For those of you who snoozed through that particular part of your U.S. History course (because labor relations are boring), the Haymarket Square riot was an outbreak of violence in 1886 Chicago where several policemen breaking up an anarchist rally were killed by a bomb and subsequent gunfire. You can read about it in more detail here; I won't totally swipe the story. Point is, historians, especially but not only those of a leftist persuasion, have generally adopted the line that there was no evidence tying the anarchists to the policemen's deaths; that the four men eventually hanged for it were wrongly convicted and martyrs to the cause of workers' rights; and so on. For decades, this has been one of the big events for Labor and the Left in America.
That began to change a few years ago, however, when a labor historian in Ohio (one who voted twice for Obama, incidentally) began researching some discrepancies in the various accounts of the Haymarket Square incident. This led to a full-scale reconstruction of events, leading him to the conclusion that not only were the anarchist protestors--like OWS, generally described as "peaceful"--armed and shooting at police officers, but that the bomb was almost certainly made by one of the men convicted. Practically everything historians have relied on in touting the conventional view of events comes from propaganda put out by defense attorneys during the trial. In most professions, this is known as "not doing your research."
When the prof's research was released to his peers, other historians
This is hardly the only example of the consensus among historians, of beliefs nearly every scholar takes for granted, being flat wrong. Take the Australian aborigines. The common assumption about European settlement of Australia is that, much like our settlement of the American West, it involved a lot of unprovoked violence and even genocide against the natives. There is some truth to this, but it is now clear that large portions of the tale aren't based in reality. An infamous frontier massacre of aborigines in the '20s, for instance, was taken as fact despite the absence of any eyewitnesses, any human remains, and the fact that those allegedly killed turned up alive and well years later. In another case, a statistic on white settlers killed by natives was portrayed by a later historian to mean the number of natives killed by whites. That is, a record of 10,000 settlers killed by aborigines in Queensland was "re-interpreted" to state that settlers had killed 10,000 aborigines. Forget not doing your research, these are just pernicious lies.
What's the deal? One more sensible scholar, reviewing cases of distortion like these, blames the influence of postmodernism, namely its claim that all truth is relative (a self-refuting claim, I might add); that the historian is incapable of writing outside his political and cultural biases and thus cannot be objective. Therefore, the theory goes, more enlightened academics ought to use their position to write histories "empowering the powerless," attacking the system, blah blah blah. No more, he adds, can a historian simply strive for a factual account of the past:
This has become the most corrupting influence of all. It has turned the traditional role of the historian, to stand outside his contemporary society in order to seek the truth about the past, on its head. It has allowed historians to write from an overtly partisan position. It has led them to make things up and to justify this to themselves on the grounds that it is all for a good cause.It's this lack of emphasis on knowing the facts about history, this placing of "power relations" and whatever theory happens to be popular at the time before accuracy, which results in these cases of willful ignorance and incoherent, crumbling ideas about the past among liberal academics. And it's not getting better. I know of fellow grad students who are unaware of who was President during the Trail of Tears; because hey, they're all rich white guys, right? Oy vey.
As Ronald Reagan said, "It's not that liberals don't know anything, it's that they know so much that isn't so."*
*If I got that quote wrong, don't tell me. I don't want to look bad.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Caption This: Oh, Shoot...
Okay, what the heck is going on here? Did he? Didn't he? And what the 'tar-nation (as my Grandm'ther would say) is he shootin' at, anyway?
And what about those drones, eh? Does this make anyone nervous?
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And what about those drones, eh? Does this make anyone nervous?
We Need To Be More Like Sweden! Seriously
Let us start with the obvious: everyone thinks Sweden is a mess. They are the country that imposed a higher than 100% tax rate on author Astrid Lindgren. In the 1970s and 1980s, their tax and spend ways buried the country. Their spending compared to GDP reached a peak of 67% in 1993!! By comparison, our bloated federal government is spending around 25% of GDP. In the same period, they fell from being the fourth-richest country in the world in 1970 to being the 14th in 1993. Sweden became a rallying cry for French socialists and an anti-rallying cry for American conservatives.
They have nothing to teach us. . . right?
Actually, they do.
Indeed, Sweden and the gang have become a model for many countries recently. They have a solid blue print for how to reform the public sector to be efficient and responsive. Businesses are thriving. And China is studying Norway’s social spending model, which actually is self-sustaining, unlike ours. In almost every survey of economic competitiveness to population health to reported happiness, the Nordic countries are pretty much near the top of the charts.
Shocking huh?
Do you know how they did it? Conservatism.
In the 1990s, the Nordics moved right. Sweden cut their spending from 67% of GDP to 49%... still large, but lower than France’s and lower than Britain’s. Still, it’s way higher than ours, right? Actually, when you factor in federal AND state spending, our “government” spends $6.28 trillion or 41% of GDP. So Sweden doesn’t outspend us by that much, quite frankly.
The Nordic countries have balanced their books too. Sweden’s budget deficit is 0.3% of GDP, ours is 7% and rising fast.
Sweden’s “oppressive” corporate tax rate is 22%. The US rate is 35% plus state taxes.
They aren’t the socialists you think they are either. Denmark and Norway have private firms run public hospitals. Sweden has a universal voucher system for schools which allows private firms to compete equally with public schools. And the performance of all schools is measured and the results are publicly available to all citizens.
The other thing that makes Sweden work is a real opposition to corruption and cronyism. They believe in free trade, not protectionism. They don’t do bailouts or protect famous companies like Saab or Volvo.
There are problems, of course. They employ too many people in their public sector – about 30% of their workforce (compared to 14% here). Their social spending is too high as well because they don’t means test. And their taxes are still too high, as they end up chasing away their most motivated young people.
