Hey , I Missed This

It seems that both of the Republicans who violated the constitution when screwing up their oaths we attending a fund-raising event that most likely violated the House's ethic rules.  The Founding Fathers would be so proud.

One Other Thing

Constitutional Conservatives like to ramble on about the Federalist Papers and their importance for understanding the Constitution's original intent or original meaning.  Thanks be to the intertrons, I would like to offer some quotes from Federalist Number 1:

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.

Somebody alert Glenn Beck, the Founding Fathers thought America was an imperial power and wanted a one [world] government.

To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

Somebody alert Constitutional Conservatives, the Founding Fathers wanted an active, effective, and meddlesome federal government.

So there you have, the Founding Fathers in the Federalist Papers advocated for the opposite of what the Tea Party Patriots wanted, which suggests that they are dumb enough to listen to Glenn Beck and the Republican Party more generally.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

In the past little while, Republicans, particularly in the House, have been busy covering themselves in silliness and related whatnotery.  There are the two congressmen who failed to take the oath, there is Representative Steve King (R-Unconstitutional) seeking to subvert the Constitution by passing a law invalidating its provisions for law of the soil citizenship thus neatly sidestepping the amendment process on the solid constitutional grounds of easier is better, there is Paul "it's spelt 100 billion dollar spending cut but its pronounced nearly none" Ryan and his pal John "I haven't a clue what to cut" Boehner irresponsible gobbledy gook on important matters of governance, there is the sophomoric let's not discuss the problem let's rather name a bill something silly style of governance, there's the let read the Constitution but ignore its evolution as a document style of historical understanding,  and that's just the first few days.

How long, one wonders, until the realization of being sold a bill of goods hits the radical Right? In Nevada, it seems, not particularly long.

Imaginary Realism

Matt Yglesias on his realism

Suppose I say, “DC’s barber licensing rules are bad.” You ask, what do you mean by that? Well, they reduce competition in the barbering field, leading to higher prices and worse service for customers. They reduce tax revenues and employment opportunities. They’re, you know, bad.(emphasis in original)

How many barber's are there in DC and its environs? Lots.  How much do you have to pay to get your hair cut?  As little or as much as you'd like.  How is service?  From excellent to lousy. In other words, not one of his justifications is true in the specific case of barbering but rather are only true in the abstract case of opposition to regulations, which can be applied to puppy mills just as easily.

As a example of a realistic critique of over-regulation, it's wrong to deny felons the right to be barbers, lawyers, and etc unless the crime is related to the occupation and, in all cases, felons ought to have the right to apply their exclusion.

Why Democracies Fail

This Ian Buruma essay on Belgium is very interesting but it misses the essential point that Belgium does not,  in fact, exist.

Serious Sensible Man.

The title is one third correct, David Brooks is a man.  Today he writes some bizarre piece in which the maniacs of the Right turn out to be sober serious men and women, like the guy who declared the federal government unconstitutional, the decision to slash budgets without debate, or the guy who thinks Obama ought to man up and go to battlefield, or the decision to let business write their own regulations, whose primary interest will be governance. 

It's simply odd that a man this dedicated to saying and writing dumb things collects a check.

Eponymous

Andrew Sullivan accidentally makes sense.  He has a series of awards named after different bloggering types; one is for Yglesias, whose career Sullivan had something to do with, officially it's supposed to be for attacking your own side or being glibly contrarian.  Today, however, it seems he gives it to someone who, like Yglesias, can ignore reality:

As we sadly learned with all the sound and fury that attended the Republican Revolution of 1994, the real risk isn't that a tidal wave of right-wing kookery will wash over the land. The greater likelihood is that the GOP rebels will quickly lose their reformist spirit after a few fizzled confrontations with the bipartisan Beltway establishment and end up governing much like the Democrats they replaced," - W. James Antle III, The American Spectator

Yes, if you ignore Fox News, Clinton's impeachment, endless Republican investigations, Iraq, Afghanistan, don't tax yet spend policies, refusing to protect the needy and the week, larger ever larger defense budgets, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Tea Parties, and so on, there was no wave of right wing kookery.

