You couldn't make this up. COULDN'T IN A MILLION YEARS MAKE THIS UP. Paul Krugman reports a comment from Senator Mitch McConnell. I don't know if Krugman and Reich are fun fellows to be around or not, but I do know that Rush Limbaugh is one of the most vile and reprehensible human beings on the face of the earth. There is no more pompous blow-hard on the face of the earth than Limbaugh.
New York Times Blog
February 27, 2009, 11:04 am — Updated: 11:04 am -->
Triumph of the dull
No comment:
In his CPAC speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more “interesting” and “fun” than liberals. Here’s his proof: “who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?”
Friday, February 27, 2009
Robert D. Richardson - William James
I have tried so hard to get into the head of William James, perhaps the leading intellectual of the 19th century (since I am a 19th century person), but now I'm ready to give up having read this definitive biography of James. I like William James since he was a roving intellectual who dabbled very successfully in many things in various areas of psychology, philosophy, and religion. It's just that somehow even after reading this exhaustive book I just can't get a handle on James. Earlier I had read the Linda Simon biography and I've read many of his essays but somehow, somehow, I just don't click with this guy. I thought I would click with pragmatism, but so far that hasn't worked either. What gives?
Tell It Like It Is, James!
Tell it like it is, James Carville, as the Republicans, as usual, put ideology over the needs of people and ideology over common sense.
Commentary: Jindal leads GOP on a 'march of folly'
Story Highlights
James Carville: Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote of people on "march of folly"
She documented people in high positions doing self-defeating things, he says
Carville says Republicans are risking their own march to folly now
He says it doesn't make sense to oppose expanding benefits for the jobless.
Editor's Note: James Carville, a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, was the Clinton-Gore campaign manager in 1992 and political adviser to President Clinton. He is active in Democratic politics and a party fundraiser.
James Carville says the Republicans who oppose expanded jobless benefits are on a "march to folly."
(CNN) -- Over the course of history, governments, political regimes and leaders have done some stupid things despite all arguments to the contrary, at times even against their own self-interest.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman (best known for "The Guns of August") chronicled this in "The March of Folly," examining the Trojan War, the provocation by the Renaissance Popes that led to the Protestant secession, the unnecessary loss of American colonies by Britain and the now well-documented United States loss in Vietnam.
Fast forward to 2009. The Republican Party has just suffered a bad but not unprecedented defeat. The U.S. economy is in shambles. And the patch of ground some leading figures in the GOP have chosen to occupy to rally back is to oppose expanded unemployment benefits in the middle of a recession.
They could have chosen a stronger national defense and terrorism policy, personal responsibility or even market-based health care reform. Arguing that President Obama's publicly-supported economic stimulus bill was full of wasteful spending (Rush Limbaugh termed it "Porkulus") was not enough.
No, their cause in this time of crisis is to deny expanded unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of jobless workers by saying they would not accept added federal funding for them.
So my home state governor, creationism-toting Bobby Jindal, the newly-tapped spokesperson of the Rush Limbaugh-led Republican Party, and a handful of Southern governors, took their stand on expanded unemployment benefits which make up about 2 percent of the economic recovery package
This, despite the fact that ec
onomists from all political ideologies concluded that extending the length of time that workers can collect unemployment insurance benefits would be one of the most effective stimulus measures.
A 2008 Congressional Budget Office memo stated that it would be an effective measure for Congress to pass because "it seems likely that recipients would spend most of those benefits."
Mark Zandi, former economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's campaign, estimates that for every $1 invested in unemployment benefits assistance, $1.64 in economic activity is generated.
Gov. Jindal is being joined in this folly by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose states have high jobless rates and could use the most economic assistance.
Worse, the right's new hero is CNBC's Rick Santelli, a man who on September 2, 2008, said the economy was healthy and blamed the business media for the financial crisis.
He has taken a similarly small, eroding patch of ground to mount a charge against the government's recovery package by suggesting that the government should let more homes needlessly fall into foreclosure.
In his latest tirade, Santelli comments the government is "promoting bad behavior" and that it's going to "subsidize the losers' mortgages." Well Mr. Santelli, President Obama's home affordability plan will help stave off even more foreclosures and allow those who are barely staying afloat to refinance their mortgages, both of which are in the best interest of the American economy as each foreclosed home reduces nearby property values by as much as 9 percent.
This is the same guy who recently said that the all-white, all-male stock traders next to him represented "a pretty good statistical cross-section of America. The silent majority." This from a former derivatives trader -- a patriotic profession up there with the likes of soldiers, teachers and farmers. Like what America needs now is advice from a derivatives trader.
Today's Republican Party, the lowest-held political party in the history of modern polling, should be in agony. They have just committed a serious blunder -- a folly have you.
If the great Mrs. Tuchman were still alive, she'd surely call this latest Republican gambit the Cap Pistols of February.
Commentary: Jindal leads GOP on a 'march of folly'
Story Highlights
James Carville: Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote of people on "march of folly"
She documented people in high positions doing self-defeating things, he says
Carville says Republicans are risking their own march to folly now
He says it doesn't make sense to oppose expanding benefits for the jobless.