Still, there is much here to consider. These are conservative ideas: lower taxes, balanced budgets, transparency, competition, privatization, and ending corruption and cronyism. Think about what the US would be like if we could bring those principles here and marry that with the dynamic American public’s desire to achieve the American dream. If conservatism worked for Sweden, then it will work here. Let’s give it a try.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Guest Review: Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
Now that we’ve discussed the first two films, let’s take a look at Die Hard with a Vengeance. I’ve always felt this film was underrated and, in fact, it’s probably one of the last “analog” action films. It’s also a lot of fun.
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
You’d kind of have to be an idiot not to realize that the biggest determinant of the temperature on our planet would be the sun. That is not only the primary source of warmth on our planet. . . it’s the only source. Moreover, we know that the sun does not put out a constant heat. This means that any model that fails to address the effects of the sun on our temperatures is worthless. Yet, the global warming models used by the enthusiasts all ignore the effect of the sun.
This point has been brought home by a leaked report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the lead propagandists for the Enthusiasts' ideology. This report admits (buried in Chapter 11) that the sun is more important than previously acknowledged:
“Results do suggest the possibility of a much larger impact of solar variations on the stratosphere than previously thought, and some studies have suggested that this may lead to significant regional impacts on climate.”Translation: “yeah, the sun could be causing a lot more warming that we thought it was. Curse you sun!!”
But here’s the kicker. Despite this admission, the models upon with the IPCC report relies in concluding that warming is a a man-made problem do not take the sun into account. How in the world can you legitimately exclude something from your analysis which you admit could be a much larger cause of your problem than you realize? This is nonsense. This is theology, not science.
And don’t forget, this isn’t the first bit of evidence that they are fudging the science and ignoring evidence that blows apart their theories. The biggest example was of course Climategate (and Climategate 2) where they were caught manipulating data and using political pressure to smear opponents. But there’s more. Consider these things we’ve seen from Warming Enthusiasts:
● Climategate exposed the manipulation of data to generate a warming trend where none existed. Specifically, they excluded a warming period in the Middle Ages and they only used certain data to make sure that the present period showed abnormal warming.So let me sum this up...... there was supposed to be warming, but there wasn’t... the seas were supposed to rise, but they didn’t... the sun is an “unknown factor” in warming that is much more significant that the models expect but we don’t want to know how much... trees absorb carbon in much greater amounts than we expected. And all of this is based on data that either doesn’t exist or which has been manipulated to exclude contrary data or which is the result of bad collection techniques or which is the result of the fraudulent use of statistics. Nice work, boys.
● The famous “hockey stick” which shows the supposed warming (the one highlighted by High Priest al Gore) was debunked. It uses a fake formula which will take any sequence of numbers and spit out a hockey stick type result.
● The IPCC relied upon data from flawed weather stations which wrongly created warming.
● The IPCC wrongly used summer data for winter months to generate warming.
● The IPCC claim that global warming will hurt biodiversity was shown to have no basis -- not to mention that the world’s species are at least one million years old and thus have all been through hundreds of climate cycles.
● The IPCC had to retract a completely unsupported statement that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035.
● The IPCC had to retract unsubstantiated statements about threats to the Amazon rainforests.
● In January 2011, IPCC scientist Osvaldo Canziani was listed as an advisor on a report that overstated warming by 1000%, and which was published unfixed even after this error was pointed out to the study’s authors.
● In January 2010, the IPCC had to retract the part of its report which claimed that Global Warming would cause sea level rises equal to 2.3 meters per century, with 2.7 feet happening this century. This report was retracted because of “mistakes in time intervals and inaccurately applied statistics.” It also turns out this report was based on data collected in a part of Hong Kong that is sinking.
Incidentally, in May of that year, a paleogeophysics/geodynamics professor from Stockholm University in Sweden issued a report that observations from around the world showed NO rising sea levels in the last 40 years. How did Enthusiasts respond? A year later, the University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group simply added 0.3 millimeters a year to their sea level figures to create rising sea levels where none exist.
● In June 2011, experts from Finland and the United States were shocked. . . shocked to learn that rising carbon dioxide levels caused forest density to increase: “Global warming, blamed by the U.N. panel of climate experts mainly on human use of fossil fuels, might itself be improving growth conditions for trees in some regions.” That’s right, trees are getting fatter. And the consequence of this is. . . well. . . um. . . it’s “offsetting climate change.” In other words, it’s keeping global warming from happening.
Now there’s undeniable evidence that the warming ain’t happening. In a truly embarrassing admission, the British agency responsible for pimping Global Warming, the Met Office, admitted on Christmas Eve (to try to bury the story) that there has been no warming for 17 years now, even though all the models predicted significant warming for that period – they attribute this to solar activity, natural variability, and the movement of the oceans.... all things any competent model needs to account for. Anyway, what makes this a particularly humiliating admission is that during this same period, Enthusiasts were claiming that warming was actually accelerating.
Moreover, in 2008-2010, global temperatures dropped sharply enough to cancel out the entire supposed net rise in the 20th century. This is important because global warming theory relies on cumulative increases. Thus, their whole theory has fallen apart. . . again. Enthusiasts tried to blame this on the "unexpected" solar cycle -- an eleven year pattern that has repeated itself consistently throughout history and seems to coincide with scaremongering about new global ice ages or new global warming. Enthusiasts also complained that the oceans reacted in an "unexpected" manner by doing what they've always done rather than changing as the climate models suggested. And then the dirty trees have done the "unexpected" by doing what they've always done and refusing to conform to the models. Are you seeing a pattern? It seems that every time the Earth does what it's always done, it's "unexpected."
The jig seems to be up for the Enthusiasts. When cap and trade failed in the US, that signaled the death of their movement. Obama lost interest and the Democrats haven’t picked it up. Obama then went to Copenhagen with the idea of securing a fake agreement to agree which would get the environmentalists of his back and even that blew up in his face when China, Brazil, India, and South Africa met behind his back and agreed to do nothing to change anything. At this point, there are some stragglers. The UK, for example, remains brainwashed, though I’m reading lots of reports about the huge cost and consequence of trying to reduce their carbon emissions which may make them think twice. Australia’s Labor Government seems intent on imposing a carbon tax. But that’s about it. Everyone else seems to be ready to move on.