Too Many Teachers

For many on the Right, the key to "fixing" the current "crisis" in education is firing teachers and shredding their unions because it's too hard to fire underperforming teachers.  It's worthwhile to considered that one reason there aren't more fired teachers is the extremely high attrition rate in the early years of public educators' careers with, by some measures, less effective teachers leaving in greater numbers.  It is also the case that there is an oversupply of teachers so that the whole process of getting a job is extremely competitive.

Consequently it's not really surprising that those who do make it past five years are good enough to stick around for a whole career.

Relatedly, if you are incompetent to comment on pedagogy, you are incompetent to comment on teaching reform.

Covering Himself With Glory

How many times has the current administration called the ACA Obamacare without scare quotes?  None, that's how many. 

For example

Q    How many of the Democrats -- of the 219 Democrats who voted for “Obamacare” have invited the President to campaign for them in their districts this fall?
MR. GIBBS:  I don't have a political schedule in front of me, Lester.
Q    Since not one of the Republicans in the House voted for “Obamacare,” and 32 Democrats voted against --
MR. GIBBS:  Do you mean -- I'm sorry, I'm confused.  Do you mean by that the law that the President signed yesterday?
Q    “Obamacare,” yes.
MR. GIBBS:  Okay, I just was -- I didn't know if that was the Internet vernacular or the name of the bill, Lester.  I was a little confused.

How silly is Matt Yglesias?  Very.

Incidentally, I’m glad to see that the “Affordable Care Act” lingo that I started trying to popularize months ago as an alternative to “ObamaCare” has been taken up by the administration.

A Path to Citizenship

The repeal of DADT is the first step toward full equality not only because military service and citizenship are tightly linked in the "western tradition" but also because of the generational split it exposes between and among Conservatives. So, I say, well done Obama well done.

Why I Despair of Glibertarian Gibberish

Matt Yglesias is not, I argue, a serious human being.  His is, rather, an ideological Jack-in-the- box who spouts the usual Glibertarian nonsense at the drop of a regulation. Today he celebrates the beginning  of the end of the regulatory regime painstakingly put in place between 1906 and 1976 with a post lauding Alfred Kahn for deregulating airlines.  This deregulation, he argues, did, in fact, lead to air transportation being "sucky" but only because that's what people wanted.  He offers no evidence for people wanting sucky air transportation but, one assumes, his certainty arises from some Glibbertarian bedrock, like the wisdom of markets.

Airlines have the third lowest customer satisfaction rating on the University of Michigan's survey and, according to the same source, passenger volume was down 6% in 2009.  On average 66% of customers are satisfied with airlines. It's difficult to spin those numbers into evidence of giving people what they want.

But, he might reply -- as he does in the post, that the cost is lower and besides all that luxury of yesteryore was an inefficient use of scarce resources, no really. Costs, it's true, declined but since 2001 have risen kind of dramatically, to say nothing of the nearly 5 billion in 2001 tax payers gave the airlines for free.  From June 2003 until October 2010, the most recent data available, just over 20 percent of all flights arrived late.  Airline passengers don't like paying for baggage and miss the "inefficient" luxuries of the past. There is also problems with maintenance and such like.

So, has deregulation been a success? No.  Is there any evidence that consumers are getting what they want? No.  Is this one more example of Yglesias talking out of his hat because he is a neo-Liberal?  Yes.

Why on earth does Think Progress pay someone to make zombie Reaganite, Thatcherite, neo-Liberal and Glibbertarian arguments?

Andrew Sullivan

John Cole, over to Balloon Juice, is complaining about Andrew Sullivan's stupidity, which is fine.  It ought not go unnoticed, however, that Sullivan created Yglesias and both are equally sillily illogical and ideological bedfellows. Indeed, every time one complains about Sullivan, McArdle, or some other Glibertarian, it ought to be mandatory to include Yglesias.

Google Research

Lots of folks have been all agog at the new Google Ngam Viewer, which searches Google books for words or phrases and then graphs their occurrence.  Here is an image of one such for hitler:

Here's another for Hitler:

Here's another on terrorism versus Terrorism

 In any event, the next time you see some clever Charlies making some kind of argument based on Ngram evidence treat it with all the respect it deserves. Really researching any topic of interest, as opposed to the intellectual sloth that is the Google, is a lot of work.  Something like this might serve as the first step in a long term study but it would have to e a tentative and halting first step.

