It’s Cory Booker’s race to lose | The Fix - Washington Post

"With Republicans unable to land a top-tier candidate, the real action is in the Democratic primary, and two new polls show Booker with a huge early lead.

According to a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll, Booker leads Rep. Frank Pallone 55 percent to 9 percent, with Rep. Rush Holt bringing up the rear at 8 percent.

And a new Quinnipiac University poll shows very much the same picture, with Booker at 53 percent, Holt at 10 percent and Pallone at 9 percent."

Read more at The Washington Post's The Fix blog.

The Atlantic points out what I've always noticed about conservative media (but doesn't really explain it.)

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic has a great piece on why so many conservative "news outlets" got the election wrong:

"It is easy to close oneself off inside a conservative echo chamber. And right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you're a rank-and-file conservative, you're probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn't accurately inform you about Election 2012. Some pundits engaged in wishful thinking; others feigned confidence in hopes that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; still others decided it was smart to keep telling right-leaning audiences what they wanted to hear."

This brings me to something I noticed a few years ago and never could find an answer for it. Where are the liberals in conservative media? Conservative Media always blames the mainstream media as having a liberal bias. Think of the "liberal media" for a second:
- MSNBC? A former Republican Congressman hosts a three-hour morning news show (which, in case you're wondering, is three hours more than any liberal hosts a show on Fox News).
- New York Times? David Brooks and Ross Douthat have regular columns in the Op-Ed pages.
- Washington Post? Same with Michael Gerson, Charles Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker, George Will...

I ask again, where are the liberals in conservative media? Alan Colmes? Sure, he makes a token appearance from time-to-time on Fox News but it's not like he hosts his own TV show anymore (and even then, it was Hannity & Colmes). Thomas Frank? Nope, not with the Wall Street Journal anymore, and even when he was, his column printed less frequently than Brooks or Douthat do with the New York Times.

I'm not saying conservative media should swing to the ideological middle. There is a need for both, objective and partisan media. However, if you only offer your viewers partisanship without an intellectually honest counterpoint, you're likely to end up in the exact same place the Republican Party is sitting in today. And in the long term that's not good for the party or for the country.

FactChecking the Hofstra Debate

The usual suspects have worked overtime to sift through the BS and tell you the truth. Check out FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and The Washington Post's Fact Checker for more.

The White House is good at this sport called 'Politics'...

Matt Miller's latest Washington Post column talks about the White House's recent tactics that truly exemplify 'The Sport of Politics':

"What a coincidence that President Obama’s first news conference in nearly six months just happened to fall on Super Tuesday! And what a twist of fate that the president found himself addressing the United Auto Workers conference last week on the very day of the Michigan primary, where he had the chance to blast an unnamed GOP candidate for saying we should have “let Detroit go bankrupt.”

Barack Obama is the new master of the “split screen.” The White House is managing the president’s schedule and activities so that major events on the GOP campaign calendar become chances to contrast the president in the news cycle with the frivolous, shrill and increasingly surreal Republican race. The targets of this campaign are the independent voters who will decide the November election.

The “split-screen” strategy is looking very effective so far."

More reasons for why the filibuster is bad.

Ezra Klein with a blog post on why the filibuster promotes partisanship:

"The crucial idea here is that it is very different to kill a bill than to vote against a bill. When the minority party kills a bill, they have made the majority into a failure. And when voters perceive the majority as failing, they vote in the other guys. If you’re in the minority, there’s no faster path back to power than killing bills."

America's Investment Problem.

Great op-ed piece by Fareed Zakaria in today's Washington Post. He pragmatically lays out the issues with the economy today, which are none of the things the Republican Party claim are the problem:

"One theory heard a lot these days is that the economy is burdened by excessive government regulation, interference and taxes. All these pressures on business, especially small business, are keeping the economy down. Cut them, the Republican candidates all say, and the economy will be unleashed. It’s a compelling picture, but the data simply do not support it."

Some of the data he presents in his column:

* A World Economic Forum survey that ranks countries on their overall economic competitiveness puts the United States fifth; the countries ahead of it, including Singapore and Finland, are tiny, with populations around 5 percent that of the United States.