It’s never wise to predict the death of a religion, but I think the Cult of Warming’s days are numbered.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
No, "Moderates" Are Not The Answer
Let me start with the two articles because they’re instructive. The first involves a group called the Republican Main Street Partnership. They’re a lobbying group whose goal had been to get moderate Republicans elected to office. They’ve decided to drop the word “Republican” from their name and change their mission to getting moderates of either party elected. The other involves a couple of moderate Democratic groups called The New Democrat Coalition and Third Way, who claim the real base of the Democratic Party is moderates who want Obama to act in a bipartisan manner to get things done. Their message to Obama was, “Work together and fix it.” That’s actually kind of funny since Obama is signaling that he’ll take a nasty, hard-left turn now that he’s been re-elected and he intends to run over the Republicans.
Both of these groups are advocating an end to partisan rancor blah blah blah and that we all get warm and fuzzy in the squishy middle... can’t we all just get along.
Forget it.
Here’s the problem with moderates and why “becoming moderate” is not the answer. Moderates have no ideas. They are just people who can’t tell good from bad and who don’t have the nerve to come to firm conclusions. They mistake non-mindedness for open-mindedness.
Let me put this another way that might help explain the problem.
Imagine two ideologues and a moderate. Ideologue A suggests something utterly utterly stupid. Ideologue B opposes it and demands something equally stupid but in the other direction. Along comes the moderate. It never occurs to the moderate that Ideologue A and Ideologue B are BOTH wrong. No. They just assume the right answer must lie somewhere between the two and the moderate believes that if the two of them can just come together and reach a solution that makes them both happy, then we will have found the right result. That’s simply stupid. . . splitting the baby on two bad ideas does not produce a good idea.
And that’s my point.
Right now, the problem with conservatism is NOT that has taken it’s good ideas to an extreme. The problem is that it’s abandoned its good ideas and what’s left isn’t selling. Moderating what’s left doesn’t help. Indeed, wrong at half-speed isn’t any better than wrong at full-speed. And mixing conservatism with liberalism won’t help either because liberalism is even worse when it comes to being wrong.
Basically, conservatives are wrong. . . liberals are wrong-er. . . and moderates are suggesting we try to find a way to implement both sets of wrong ideas. This is why we should ignore calls to moderate. This also highlights the problem with Chris Christie. He’s trying to sell the idea that the solution for the GOP’s problems is to become nasty moderates. He offers NO ideas except to do what the Democrats propose only swear to do it better and be grumpy about it. This is idiocy, and he’s obnoxious and self-righteous about it. This guy is the worst kind of politician.
What we need to do right now is move conservatism in a different direction. This is something many conservatives are not understanding. They seem to fear change because they think our only choices are continuing along blindly and praying the public changes their mind, or becoming conservative-lite/liberal. But that’s not true. There is a third choice. . . doing something else.
That is what I’m talking about. I’m talking about creating a new agenda, an agenda based on things that will make people’s lives better and advocating conservative ideas to make that happen. In a couple weeks, I hope to start releasing just such an agenda. I’m working on it right now, but I can’t release it just yet because I want to get it into book form and Amazon gives me grief when they find things already published on websites. But it is coming.
In the meantime, let's do some brainstorming. Think about the world around you. Tell me what kinds of problems you see that you think need to be fixed?
UPDATE: As an aside, this appeared online today:
According to excerpts of Cantor's speech provided to Yahoo News, the Virginia Republican is planning a wide-ranging address at the American Enterprise Institute that he believes promotes policies that work for the "most vulnerable," and boosts working and middle-class citizens. Reflected within the excerpts is a desire to put a personal face on politics, as opposed to one that dwells on numbers that tally up government spending and the size of the national debt.
"Our solutions will be based on the conservative principles of self reliance, faith in the individual, trust in the family, and accountability in government. Our goal: To ensure every American have a fair shot at earning their success and achieving their dreams," Cantor will say.
It almost sounds like they've been reading my articles! Let's see if they follow through or if they just go back to the same old garbage.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Education Misdirection
What this study did was rank each state’s education systems by six factors to let people know who has the better schools. They then put out an article identifying the Top 10 and the Bottom 10 schools. Here’s the complete list. Read it with a grain of salt:
Wait a minute, what are those numbers next to each state? They don’t seem to make any sense in the order they are in! That’s the point to this article.1. MD - 83.9
2. MA - 85.9
3. NY - 70.2
4. VA - 74.4
5. AR - 66.3
6. FL - 72.4
7. GA - 70.5
8. NJ - 84.8
9. WV - 58.3
10. KY - 71.5
11. VT - 78
12. OH - 71.2
13. WI - 71.3
14. TX - 71.0
15. LA - 59.1
16. CT - 71.2
17. RI - 70.9
18. PA - 74.6
19. DE- 67.9
20. IN - 67.2
21. NC - 70.7
22. TN - 64.1
23. WY - 69.1
24. MI - 64.4
25. NH - 78.0
26. SC - 63.4
27. ND - 70.3
28. IL - 70.6
29. HI - 69.1
30. AL - 63.9
31. OK - 65.4
32. CO - 73.8
33. ME - 73.4
34. IA - 64.7
35. NM - 62.1
36. CA - 65.7
37. KS - 69.1
38. UT - 67.3
39. MN - 74.4
40. WA - 70.1
41. MO - 65.4
42. OR - 62.6
43. AZ - 67.6
44. MT - 75.1
45. DC - 56.3
46. NE - 65.3
47. AK - 64
48. MS - 56.6
49. ID - 70.9
50. NV - 65.6
51. SD - 67.8
The list above is the order in which the states come out if you use the formula this study used. The study ranked the states by six factors. These include (1) equality of funding in the state, (2) how good the state is at attracting teachers, (3) teacher training, (4) whether or not the state offers programs to “transition” kids between grades, and (5) whether or not the schools use testing/standards to measure child progress. Then there’s a sixth factor: quality of the education, i.e. how well their kids do.