In a Nutshell

A real professional and trained economist makes a substantive point about the concrete economic situation and Matt Yglesias, with his B.A. in philosophy and long history of being ill informed, "proves" that the actual economist is wrong. How?, you ask.  Thusly, he responds:

Imagine a recession that begins at a time when nominal interest rates are 9 percent.

That's right he creates an imaginary crisis that, if properly misunderstood and badly analyzed, proves that a professional no nothing is right.  To which I would respond, imagine a world in which knowing something was a prerequisite for making claims of knowledge.  In such a world, we would be be free of Douthat, Brooks, Freidman and his related units, almost all of the WaPo editorial page, and, perhaps most importantly, Palin.


edited for clarity.

Shut Up, Already.

Matt Yglesias should.  Today he informs us that

I think the only reasonable way to play the American politics game is “by the rules as written.” That’s why it made sense for the Republican minority to spend so much of the 111th Congress exploiting the possibilities for obstruction in an unprecedented way, and that’s why it made sense for the Democratic majority to use the “lame duck” session to pass a bunch of good bills.

Unless, of course, you think that politics isn't a game but rather an attempt to govern in a way that allows the majority to implement its policies will seeking to influence those policies instead of using various tricksies to bring the government to a halt which then requires the lame duck.

In addition, a chart

For much of the past few years, the filibuster wasn't an important arrow in the quiver and was only used rarely.  What changed on or about 19890?  Could it be the creation of an increasingly ideologically driven Republican party that lost all interest in governing because, you know, theory matters more than fact?  Could it be that opposition by filibuster only makes sense if you're the sort of brutally silly person who thinks abstractly? In short, does it makes sense only if you are speaking Yglesianism?

Mistakenly Mistaken

As is her wont, Meagan McArdle made some kind of a math error which she refused to admit.  Ultimately, however, she did admit that she was wrong mathematically with various caveats. Shortly after her non-magnanimous admission of error, she posted a long list of Paul Krugman's errors. As evidence, of a sort, that all pundits err and to err is human and etc.  The thing is that there is a difference between predicting what will happen and simple division. In other words, her persistent errors of fact are not the equivalent of some errors of fortune telling.

When Birds of a Feather Flocking Together Means Considerable Less Than Jonah Goldberg Thinks It Does

Jonah Goldberg likes to point out that important Progressives thought Eugenics was important.  Recently, he repeated this dodge as it relates to J. M. Keynes and others. Here's a fact, belief in Eugenics as the way forward cut across political ideologies (on page 69 a Socialist worked with Conservatives on the very Eugenics organization on which Keynes sat). Imagine a Bruce Springstein appreciation society meeting at which you could find Chris Christie, Jon Stewart, Ronald Reagan and me.  Or ask your self if a belief in Eugenics is central to Keynes' economic theory by considering the fact that contemporary Keynesians have to accept Eugenics, hint Paul Krugman.  If you want to know if you ought trust Keynes on race the answer is no; does this fact delegitimate  Keynes economic theory? The answer is, again, no. Oh, and as by the way, Robert Heinlein was a sci-fi writer, Glibertarianl, and he promoted Eugenics in the Lazarus Long novels and short stories, does that prove that sci-fi and Glibertarianism are beyond the pale?

Consider, as by the way, Bertram Russel.  He was a brilliant logician and made seminal contributions to logic; he was also a cad and bounder in his private romantic life.  Does the latter tell against the former?  No. Bringing the latter up to erode the former is a nearly perfect example of the ad hominem fallacy. The same is true of Keynes and Eugenics or Progressives and Eugenics.  Most, which is to say all the non Eugenical, desires of Progressives did not and do not hinge on Eugenics. Even more worser, the Catholic Church denied that the earth moved round the sun and condemn as heresy those, like Galileo, who said it did. Will Goldberg declare war on the church? And what about witchcraft trials? Protestants and Catholics murdered innocents they declared witches.  Sure, few of either confession would today do the same, but still the historical record is clear.  Will he reject Christianity?  It's beyond boobocracy.

Consider, as by the way, Teddy Roosevelt, Progressive in chief.  He believed, among other hateful things, in American Execeptionalism, Conservationism, and Imperialism.  Must contemporary Conservatives reject AE because TR wanted to protect wet lands and created bird sanctuaries?  The question answers itself.