Editor's Note: James Carville, a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, was the Clinton-Gore campaign manager in 1992 and political adviser to President Clinton. He is active in Democratic politics and a party fundraiser.
James Carville says the Republicans who oppose expanded jobless benefits are on a "march to folly."
(CNN) -- Over the course of history, governments, political regimes and leaders have done some stupid things despite all arguments to the contrary, at times even against their own self-interest.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman (best known for "The Guns of August") chronicled this in "The March of Folly," examining the Trojan War, the provocation by the Renaissance Popes that led to the Protestant secession, the unnecessary loss of American colonies by Britain and the now well-documented United States loss in Vietnam.
Fast forward to 2009. The Republican Party has just suffered a bad but not unprecedented defeat. The U.S. economy is in shambles. And the patch of ground some leading figures in the GOP have chosen to occupy to rally back is to oppose expanded unemployment benefits in the middle of a recession.
They could have chosen a stronger national defense and terrorism policy, personal responsibility or even market-based health care reform. Arguing that President Obama's publicly-supported economic stimulus bill was full of wasteful spending (Rush Limbaugh termed it "Porkulus") was not enough.
No, their cause in this time of crisis is to deny expanded unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of jobless workers by saying they would not accept added federal funding for them.
So my home state governor, creationism-toting Bobby Jindal, the newly-tapped spokesperson of the Rush Limbaugh-led Republican Party, and a handful of Southern governors, took their stand on expanded unemployment benefits which make up about 2 percent of the economic recovery package
This, despite the fact that ec
onomists from all political ideologies concluded that extending the length of time that workers can collect unemployment insurance benefits would be one of the most effective stimulus measures.
A 2008 Congressional Budget Office memo stated that it would be an effective measure for Congress to pass because "it seems likely that recipients would spend most of those benefits."
Mark Zandi, former economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's campaign, estimates that for every $1 invested in unemployment benefits assistance, $1.64 in economic activity is generated.
Gov. Jindal is being joined in this folly by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose states have high jobless rates and could use the most economic assistance.
Worse, the right's new hero is CNBC's Rick Santelli, a man who on September 2, 2008, said the economy was healthy and blamed the business media for the financial crisis.
He has taken a similarly small, eroding patch of ground to mount a charge against the government's recovery package by suggesting that the government should let more homes needlessly fall into foreclosure.
In his latest tirade, Santelli comments the government is "promoting bad behavior" and that it's going to "subsidize the losers' mortgages." Well Mr. Santelli, President Obama's home affordability plan will help stave off even more foreclosures and allow those who are barely staying afloat to refinance their mortgages, both of which are in the best interest of the American economy as each foreclosed home reduces nearby property values by as much as 9 percent.
This is the same guy who recently said that the all-white, all-male stock traders next to him represented "a pretty good statistical cross-section of America. The silent majority." This from a former derivatives trader -- a patriotic profession up there with the likes of soldiers, teachers and farmers. Like what America needs now is advice from a derivatives trader.
Today's Republican Party, the lowest-held political party in the history of modern polling, should be in agony. They have just committed a serious blunder -- a folly have you.
If the great Mrs. Tuchman were still alive, she'd surely call this latest Republican gambit the Cap Pistols of February.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The End of History?
My question is this: are we coming to end of history as we know it?
The President says, “We will recover; we will rebuild.” History “says” he is correct given the broad expanse of American history---the continual economic booms and busts that dot our collective history. We’ve always come out of these busts in the past. But is it different this time? Are we sinking into an economic black hole from which there is no return? Will I be alive if and when we do come out of it? Will I be properly dressed for the occasion? Will there be enough soft food for me to eat? Will I recognize the country by the time we do come out of it? Or will my neighbors hiss and curse at me under their breath because my turban is not the same color as theirs.
I fear we face the end of literature. Online digital reading will kill literature. Who is going to read Tolstoy anymore? (Actually, who reads Tolstoy now?) Who is going to read anything of substance anymore? Will reading the labels on oatmeal boxes begin to count as literature? Will the bookstores only carry Terry Pratchet and Twilight? Once all the independent bookstores vanish will there only be one bookstore in every town the size of mine? One Wal Mart bookstore---take it or leave it?
When the money runs out for all of us, will we remember the days when we actually carried this paper and copper in our possession and that we could swap these things for real tangible THINGS? Will we miss THINGS like houses and cars and fresh vegetables?
As I get older and my mind gets shakier, will I live increasingly in the past or will I forget the past? Will I be able to tell the difference anyway? At a certain point will the past and present coexist in my mind like intertwined DNA strands so that one becomes the other and vice versa? Will I be able to remember my wife’s name and all the wonderful times we’ve had together, or will the memory of my first puppy be the highlight of my latter years.