* The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a study last week measuring tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product. The United States came in 27th out of 30 countries.

* The World Bank study finds that the only category in which the United States is not in the top 20 is “paying taxes,” where it ranks a miserable 72.

* Only five years ago, American infrastructure used to be ranked in the top 10 by the World Economic Forum. Now we’re 24th. U.S. air infrastructure has gone from 12th to 31st, roads from eighth to 20th.

* The United States used to have the world’s largest percentage of college graduates. We’re now No. 14, according to the most recent OECD data, and American students routinely rank toward the bottom of the developed world.

* The number of engineering degrees conferred annually decreased more than 11 percent between 1989 and 2000. Even with the increase in college attendance over the past two decades, there were fewer engineering and engineering technologies graduates in 2009 (84,636) than in 1989 (85,002).

So yeah, tax cuts are the problem to fix issues in national infrastructure and education caused by a lack of tax revenue. Let me know when this alien math is supposed to work.

"I'll tell you who is an attractive man: George Will."

There's a great exchange between Elaine, Kramer, and Jerry in the Seinfeld episode "The Jimmy":

Jerry: "Elaine and I we're just discussing whether I could admit a man is attractive."
Kramer: "Hmm! Oh! Yeah. I'll tell you who is an attractive man: George Will."
Jerry: "Really!"
Kramer: "Yeah! He has clean looks, scrubbed and shampooed and...."
Elaine: "He's smart...."
Kramer: "No, no I don't find him all that bright."

It turns out Kramer was right as George Will makes the ridiculous leap from an on-campus religious organization at Vanderbilt University expelling a member after finding out he was gay to claiming progressives would want pharmacists to lose their licences if they refuse to dispense the morning-after pill:

"Here, however, is how progressivism limits freedom by abolishing the public-private distinction: First, a human right — to, say, engage in homosexual practices — is deemed so personal that government should have no jurisdiction over it. Next, this right breeds another right, to the support or approval of others. Finally, those who disapprove of it must be coerced.

Sound familiar? It should. First, abortion should be an individual’s choice. Then, abortion should be subsidized by government. Next, pro-life pharmacists who object to prescribing abortifacients should lose their licenses. Thus do rights shrink to privileges reserved for those with government-approved opinions.

The question, at Vanderbilt and elsewhere, should not be whether a particular viewpoint is right but whether an expressive association has a right to espouse it. Unfortunately, in the name of tolerance, what is tolerable is being defined ever more narrowly."

This is what I don't get about conservatives like George Will. There is no nuance to their positions. What does one issue have to do with the other? Nothing. Then why would the same principles apply? To Will and other neocons, every idea must apply equally to everything completely unrelated to it. Either you are with them or you're against them. The whole world is one big gray area yet they are so blind to it that everything can only be black or white.

Another great part of that Seinfeld episode was the character of 'Jimmy', who used to refer to himself in the third person and got George Costanza to do the same.

In that case, Amod agrees with Kramer. Amod doesn't find George Will all that bright either.

Excellent op-ed by Bill Gates in today's Washington Post

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wrote an excellent op-ed piece in today's Washington Post, ahead of his presentation to the heads of the G-20 nations on Thursday. One key blurb from his piece:

"Aid is targeted to fill specific gaps in development. The most important of these gaps is innovation. When the private sector doesn’t have incentive, and poor governments don’t have the money, smart aid pays for breakthrough solutions. The green revolution that fed a billion people in the 1950s and ’60s never would have happened without advanced agricultural science funded by U.S. aid."

Climate change skeptics running out of excuses...

Eugene Robinson's column today talks about a climate change skeptic that decided he would disprove all the global warming science and ended up proving it himself.

I'm guessing the Republican Party will disavow this guy pretty quickly now that he hasn't fallen in line with the ideology. The future will talk about today's Right Wing like the way the church is described today for executing Copernicus for saying the sun is at the center of our solar system. Of course, if there is a future since we may not survive it based on the science proven in the op-ed.