Goldberg has his head up his fundament because he doesn't understand that no one is always right, except God and me.

The Metaphysics of Bullshit, in the Frankfurter Sense of Bullshit

Recently, Paul Krugman has been explaining to people who get their economic analyis from Glenn Beck that there is no necessary connection between the money supply, specifically M1, and inflation. He also makes the point that as a concrete matter of fact there is more than one money supply, M2 and there used to be an M3, because what counts as money for specific purposes changes as the circumstances change. Matt Yglesias reads this and decides that his BA in philosophy is just the thing to clarify the situation for Krugman. Leaving aside the silliness and gigantic self-regard encapsulated therein, Yglesias succeeds in proving that a debit card is more convenient than a sack filled with dollar coins. It's arguments like that that make him such a respected public intellectual.

But wait there's more.  On December 17th in the course of a rambling discussion of why being a giving the people what they want if you are a corporation bent only on profit maximization is okay for soulless corporations but not for principled politicians, Yglesias asserts, among other assertions of equal or lesser value, that

[t]he executives of Darden Restaurants are basically trying to make money. And so are the owners of the firm. And that’s fine. Most of us aren’t so distressed by the idea that the firm is, on some level, a soulless money-making machine.

Of course, you know, lots of folks have problems with corporations pursuing profit in a mindless and soulless fashion.  Many of those are progressives who have sought through suasion and regulation to convince or force corporations to behave as if they had, if not souls, at least some sense of social justice. Neo-Liberals, Reaganites, Thatcherites, Glibbertarians, and Ayn Rand have no problem with soulless corporations pursuing profit regardless of social cost, but, even with Yglesias steadfastly doing their bidding, they are a minority.

But wait, there is yet more.  On December 18th, he quotes someone proving that

[s]ince 1978, productivity in the nonfarm business sector is up 86%, but real compensation per hour (which includes fringe benefits) is up just 37%. Does that seem fair? 

and responds:

Not to me. But I think that progressive discussions of this phenomenon wind up over complicating things when contemplating the causes.

He tries to side step the obvious cause, soulless corporations mindlessly pursuing profit regardless of the social cost, by blaming the Fed. 

Yglesias either can't or won't see that he has a problem with soulless corporations pursing profits mindlessly because if he did his whole neo-Liberal enterprise comes crashing down. Why, one wonders, who a guy working for an allegedly progressive think tank see fit to espouse the most hackney Conservative gobbledygook instead of making the case that, you know, corporations that soullessly seek to maximize their profits are going to act like soulless corporations seeking to maximize their profits by screwing their workers and ruining the environment? This position, which I believe to be true based on the actual history of capitalism in these United States, long may she allow countries to drift into her imperial orbit, is, go figure, at the heart of the Progressive agenda as developed by Roosevelt and improved on by, you know, those great Americans bent on improving America by reining in corporations through suasion and regulation.

In short, were he not committed to a life of the mind built on bullshit, in the Frankfurtian sense, Yglesias would have to think about what he thinks instead of just writing whatever glib contrarian thought he finds ready to hand.

DADT

Yah team. So, how, one wonders, is the repeal of DADT a slap in the face by Obama to various liberal/left groups?

Relatedly, John McCain waxes incoherent:



And Rachel Maddow exposes his flippidy floppitdy:



Just imagine if that warmongering nutbar was our president.

Beauty

This bike is beautiful; if it had fenders it would be godlike.

Like this one:

via

Falls Don't Always Fall

Niagara dried up.




Pictures here.


via

Working at The Wrong Shop

Matt Yglesias is.  The proper response to Republican obstructionism:

In this lame duck session, Senate Republicans are grasping at every possible reason to “run out the clock” on any Democratic priority. Their brazen obstruction, however, took some victims last week when they used another filibuster to block the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. Named after a New York City policeman who died from health complications, this legislation that provides health care to 9/11 first responders and emergency workers who suffered illnesses from working at Ground Zero.

From Think Progress, where the Liberal Lion Yglesias touts obstructionism as a sign of being a serious legislator. 

This is why Taibbi wouldn't be happy with a debate dominated by Yglesias and other faux center-left commentators.