The political partisanship becomes shriller by the hour. What if Rush Limbaugh (the head of the Republican Party) became President? After all, he knows it all. If Limbaugh were to become President, would Oxycontin become available over the counter? Would hate speech become the most popular means of public communication? Would Ann Coulter be Vice-President? And maybe Sean Hannity Secretary of State? What about Joe the Plumber? Chief of staff? Palin would have to stay in Alaska. Limbaugh could never handle that diva.
By the way, was Abraham Lincoln our first President? Did World War I come before or after the Civil War? Did Al Gore invent electricity?
If the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off, who will warn us of the next great crisis? Dogs sniff the ground to keep up with what’s going on. Will somebody clue me in before I lose it and start doing likewise?
P.S. I believe that lurking somewhere beneath my prose is profundity. If anyone finds it, do let me know.
The President says, “We will recover; we will rebuild.” History “says” he is correct given the broad expanse of American history---the continual economic booms and busts that dot our collective history. We’ve always come out of these busts in the past. But is it different this time? Are we sinking into an economic black hole from which there is no return? Will I be alive if and when we do come out of it? Will I be properly dressed for the occasion? Will there be enough soft food for me to eat? Will I recognize the country by the time we do come out of it? Or will my neighbors hiss and curse at me under their breath because my turban is not the same color as theirs.
I fear we face the end of literature. Online digital reading will kill literature. Who is going to read Tolstoy anymore? (Actually, who reads Tolstoy now?) Who is going to read anything of substance anymore? Will reading the labels on oatmeal boxes begin to count as literature? Will the bookstores only carry Terry Pratchet and Twilight? Once all the independent bookstores vanish will there only be one bookstore in every town the size of mine? One Wal Mart bookstore---take it or leave it?
When the money runs out for all of us, will we remember the days when we actually carried this paper and copper in our possession and that we could swap these things for real tangible THINGS? Will we miss THINGS like houses and cars and fresh vegetables?
As I get older and my mind gets shakier, will I live increasingly in the past or will I forget the past? Will I be able to tell the difference anyway? At a certain point will the past and present coexist in my mind like intertwined DNA strands so that one becomes the other and vice versa? Will I be able to remember my wife’s name and all the wonderful times we’ve had together, or will the memory of my first puppy be the highlight of my latter years.
The political partisanship becomes shriller by the hour. What if Rush Limbaugh (the head of the Republican Party) became President? After all, he knows it all. If Limbaugh were to become President, would Oxycontin become available over the counter? Would hate speech become the most popular means of public communication? Would Ann Coulter be Vice-President? And maybe Sean Hannity Secretary of State? What about Joe the Plumber? Chief of staff? Palin would have to stay in Alaska. Limbaugh could never handle that diva.
By the way, was Abraham Lincoln our first President? Did World War I come before or after the Civil War? Did Al Gore invent electricity?
If the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off, who will warn us of the next great crisis? Dogs sniff the ground to keep up with what’s going on. Will somebody clue me in before I lose it and start doing likewise?
P.S. I believe that lurking somewhere beneath my prose is profundity. If anyone finds it, do let me know.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ridiculing the GOP
It seems like everyone is joining in the fun: ridiculing the Republican Party. The hilarious irony is that Republicans seem to make the case that government doesn't work based on their own party's ineptitude (see GWB's 8 years of disaster).
February 25, 2009, 11:08 am — Updated: 12:43 pm --> FROM PAUL KRUGMAN
What should government do? A Jindal meditation
What is the appropriate role of government?
Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that the government should play a large role in sanding off the market economy’s rough edges, conservatives believe that time and chance happen to us all, and that’s that.
But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.
So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.
And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the 3:50 pm — Updated: 12:44 pm -->
February 25, 2009, 11:08 am — Updated: 12:43 pm --> FROM PAUL KRUGMAN
What should government do? A Jindal meditation
What is the appropriate role of government?
Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that the government should play a large role in sanding off the market economy’s rough edges, conservatives believe that time and chance happen to us all, and that’s that.
But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.
So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.
And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the 3:50 pm — Updated: 12:44 pm -->
Reaction to Jindal
LEHRER: How well did he do?
BROOKS: Not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this...in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff...to just ignore all that and say government's the problem...corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending - it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he's making that case. I think it's insane. I think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.
FROM FRED: Even David Brooks, the voice of respectable Republicanism, pans Jindal.
BROOKS: Not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this...in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff...to just ignore all that and say government's the problem...corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending - it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he's making that case. I think it's insane. I think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.
FROM FRED: Even David Brooks, the voice of respectable Republicanism, pans Jindal.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
While driving to work
While driving to work today I was listening to CNN on my satellite radio and someone was interviewing this high school girl who has the aspiration to go to an Ivy League college but her goal is threatened because her Mother lost her job and she figures she can't afford it. After all, scholarship money is becoming more scarce. I couldn't but think that this girl probably shouldn't go to an Ivy League school anyway. Maybe that's a good idealistic goal for a high school student these days, but somehow I am not convinced. We can't all go to Princeton, can we? I didn't go to an Ivy League school, and I do not feel in any way inferior to anyone else. After all, George W. Bush went to Yale and Harvard Business School. I rest my case.
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