Today's Flavor of the Day: NJ Gov. Chris Christie

It seems like there is such disappointment with the Republican field right now that everyone is trying to entice New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to join the already convoluted race. "Should he or shouldn't he?" aside, Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post and Politicker NJ both weigh in -- no Christie-related pun intended (although Politicker NJ does bring it up) -- with three and five reasons, respectively, on whether or not he should run.

Additionally, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight tries to figure out how Christie differentiates from Republican frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

And these are just the article about this topic today. If this Republican field gets any less appealing, who knows how many calls there will be for Christie to enter the race. Stay tuned.

$10 million prize in a national election lottery? I'd get out the vote in that election!

Matt Miller writes a very interesting and thoroughly detailed column in The Washington Post about the type of stump speech a pragmatic centrist third party candidate would make. Although I don't agree with his ideal notion of a third party, this column really puts some cold hard truths out there:

On Education:
"We’ve been tinkering at the edges when it comes to school improvement, because we’ve ignored the most important question: Who should teach? While the world’s highest-performing school systems — those in places like Singapore, Finland and South Korea — recruit their teachers from the top third of their graduating class, we recruit ours from the middle and bottom thirds, especially for schools in poor neighborhoods. This “strategy” isn’t working. Up through the 1970s, the quality of our teacher corps was in effect subsidized by discrimination, because women and minorities didn’t have many other job opportunities. All that’s changed, but as career options have multiplied for those who used to become teachers, salaries haven’t kept pace to attract top talent."

On Health Care:
"We need to make sure every person in America has basic health coverage that doesn’t break the bank. To achieve that, Democrats must accept a private insurance industry and Republicans must accept that some people can’t afford decent policies on their own. This “grand bargain” is about liberals agreeing that innovation shouldn’t be regulated out of U.S. health care and conservatives agreeing that justice has to be regulated into it. The 50 million uninsured may seem invisible, but today their ranks are equal to the combined populations of Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming. Would America turn its back on these 25 states if they all lacked basic health coverage? That is what we’ve been doing for decades."

On the Financial Markets:
"The banking system is now more concentrated than it was before the financial crisis. There are two ways to avoid the “too big to fail” threat that still exists. We can limit the risks these big banks take — though regulators don’t have a great track record of getting this right. The most important thing we can do, therefore, is make sure big banks have enough capital to absorb any conceivable losses. Yet bank lobbyists are now swarming Washington to keep capital requirements low – in part because higher levels of capital reduce what top bankers can pay themselves. Their bonuses are often based on such metrics as a firm’s “return on equity,” which can be goosed by continually piling debt atop a tiny equity base. That’s Wall Street’s plan. Heads, I win; tails, taxpayers lose. Again."

His idea for turning the national election into a lottery with a $10 million grand prize is definitely out-of-the-box, as is the recommendation to lower the voting age to 15. All-in-all, it's definitely worth the time to read this article all the way through and see how far you actually are from these ideas, regardless of your political ideology.

"Your life is not your own."

Great post at The Incidental Economist about Ezra Klein's post at The Washington Post on the libertarian view on health care. A few great points below.

From Ezra Klein:

"It’s all well and good to say personal responsibility is the bedrock of liberty, but even the hardest of libertarians has always understood that there are places where your person ends and mine begins. Generally, we think of this in terms of violent intrusion or property transgressions. But in health care, it has to do with compassion.

We are a decent society, and we do not want to look in people’s pockets for an insurance card when they fall to the floor with chest pains. If we’re not going to look in their pockets, however, we need some answer for who pays when they wake up — or, God forbid, after they stop breathing — in the hospital."

From TIE:

"...my life is not entirely my own to the extent (some) libertarians may think it is or ought to be. I am not the only one who cares about the consequences of my decisions. I am not the only one who suffers or enjoys what comes of them. I am not the only one who cares about whether I live or die. I am not the only one who matters.

It’s not just some vague “society” that cares about my life. It’s much more concrete than that. It’s the people I see every day, that I live with, for whom I’m, in part, responsible and on whom I rely. It’s my family, friends, and co-workers. They all care about my life. I care about theirs. My life is not entirely my own."

Both are excellent reads and really clarify why libertarianism, like liberalism or conservatism, is not a 'one size fits all' solution to the world.