Missing The Point Yet Even More

Matt Yglesias writes for an progressive think tank. All progressives and most Americans believe that an accused fellow citizen is innocent until proven guilty.  Lots of his and my fellow citizens think that Wikileaks is no big deal and to the extent that it is a big deal it's a good thing.  What Yglesias thinks about the second point, I don't know; what he thinks about the first point is illuminated here (via here):

So as best I can tell Manning is, in fact, guilty of serious crimes.

What does this mean?  As best he can tell from? Press releases? The Government's accusations?  The various stuff floating hither and yon on the web?

Another thing all progressives and many Americans believe is that the state ought to improve prison condition particularly for individuals awaiting trial because they have yet to be convicted and, consequently, are presumed innocent.  Yglesias thinks

Somewhat punitive post-arrest pre-trial measures are kind of a necessary evil, but the prolonged confinement of Manning under cruel conditions go well beyond the necessary into the straightforward evil.

So Manning's treatment is "evil" but some lesser form of the "evil" is "kind of necessary" because? It's irresponsible to reform prisons and jails unless that reform involves the destruction of unions and decreasing prison workers salaries?

Is it the case that Yglesias has been making bad arguments for so long that he has now ascended to the Broderosphere where he is free at last, thank God almighty free at last, to simply assert position central to the progressive worldview, in this case reform of necessary evils, i.e., prisons and jails, will lead inexorably to a humane system of incarceration for the presumed innocent as well as the proven guilty  fellow citizens hapless enough to fall afoul of the state's policing function.

And while were at it Megan McCardle, in a similar wrong-headed analysis of something else, she comes up with two tiers of crime: white collared and blue collared:

This is basically a variant of complaints that white-collar crime is treated less harshly than blue collar crime.  And there's some justice in the complaints--white collar crimes usually involve larger sums, and the people who commit them can rarely claim that they are victims of society.

White-collared crime is clear to all: Madoffesque stuff.  Blue-collared crime is? Calling in sick when you're well? Does she mean "ordinary" crimes like murder, rape, and etc?  Does she mean to suggest that only the lower orders commit such crimes?  She seems to because she, humorously?, suggests that the lower orders who can blame society for their crimes, as in Kniock Any Door starring Humphrey Bogart, commit blue collared crimes.

And those of us who want to tax the rich to pay for the things we need tomorrow today are accused of class warfare; McArdle classifies violent crimes as the work of only the lower orders.

Would it surprise you to know that they are pals?

UPDATE:
Yglesias on private mass transportation

And, yes, I’m well-aware that none of this is going to happen any time soon. But I think people are oftentimes insufficiently utopian in their thinking about public policy. Think about how different policy was in 1960 compared to today.

Got that? When in comes to incarceration of the presumably innocent some degree of abuse is a "necessary evil" when it comes to making a buck off of getting from here to there, people just aren't clapping loud enough.

Tarp

Yesterday, I watched this guy quiz Timothy Geitner on lot of things but one of them was why Geitner wasn't trying harder to get banks to absorb more of the losses associated with underwater homeowners.  It actually took Silvers three tries before Geitner would even address the issue of lowering banks' profits.  One weird exchange, it was.  It seemed as though Geitner had no idea that lowering profits, as opposed to funding homeowner bailouts, was possible.  Indeed, Geitner claimed that the government couldn't do a thing when it came to banks' profits; hands tied, not possible, he said.  Why on earth would that be, one wonders?  If what Geitner said was true, and Silver thought that it wasn't, it is almost as if the governments only power over banks is to give them money when they get drunk and blow it on hookers and bad drugs or mortgage backed securities, whichever comes first.

In any event, the whole thing is worth watching, if only for Geitner's cluelessness when it comes to effective regulation and the government's power to persuade. 

Missing the Point

Matt Yglesias some time ago:

Mitch McConnell is a bad man, but he's very good at his job: http://ygl.as/h6to8F
2 hours ago from TweetDeck

He refers to this article which details McConnell's decision to stop the Senate from governing by threatening Republican senators who wanted to work with the Democratic majority to, you know, govern.  This kind of procedural obstruction to bipartisan action on the various problems confronting the US right now is  a being "very good"  minority leader because Yglesias is under the misapprehension that being an obstructionist is the hallmark of a good legislator in a democratic system.  In other words, he is a dolt.  Unless, of course, like him you make your decision on good and bad based on some set of ideological abstractions that protect you from any concrete realities.