Irrational Conservatives, Irrational Liberals and Karma

There have been some interesting reading going around the internet lately.

The first two readings come from New York Magazine

David Frum talks about how insane conservatives have become in terms of insisting on ridiculous ideas.

On the other hand, Jonathan Chait notes that liberal insanity comes from the expectations that too many liberals have of Democratic presidents.

I am sorry to say that I think that Mr. Chait is right on. Here is what many liberals don’t see (or don’t want to see): yes, it is true that many liberal ideas (e. g. public option for health insurance) are popular with a majority of Americans. But that really doesn’t mean anything; people in Congress (Representatives and Senators) actually do a decent job of voting the way that their constituents want them to vote. We (my friends and I) might not like John Boehner or Eric Cantor, but these people accurately represent their constituents. The sad fact is that our “representative” system gives people who live in sparsely populated, mostly conservative areas disproportionate power; remember that Wyoming, Idaho and North Dakota have the same number of Senators as Illinois, California and New York.

Bottom line: I don’t like the way that Republicans in Congress vote, but for the most part they represent people that think very differently than I do. I might not like those people; I might think of them as ignorant, selfish and stupid (and they probably think even worse of me), but they are entitled to vote for who they want to vote for.

Personally, I’d love it if we would just split this country into two countries and let the wingnuts have their know-nothing theocracy.
And yes, if Rick Perry PROMISED to lead such a secession, I’d vote for him.

But all isn’t lost; sometimes douche bags get bitten by their “douche-baggery”. Example: there was a law firm that handled foreclosures. The decided to have a “dress up” Halloween party at work, and some of their employees (many) thought it would be great fun to mock those made homeless by the mortgage crisis and bad housing market.

Well, those photos got out and they are no longer laughing:

Steven J. Baum P.C., a firm that specialized in foreclosures, is closing its doors a month after photos showing employees celebrating Halloween by dressing like the homeless surfaced in a New York Times column by Joe Nocera. Nocera wrote a follow up column this weekend, in which he quoted an angry email he received from Mr. Baum himself. The firm announced the shuttering via press release and was reported by the NYT:

“Disrupting the livelihoods of so many dedicated and hardworking people is extremely painful, but the loss of so much business left us no choice but to file these notices,” said Mr. Baum in a press release issued on Monday. A firm spokesman said it would have no further comment beyond the release…

On Saturday, Joe Nocera, The Times columnist who originally wrote about the firm’s Halloween party, published another column about the controversy. In it, he quoted an e-mail that Mr. Baum had sent him last week.

“Mr. Nocera — You have destroyed everything and everyone related to Steven J. Baum PC,” said the letter. “It took 40 years to build this firm and three weeks to tear down.”

“I think that’s what they call shooting the messenger,” Mr. Nocera said.

Uh, no Mr. Nocera. You brought it on yourself; no one to told you to get your jollies at the expense of the less fortunate.
Funny how these a-holes are all for accountability until THEY are the ones that screw up and face the consequences.

Economy
If you are a Republican and you don’t like the actual facts, you make them up. Yes, that might fool the insipid polyester pants set:

Greg Sargent sends us to Paul Ryan’s latest — an attempt to debunk the CBO report on income inequality. As usual, Ryan makes me think of Ezra Klein’s old line about Dick Armey: he’s a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.

Greg gives us a thorough takedown by Tim Smeeding, who really really knows his inequality stuff. I’d just add that Ryan repeats the familiar line about how we have vast income mobility, so that the picture given by static inequality comparisons is misleading.

But as I’ve pointed out, the CBO report itself takes that argument on and refutes it. Multi-year measures of inequality, it turns out, aren’t much lower than single-year measures. How is that possible, when many people change income quintiles? Because they’re usually moving short distances on the income scale.

It is how you slice and dice it. Example: suppose you declare that morbid obesity for a 6 foot male starts at, say 300 pounds. Well, you might have lots of movement of people into and out of the “morbidly obese” range…but most of that is, say, 305 to 297 and back. One can slice the data to make it appear that one is moving in and out of a category.

Gosh, I love Paul Krugman. I love how he refers to Newt Gingrich:

Or Maybe Jabba The Hutt

Mr. Gingrich (who has a Ph. D., in History from Tulane) is also good at “wowing” the Newsmax crowd.

But I am saving the Best for last: President Obama just OWNED the Republicans. Remember that Super Committee that was part of a deal that many of us howled about? Well some said “not so fast”; part of the deal was this super committee which, if it failed, would trigger some massive defense cuts? Well:

Okay, remember when Democrats and progressives during the debt ceiling showdown last summer were bitching that President Barack Obama was triangulating and wimping out by negotiating (and yielding much) with the tea-party-controlled Republicans? Well, that was then. In the latest twist of this never-ending saga, Obama is both calling out the Republicans and holding what appears to be a position of strength. That may all shift suddenly. This is politics. But Obama’s Democratic fans should savor the moment.[...]

This is the direct approach: Were it not for the extremists of the House Republican conference, there would be a multitrillion-dollar deficit-reduction compromise. This spin has the benefit of being true. Obama, don’t forget, put major entitlement reductions on the table during the debt ceiling negotiations, notably a slight hike in the eligibility age for Medicare and a readjustment in the cost-of-living allowance for Social Security. It’s unclear whether the Democrats would have, at the end of the day, backed him up on this had Speaker John Boehner kicked in sufficient revenue increases to seal the deal. But Obama was at the time leaning on his party’s congressional leaders to support such a compromise—and there were signs he might win them over. Boehner did no such thing with his party. Instead, he walked away from the so-called grand bargain—twice. So when the punditerati push the easy pox-on-both-houses analysis, they’re forgetting this recent history. But Obama, to his credit, is not.

In short, the Republicans threw away getting much of what they wanted because…well, they wanted it ALL.

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