Breakdown of Appeals Court Ruling on Health Care Reform

The Incidental Economist breaks down nicely the nuances of the court ruling on the Affordable Care Act.

Additionally, Ezra Klein has an informative and detailed post on what the future holds for health care reform.

Pimco Founder: A Balanced Budget will not produce a balanced economy.

Great op-ed piece in The Washington Post by Bill Gross, founder and co-CIO of the investment management firm Pimco. The whole quote is:

"...an anti-Keynesian, budget-balancing immediacy imparts a constrictive noose around whatever demand remains alive and kicking. Washington hassles over debt ceilings instead of job creation in the mistaken belief that a balanced budget will produce a balanced economy. It will not."

Mr. Gross also makes the following astute observation:

"But while our debt crisis is real and promises to grow to Frankenstein proportions in future years, debt is not the disease — it is a symptom. Lack of aggregate demand or, to put it simply, insufficient consumption and investment is the disease. Debt has been simply an abused sovereign and private market antidote to sustain it. We and our global market competitors are and have been experiencing a lack of aggregate demand for several decades. It is now only visibly coming to a head, as the magic elixir of leverage is drained and exhausted."

This is a must-read article!

Mr. Toles Strikes Again!

On target, as usual. Like the man said, put everything in DENIAL!

"Why do half of all Americans pay no federal income taxes?"

If you've wondered why roughly half of all Americans pay no federal income taxes, Ezra Klein asks the same question and comes to this conclusion:

"But the basic story here is that once you've added together the standard features of the tax code and the tax expenditures for the elderly, poor and young, you've explained almost everyone who doesn't pay taxes."

Read the whole post and the Tax Policy Center report that it links to. You'll be glad you did.

"Today, the U.S. defense establishment is the world’s largest socialist economy."

Fareed Zakaria explains in his Washington Post column today something that should make conservatives cringe:

"Serious conservatives should examine the defense budget, which contains tons of evidence of liberalism run amok that they usually decry. Most talk of waste, fraud and abuse in government is vastly exaggerated; there simply isn’t enough money in discretionary spending. Most of the federal government’s spending is transfer payments and tax expenditures, which are — whatever their merits — highly efficient at funneling money to their beneficiaries. The exception is defense, a cradle-to-grave system of housing, subsidies, cost-plus procurement, early retirement and lifetime pension and health-care guarantees. There is so much overlap among the military services, so much duplication and so much waste that no one bothers to defend it anymore. Today, the U.S. defense establishment is the world’s largest socialist economy."

Negotiating Tactics

So true!

Why The Math Doesn't Work

Ezra Klein starts off clearly:

"There are now two sides in the American tax debate: the Republican Party, which refuses to have a serious conversation about taxes, and the Democratic Party, which . . . refuses to have a serious conversation about taxes."

...then goes on to explain why the math doesn't work:

"The debt-ceiling deal simply proves the point. Let’s say the spending cuts go exactly as the Republicans hope: We cut $900 billion now and $1.5 trillion later. That’s more cuts than the White House says it would ever agree to, but ignore that for a moment. Now let’s say the tax side goes according to the White House’s plan: Most of the Bush tax cuts are extended, but the break for income of more than $250,000 a year expires. Are we done?

I asked Jim Horney of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to run the numbers. In 2021, that scenario would leave the debt above 75 percent of GDP — and growing. That’s well above the 60 percent of GDP most deficit hawks think we should shoot for, and it doesn’t leave us at all prepared to deal with costs related to the retiring baby boomers."

Definitely an informative read.

Can't someone else do it?

The Fix blog has a post about how the Republicans ran the type of election in 2010 that Homer Simpson did when he ran for Garbage Commissioner in a Simpsons episode. The parallels are very interesting.

There is one more thing the article doesn't mention from the episode that is also similar to the way Republicans run for office. They claim the mantle of fiscal conservatism but do the exact opposite when they get elected, like this exchange between Marge and Homer:

Marge: How could you blow through a year's budget in just one month?
Homer: They let me sign checks with a stamp, Marge. WITH A STAMP!!

Kind of like rubber-stamping everything that the "fiscal conservative" George W. Bush did in his eight years as President.