If you don’t think too hard about these first five factors, they kind of make sense, right? After all, having standards and quality teachers and enough money to teach seems like it would affect the quality of the education itself. BUT since we have the sixth factor, which is how the kids do, why should we include the first five when ranking the schools?
Think about this in terms of cars. Do you care about the quality of the car or do you care about the way the factory works? In other words, does it actually matter to you that Company A has better educated workers, a better pension plan, and conducts more testing if the cars they turn out are still junk? This survey assumes you do. This survey assumes that procedure matters more than the substance the procedures produce. In fact, it matters a lot more.
Consider this.
The numbers next to each state are the state’s score for quality of education, i.e. the substantive effect of all their procedural efforts. If we re-arrange the list according to only education quality, you will find the following:
1. As you would expect, West Virginia, Kentucky and Arkansas fall out of the top ten. West Virginia is actually 49th, and Arkansas is 43rd. To include those in the top ten is malpractice at best.
2. New York and Georgia tumble as well. New York goes from 3rd to 24th and Georgia falls from 7th to 22nd.
3. By adding irrelevant factors like “equality of funding,” all but one state moved around on the list. The overall average number of places jumped was 12, with the thirteen most distorted states moving an average of 27 spots and the next nine most distorted states moving an average of 16 spots.
What this tells us is that there is no possible statistical link between the other five factors and education quality. In other words, whether or not a state has a “pension portability plan” for teachers and whether or not a state spends its money equally does not affect the quality of education within that state. To the contrary, it seems to be inversely related given the amount the states moved.
Consider West Virginia. West Virginia was tied for 8th in the survey but is 49th in terms of education quality. The reason West Virginia jumped 41 spots was because (1) funding is “more equitable than any other state,” (2) the state has the third highest rate of state spending on education (4.7% of state spending), and (3) the state has established state standards. YET, West Virginia was one of only three states to receive a failing grade in education quality. Clearly, these factors were meaningless in that instance.
In fact, check out this admission buried within the article, “[Georgia] is also one of just 10 [states] where student performance data has a direct correlation to teacher education programs.” In other words, a statistical relationship could only be found in ten states. Translation: there is no statistical relationship between the factors we used to rank schools and student performance.
Let me be clear, I’m not saying that teachers should be abused or that standards don’t matter. What I’m saying is that it’s fraudulent to rank schools using these generic criteria which clearly don’t correlate to education quality. Offering a failed state like West Virginia into the top ten just because you like their procedures and knocking down South Dakota 21 places just because they don’t have a portable pension plan for teachers is obscene.
So what do you do? First, you ignore analysis like this because it’s garbage and you let people know why it’s garbage. This study would tell parents to send their kids to horrible school systems just because the study authors approve of the procedures by which the system is run. . . procedures which show no correlation to education quality.
Secondly, if you want to reform education, you need to dig deeper. We know instinctively that standards matter. Yet, no relationship was found between having standards and quality of education. . . look at West Virginia as the perfect example of this. This means either that we are wrong and standards are irrelevant OR that only certain standards will help. Hence, it’s time for conservatives to dig deeper and to understand what standards are needed. Don’t just advocate “standards,” find the specific standards that work.
The same is true of the other factors (1) does teacher quality matter, (2) does teacher education matter, (3) does incentive pay matter, (4) does helping kids “transition” between grades and to college matter, and (5) what exactly is the role of funding? These are questions we don’t know the answer to. These are things that need to be researched with specificity. It’s time for conservatives to dig into these issues, to do specific studies, and to come up with an agenda that helps reform America’s schools.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
New York State of Mind
"If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist."
-Mayor Edward I. Koch (1924-2013)
I am sad to report that former Mayor Edward I. Koch passed away yesterday at the age of 88 years old. For those of you who may not have known him, Edward Irving Koch was and will always be the quintessential New Yorker. He was born, lived, and died in New York City and every thing he said with his distinctive New York accent or did with that out-sized personality of his oozed with New York.
As Mayor of New York City during the dark decade of 1980's, he managed to bring the city back from the abyss of bankruptcy and set it back on the road to prosperity. Why? Because he knew what needed to be done and he did it. He cut where cuts needed to be made and he was literally out on the streets every single day talking to people - not to pundits, or advisers, or the press, but to the people in the streets. His most famous quote "How'm I doin'?" was not just a political catch phrase like "hope and change", but an honest question for which he wanted honest answers. Why? Because he loved this city and everyone in it with all of his heart and soul. And it showed in everything he did. A life long Democrat, he called himself a "liberal with sanity". But he just honestly wanted to do what was needed and what was right to make life better for each and every citizen. Like the quote above, he did not expect everyone to agree with him all the time and was suspicious of people who did.
Mayor Bloomberg on hearing of Koch's death said "when we were down, Ed Koch picked us up. When we were worried, he have us confident. When someone needed a good kick in the rear, he gave it to them - and, if you remember, he enjoyed it." Though Mayors Guiliani and Bloomberg are credited with saving the city, it was Mayor Koch who put the policies in place and "kicked the right rears". And he did it with one other quintessentially New York trait - a great sense of humor.
On a personal note, I moved to the city in the final days of his administration. All I can say is, if it was supposed to have been worse in the '70's, God bless him for what he did because it was a horror show in 1989. So, to Mayor Koch from a grateful citizen - Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ya' did just great! There will never be another one like you. R.I.P.
P.S. Everyone just knows that the first thing that Mayor Koch will ask St. Peter when he gets to those pearly gates will be..."How'd I do?".
Other News:
I just wanted to add few more names to my list of disgraced New York state elected officials for 2012-2013:
State Senator Shirley Huntley (D): pleaded guilty to embezzlement of $90,000 in tax payer funds for personal shopping sprees.
State Assembly Vivian Cook (D): not yet charged; implicated in procuring funds to be funneled to Sen. Huntley and participating in personal shopping sprees.
State Assembly Jimmy Meng (D): pleaded guilty to soliciting bribes
US Representative Gregory Meeks: Currently under investigation for accepting $40,000 in unreported "loans" from Queens businessman Edul Ahmad. Ahmad has pleaded guilty and awaiting sentences in a $50 million mortgage fraud scheme.
Previous list:
State Senator Carl Kruger (D) - resigned his seat and pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and bribery. (2011)
State Senator Hiram Monserrate (D-NY) - of the 13th District, was expelled by the New York State Senate on February 9, 2010 in connection with a misdemeanor assault conviction against his girlfriend.
State Senator Efrain Gonzalez (D-NY) On May 25, 2010, Gonzalez was sentenced to 84 months (7 years) in prison, followed by two years supervised release, after pleading guilty to two conspiracy counts and two wire fraud counts in May 2009.
President of the New York City council Andrew Stein (D) - was convicted of tax evasion regarding a Ponzi scheme in November 2010.
Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Pedro Espada Jr. (D) - On May 14, 2012 a federal jury found Espada guilty of embezzling money from federally funded healthcare clinics, after 11 days of deliberation.
State Senator Nicholas Spano (R) - in 2012 Spano was indicted for Federal Income Tax evasion. Spano pleaded guilty to the single felony. He admitted that he under-reported his income — $42,419 in federal income taxes and $10,605 in state taxes — from 2000 to 2008. He is to be sentenced to 12 to 18 months in Federal Prison in June 2012.
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-Mayor Edward I. Koch (1924-2013)
I am sad to report that former Mayor Edward I. Koch passed away yesterday at the age of 88 years old. For those of you who may not have known him, Edward Irving Koch was and will always be the quintessential New Yorker. He was born, lived, and died in New York City and every thing he said with his distinctive New York accent or did with that out-sized personality of his oozed with New York.
As Mayor of New York City during the dark decade of 1980's, he managed to bring the city back from the abyss of bankruptcy and set it back on the road to prosperity. Why? Because he knew what needed to be done and he did it. He cut where cuts needed to be made and he was literally out on the streets every single day talking to people - not to pundits, or advisers, or the press, but to the people in the streets. His most famous quote "How'm I doin'?" was not just a political catch phrase like "hope and change", but an honest question for which he wanted honest answers. Why? Because he loved this city and everyone in it with all of his heart and soul. And it showed in everything he did. A life long Democrat, he called himself a "liberal with sanity". But he just honestly wanted to do what was needed and what was right to make life better for each and every citizen. Like the quote above, he did not expect everyone to agree with him all the time and was suspicious of people who did.
Mayor Bloomberg on hearing of Koch's death said "when we were down, Ed Koch picked us up. When we were worried, he have us confident. When someone needed a good kick in the rear, he gave it to them - and, if you remember, he enjoyed it." Though Mayors Guiliani and Bloomberg are credited with saving the city, it was Mayor Koch who put the policies in place and "kicked the right rears". And he did it with one other quintessentially New York trait - a great sense of humor.
On a personal note, I moved to the city in the final days of his administration. All I can say is, if it was supposed to have been worse in the '70's, God bless him for what he did because it was a horror show in 1989. So, to Mayor Koch from a grateful citizen - Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Ya' did just great! There will never be another one like you. R.I.P.
P.S. Everyone just knows that the first thing that Mayor Koch will ask St. Peter when he gets to those pearly gates will be..."How'd I do?".
Other News:
I just wanted to add few more names to my list of disgraced New York state elected officials for 2012-2013:
State Senator Shirley Huntley (D): pleaded guilty to embezzlement of $90,000 in tax payer funds for personal shopping sprees.
State Assembly Vivian Cook (D): not yet charged; implicated in procuring funds to be funneled to Sen. Huntley and participating in personal shopping sprees.
State Assembly Jimmy Meng (D): pleaded guilty to soliciting bribes
US Representative Gregory Meeks: Currently under investigation for accepting $40,000 in unreported "loans" from Queens businessman Edul Ahmad. Ahmad has pleaded guilty and awaiting sentences in a $50 million mortgage fraud scheme.
Previous list:
State Senator Carl Kruger (D) - resigned his seat and pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and bribery. (2011)
State Senator Hiram Monserrate (D-NY) - of the 13th District, was expelled by the New York State Senate on February 9, 2010 in connection with a misdemeanor assault conviction against his girlfriend.
State Senator Efrain Gonzalez (D-NY) On May 25, 2010, Gonzalez was sentenced to 84 months (7 years) in prison, followed by two years supervised release, after pleading guilty to two conspiracy counts and two wire fraud counts in May 2009.
President of the New York City council Andrew Stein (D) - was convicted of tax evasion regarding a Ponzi scheme in November 2010.
Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Pedro Espada Jr. (D) - On May 14, 2012 a federal jury found Espada guilty of embezzling money from federally funded healthcare clinics, after 11 days of deliberation.
State Senator Nicholas Spano (R) - in 2012 Spano was indicted for Federal Income Tax evasion. Spano pleaded guilty to the single felony. He admitted that he under-reported his income — $42,419 in federal income taxes and $10,605 in state taxes — from 2000 to 2008. He is to be sentenced to 12 to 18 months in Federal Prison in June 2012.
Pre-Super Bowl Open Thread
Share your thoughts! Winners... losers... overs... unders... can we please stop talking about the race of coaches and the sexuality of players... it's a damn football game!!!
Friday, February 1, 2013
Film Friday: The Island (2005)
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
"Some of CNN's Best Friends are Black"
As you may have noticed, CNN has been making an effort in recent months to re-establish itself as an objective, authoritative news network, in opposition to Fox on the right and MSNBC on the left. (It's not like they wouldn't still lean left, but sure, we'll say they're trying.) Part of this effort involved a major shake-up among the news anchors and pundits. Among other changes, Mary Matalin and James "Ragin' Cajun" Carville have been dropped (aw), as has Erick Erickson of RedState.com (meh), while NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo's son Chris has been hired (????). Also, Jake Tapper, one of the few fair-minded guys in the MSM, has been given his own show, possibly in a prime-time spot.
Now, I don't particularly care about these changes, and neither should you (unless you're a fan of one of these guys or something). But one aspect of all this is rather enlightening. Among those sacked at the network was news anchor Soledad O'Brien, or as Twitter apparently likes to call her, "Special Snowflake." I know very little about O'Brien; I seem to vaguely remember her hiring being announced as an example of current-day diversity, because she's part-black, part-Irish, part-Hispanic, which as we'll see is somewhat involved here. I think she did that "Black in America" special once or twice, or maybe more. I don't know; I honestly didn't bother to look it up. But she did read talking points from Talking Points Memo on the air once as "research," shortly before claiming that as a true "journalist," she didn't suffer from bias. So yeah.
No, it's the circumstances surrounding her firing, rather than the fact of her firing, which deserve attention. Recently, a VP for CNN complained about O'Brien's show, not on the basis of its content, or even its ratings--which would be reason enough; "Starting Point," as it's called, lags behind every other network, even MSNBC--but because the program, specifically its audience, is "too ethnic." Yes. Their beef with the show is that there are too many black people watching it. That's the sort of comment only a liberal can get away with making--and not always even then.
As soon as word of this got out, of course, the network raced to spin it away. A "clarification" from CNN Wednesday about all this "explained" that this VP was complaining about the size of the audience, not its racial composition, and that he in no way meant to suggest that ethnicity was the problem. Which makes sense. Slips of the tongue like that happen. I know that I, for one, frequently slip up and say "Negro" when I mean to say "pizza." They're very similar words, after all. What's really disgusting about this is that the handful (and I do mean handful) of minority figures at CNN, people like Roland Martin, people who can't shut up about racism when they perceive it in conservatives or any institution to their right, will not talk about this at all. Conservative bloggers and those on Twitter have been trying to pry any comment on O'Brien's firing and the "ethnic" remarks out of them, to no avail.
This whole farce displays the race issues our media has. It's no secret that the people who staff the news networks and the publications live in a cultural bubble of their own--East Coast, upper-class, and therefore lily-white. For all their liberalism, these are exactly the sort of people who would complain about something being "too ethnic." Note, for example, that although the mixed-race O'Brien has been canned, our dear Piers Morgan has not. Insufferable? Yes. Pompous? Yep. So lacking in standards that his fellow Britons don't even want him back? You got it--but to the media, he's "one of us," and that's all that matters. As long as they continue to stand up for the Left and their supposed goal of racial equality, that counts for more than whatever biases they might have personally. These are the people who continue to control so much of our information. Sucks to be us, huh?
(Oh, and by the way, this isn't the only incident of egg-on-your-face for the media this week.)
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Caption This: Michelle Ma Belle..
Honestly, I do not think I would have considered making light of our former first ladies while they were living in the White House. But there is something about First Lady Michelle Obama that just begs for it. It's that indefinable "je ne sais quoi" of our Michelle...
I am sure that if we put our heads together, we can define that "it" that makes her so special.
What was our lovely First Lady (with the elbows on the table) thinking sitting there next to the Boehners?
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I am sure that if we put our heads together, we can define that "it" that makes her so special.
What was our lovely First Lady (with the elbows on the table) thinking sitting there next to the Boehners?
Conservatives versus The Media
● The Public Is Not Brainwashed.
Let’s start with something that should be obvious, but apparently isn’t. The media has NO power to brainwash the public. If the media had such power, the election results would have been a lot different. Of the 310,000,000 Americans, there are 208,000,000 eligible voters. Obama got only 60 million votes. That’s only 28% of all eligible voters (19% of all Americans). If the media really had power to brainwash people, WAY MORE than 28% of eligible voters would have turned out to support Obama.
Likewise, Obama lost 9 million votes between 2008 and 2012... 13% of his total. How can that be explained if the media has this magical power to make the public do as they wish?
Also, if the media had this power, why are people in certain states immune to their manipulation? And why does the media mysteriously lose this power on issues like guns? The “the media brainwashed people” argument has no merit and conservatives should stop hiding behind it.
The truth is, the public did not “buy” Obama, nor did people do what the media wanted. The public stayed home. The public stayed home because it saw no reason to vote for either side. In fact, the biggest winner on election night was None of the Above at 44%. Obama and Romney were a distant second and third at 28% and 27%. That’s on us. We need to focus on why we couldn’t get more than 27% of eligible voters to support us. We need to look at ourselves. Observe...
● Why Our Image Stinks: We Do It To Ourselves.
Ok, so if the media can’t brainwash the public, then why does the public believe that conservatives are extremists? The answer is simple: that’s what WE tell them. In the entire universe of political movements, conservatives are the only ones (except maybe anarchists) who disdain the moderate label. Everyone else, from the Nazis to the Commies to the Democrats, claims to be moderates who speak for the forgotten man in the middle. They do this because the goal of politics is to win a majority of the electorate, so it’s important to tell the public that you and they are the same.
Not conservatives. Conservatives have developed a bizarre mentality where they compete with each other to prove how extreme they are. Conservatives brag about being “genuine” conservatives, they use the word “moderate” as a slur, and they equate moderates with traitors. Because of this mentality, our candidates routinely proclaim their purity and try to attack their primary opponents as being secret moderates. This implies (and is sometimes explicitly stated) that being a moderate is something we disdain, which translates into a message of “we are extremists.”
Make no mistake, the media could not sell the public on the idea that conservatives are extremists if we weren’t busy selling the image ourselves.
● Why Don’t We Get Credit For Things We Do: Because We’re Nasty.
But wait, you say, even when conservatives act like moderates, we never get the credit! Isn’t that the media’s doing? Well, no. The problem is that while conservatives sometimes do “moderate/liberal” things, they do them kicking and screaming and lobbing insults. No one is going to give you credit in that type of circumstance.
Take the upcoming immigration reform effort. It will pass with Republican votes. As it does, talk radio, pundits, various grandstanding politicians, and bloggers will scream racist sentiments at the top of their lungs and whine about how these dirty Mexicans will forever destroy America and how any Republican who votes for it is a dangerous RINO who needs to be driven out of the party. These same conservatives will wonder a year later why conservatives got no credit from Hispanics for passing the bill.
Think about it this way. Suppose you want to post an article about your ugly, stupid kid at the blog. You nag the crap out of me to post it because you’re an a*hole who won’t shut the f*ck up and doesn’t realize nobody cares about your lame kid. I finally have enough of you and decide that I’ll let you talk about your dumba*s spawn. So I post the article with this disclaimer: “Here’s an article about some retarded kid you won’t care about, but ___ won’t leave me alone, so I’m only doing this to get them off my back.” How happy are you going to be with me? And are you going to give me any credit for posting your article?
It’s the same thing in politics. Conservatives don’t get credit for things they do because they do them kicking and screaming and making it clear in no uncertain terms how much they hate doing them and how, if it was up to them, they wouldn’t do them.
● Why Are Scandals Worse For Us: We Mishandle Them.
That brings us to the next issue. Conservatives claim bias in how scandals get portrayed. They claim that nothing the Democrats do sticks to them because the media covers for them, but everything sticks to us. Again, this isn’t accurate. Yes, the media covers for them, but the Democrats are better at separating themselves from their lunatics.
When the Democrats get a lunatic, they immediately dismiss them as not representative of the party. Essentially, they tell the public, “oh, that’s just crazy uncle Joe. He’s harmless.” This works because the Democrats claim the moderate label, and thus, they can put space between themselves and their fringe. Conservatives, on the other hand, do this backwards. First, we all claim to be at the fringe, so there’s no space to be had. Secondly, we attack our own right out of the gates and then try to circle the wagons after we’ve told the public this issue is an outrage. The Democrats don’t do that. They remain flexible until they see how the wind is blowing and then they act accordingly. And contrary to conservative belief, when the Democrats get someone they can’t explain away (e.g. Weiner), they disown them in a heartbeat and they don’t keep trying to prove that they were actually right. We do.
● Why Doesn’t Democratic Hypocrisy Stick: Because We Help Them.
Conservatives complain that Democratic supporters are blind to their hypocrisy. But the problem is actually that we help the Democrats sell their false image. Look at the issue of cronyism. Republicans are seen as cronies because. . . well, they are. So are the Democrats, but they aren’t seen as cronies. What accounts for the difference? For one thing, Republicans brag about helping Big Business, whereas the Democrats lie about hating Big Business. More importantly, however, we help them sell that lie.
Consider Obamacare. Obamacare is nothing more than a power grab on behalf of insurance companies. But no one is telling that to the public. The Democrats certainly won’t say it, and the Republicans won’t say it because they’re working for those same companies. Moreover, conservatives don’t say it because they’re busy mischaracterizing Obamacare as “government run, socialized medicine.” And in screaming that, they reinforce the false sales pitch the Democrats are trying to sell to their own people.
Any liberal who has doubt that the Democrats really are liberals gets constant reinforcement from conservatives that everything the Democrats are doing is “liberal/socialist.” Look at the gun control debate. Obama’s gun control plan is nothing more than a placebo, yet conservatives are screaming that it’s one step away from banning guns. Obama’s environmental agenda is a sop to unions and GE, yet conservatives scream about it being “anti-business” and “wacko environmentalism.” On issue after issue, WE are the Democrats’ best salesmen because WE are pushing the very false image the Democrats need their followers to believe.
Anyway, believe it or not, all of the above is good news. It really is.
The American people did not “buy” Obama. They are not brainwashed by some all-powerful svengali media. And our problems are of our own making: WE poisoned our own brand and WE protect the Democrats from their stupidity with our misdirected hyperbolic rhetoric. That means WE can fix these issues OURSELVES because we are victims of our own stupidity and not of some powerful external conspiracy.
I know it may not seem like it, but that really is a good thing. It means that we are not doomed. It means that we just need to make a few changes and we need to work on winning back those None of the Above voters. And our only enemy is ourselves.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
MacGuffin With Cheese
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
News From Around The World
● Egypt: Egypt seems to be on the verge of revolution. What’s upset them? Believe it or not, they’re upset about the lack of checks and balances on the government. What started things was President Morsi’s declaration (discussed here LINK), which gave him dictator-like powers. . . which he took under a declaration of “trust me, I’m doing it for Islam.” People freaked out and started protesting. Morsi recently responded by imposing a curfew and a state of emergency. This turned into a running battle between the police and the public. The Army has decided to stay out of this so far.
What interests me here are three things. First, the Army’s decision to warn both sides and then to stand back tells me that the Muslim Brotherhood has no control whatsoever over the Army and that the Army is probably hoping the public overthrows the government. This suggests Egypt will be a lot more like Turkey than people expected. That’s a good thing.
Secondly, the fact the public is upset about a lack of checks and balances is a pretty advanced “Western” thought about democracy. This is something most people didn’t expect as democracy generally takes a long time to build the institutions it needs to thrive, yet here are the people demanding the core stabilizing element of democracy. That’s a great sign and again suggests a Turkey-like Islamic model.
Third, during the protests, the public has chanted “the Guide needs to go.” The “Supreme Guide” is the name given to the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, who is seen on the street as the real power behind Morsi. This is interesting because it represents a serious blow to the MB and their belief that Muslim populations are ready to impose unchecked Sharia law when given a choice. This again gives me hope that Egypt is trending toward Turkey.
● France: France is “totally bankrupt.” So admitted their Labor Minister Michael Sapin. Yeah, big surprise there. But don’t worry, it was Nicolas Sarkozy’s fault, which means there’s no problem, right? As an aside, since Hollande took over, unemployment rose to 10.7% (a rise of 15% in one year). That must be le Bush’s fault.
This won’t surprise you either, though it’s come as a big shock to the French, but Hollande’s massive tax hike on the rich hasn’t exactly worked out as planned. Instead, data from the Bank of France shows that capital has been fleeing the country and continues to flee. Imagine that. Hollande is not deterred and he plans to jack up taxes another $30 billion over the next five years. Good luck with that, mon frere!
Anyway, don’t worry about the bankruptcy thing, the government assures us they can in fact pay their employees. And Hollande plans to cut $75 billion from their budget to get things into shape.
Hmm. Wait a minute. Hasn’t the left everywhere in the world been telling us that spending boosts the economy? Why would France cut spending at a time when their growth is close to 0%? Shouldn’t they spend their way out of bankruptcy? I think they should build a Death Star.
● Mali-bien-phu: All is going “well” in Mali. The French and their African chums have “defeated” the al Qaeda backed rebels and driven them from a couple of “key” cities. Nothing to see here. Move along. These are not the droids you’re looking for.
As an aside, from what has been reported, they’ve killed almost no rebels. Indeed, they were bragging about possibly killing 12 the other day. The reason is either the totality of the French victory turned them all to dust or the rebels have done what they always do... they disappeared into the population and plan to conduct terrorist attacks. Now le Froggies are sending more troops, including British advisors and French combat troops from other nearby countries. This kind of reeks of Vietnam.
So far, Obama has refused to get involved (except for some mid-air refueling) because the Pentagon thinks France has no exit strategy. Personally, I’m thinking their best strategy would just be to raise the tax rates in Mali to 75% and watch al Qaeda flee.
You know, speaking of using government in its most effective form, why did it take the Pentagon so long to find Osama bin Laden? Why didn’t they just call the student loan people. Those people can find anyone, even people who’ve fled to caves on Mars.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Laughter Is The Best Weapon
Let me give you a couple facts about our jackbooted anti-Wall Street thug. These are things you won’t hear because it doesn’t fit the narrative of either party:
1. Mary Jo White was indeed a prosecutor who prosecuted securities crimes. Yep. Then she switched sides. White is currently the head of litigation at Debevoise & Plimpton. D&P is an international law firm based in New York. They have 700 attorneys and they represent some of the biggest companies in the world. In particular, they represent Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, is one of the big corrupt players who control our Treasury, the SEC and pretty much the banking system.This, of course, fits everything the Democrats and the Republicans do. This is also becoming a pattern with the Democrats. I know conservatives want to see the Democrats as crazed ideologues, but their actions say something different. Their actions tell us the rhetoric is just a smokescreen to hide a party that appoints Wall Street stooges to regulate Wall Street, crafts environmental laws to help donor companies like GE sell their products, crafts a healthcare reform bill to hand the health insurance system to insurance companies, creates fake gun control measures to drain the suckers, promises massive change in foreign policy but continues Bush’s policies, promises to jack up taxes on the rich but only raises them 3% if that -- less than they raised middle class taxes, and so on.
Imagine that, Morgan Stanley’s lawyer gets appointed to run the SEC and regulate Morgan Stanley’s trading! How can this be? Is Bush back in the White House?
2. In October 2008, the SEC’s Inspector General issued a report critical of the SEC’s enforcement chief for providing to Mary Jo White evidence the SEC had gathered against her client, John Mack, the CEO of Morgan Stanley, for insider training.
Why is this important? Because this shows that White was willing to use her contacts at the SEC to improperly help her client. This suggests that White is hardly an ideologue, but is instead a paid whore for her client. In fact, you don’t rise to be head of litigation at a firm like D&P unless you have a certain moral flexibility that favors your clients, i.e. you’re a whore.
So, what’s the point to bringing this up? The point is simple. This is the precise sort of thing conservatives should be mocking... and I mean that term precisely. This is not something conservatives should fight by trying to hold up her nomination. Nor should conservatives try to attack her from a pro-Big Bank perspective. Indeed, doing that will only convince Democratic supporters that they were right in selecting her.
Instead, the proper approach with a nominee like this, who flies in the face of the image the Democrats try to sell of being opposed to Wall Street, is to mock their supporters. Call them suckers for believing the rhetoric that the Democrats oppose Wall Street and the Big Banks when they really pimp for them. And then walk away after you mock them.
Trust me on this, condescension stings. It’s the one form of attack that is guaranteed to raise blood pressure and get the other side upset because it makes people feel like you don’t respect them at a fundamental level. Moreover, because mocking someone presents a picture of total indifference, there is no avenue for liberals to alleviate their frustration by counterattacking conservatives. Instead, they will direct their frustration at the person who made them look like a fool... Obama. That’s human nature.
If you want to break the Democrat’s PR about them fighting the big guy on behalf of the common man, and you want to force them to actually need to follow through on their rhetoric, this is the only approach that will work. This is the only approach that is guaranteed to cause dissention in Democratic ranks.
Laughter is not only the best medicine, it’s also one of the most powerful weapons. Conservatives should learn to use it.
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