Tag Archives: politics

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Don’t Waste Your Time – Or Mine

The old adage says that you know you’re on the right track when the other side starts squealing…

So, we’ve apparently established that this guy is ok with Limbaugh’s rants, doesn’t know the definition of “socialist”, thinks I’m a “S.L.U.T.”, and has a problem with people who shave their heads.

Note that there is no response to a request for him to back his words. He’s just throwing stuff out now to see if he gets a response. And then, the “too bad they didn’t abort you” reference. Cause these guys never indulge in this stuff, right?

Mind you, this wasn’t in response to anything… Just out of the blue. I’m guessing that it was in response to yesterday’s post about Rush Limbaugh’s ongoing situation.

Now frankly, I find these kind of things humorous, and a bit flattering. I mean, the guy included me with @markos in a tweet. He’s a much bigger Twitter presence than I am. And guys like this crack me up. Because they know nothing more than what they hear on Limbaugh, or Beck, or Fox News. Critical thinking? Non-existent.

My standard response to these guys is simple – ask them to back their claim. If they can, I’m more than happy to carry on a discussion – even if they can’t help but drop back into stupid metaphors or insult. Why? Because if they’re dealing with facts, there’s at least  a point for discussion.

But as is usually the case for guys like this, there is no basis in fact. They just like to fire-bomb and run away. So, I let them – run away, that is. Once I see these guys aren’t interested in any conversation, it just becomes an entertainment. And when they don’t get me throwing fire back, they get bored. And off they go.

But this is the modus operandi of these guys. They think that bluster and insult makes their point. In fact, it just exposes them for the juveniles they are. These are the guys who wish they could have bullied people in the schoolyard, and now want to do it online, behind the safe anonymity of the Internet.

Of course, we all know it’s not that anonymous. It’s a GoDaddy domain, so make your own judgments.

The real sad part about these people is that they just can’t be reached by common sense. A look at this tweeter’s website reveals birtherism, a strong hatred for the President, and a willingness to believe any conspiracy theory as long as it attacks “liberals”. For example, a post on ACORN – which they call “embattled” – ignores the fact that ACORN was disbanded in 2010, even after they were cleared of any wrongdoing by four different investigations. They claim that ACORN has been spun off. Again, it’s fantasy, but with these folks, facts mean nothing. they can’t be bothered with facts – facts interfere with their preconceived, fabricated storylines that fit their varied and sundry prejudices.

Bottom line is – you’re never going to get these kind of folk to change their minds. Nor are you going to get them to see anything other than the pictures they have already painted in their heads. But the important thing to remember is – these aren’t the people that decide elections. They’ve always been around. The ones that can make real change, that can affect all of our futures, are the folks who actually listen. The folks who can reason, can have intelligent, civil discourse are the ones who sway elections.

So, when you run into one of these gems like the individual above – don’t waste your time. Let them waste theirs.

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A Net Gain In Employment – April ’12 Update

Graph from PortalSeven.com

U6 Unemployment graph from PortalSeven.com

So…

A few weeks ago, when the unemployment numbers for the President started looking good, the folks on the right decided that the old standby for the unemployment figures was not good enough. It’s been used for years – the last adjustment to it was 1996 – and is the number you hear quoted on the news. It stands at 8.3% today, the same number as February 2009, the first full month that the Obama administration could have responsibility for the numbers. In other words – any additional jobs from here out are an improvement during his term.

So they needed to find a way to somehow paint the accomplishment of lower unemployment in a bad light. They switched to the broader U6 number, which traditionally is nearly double the U3 number. Why? Lets look at what  the U6 number includes (from PortalSeven.com):

The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U-3 rate), but also counts “marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons.” Note that some of these part-time workers counted as employed by U-3 could be working as little as an hour a week. And the “marginally attached workers” include those who have gotten discouraged and stopped looking, but still want to work. The age considered for this calculation is 16 years and over

A much more comprehensive number, right? And a much more accurate measurement of total unemployment, agreed? So why wouldn’t the folks on the right go after this much bigger scary number?

Well, if they bothered to do a lick of research, they’d see that number is an even better marker of how well the administration has done in getting people back to work. The U6 figure in February ’09 was 15.1%.

In February ’12? 14.9%.

That’s a net gain in the number of people employed in the U6 number. But the real encouraging number is when you look at the U3 and U6 numbers together.

The U3 number staying the same is not all about fanfare. But the interesting thing is, the U6 number means a greater number of people have found work. Since the U6 number includes those who have stopped looking for work, then it stands to reason that more people are working, period. Less people are out of work, underemployed, etc.

It’s fairly simple math. And at the current pace, the U6 number will be better than the previous administration’s closing number (14.2%) fairly soon.

So, what numbers will the GOP gin up next? They can’t claim a single job bill, not a single piece of legislation to explain why the job market has improved. They can claim no credit for this improvement. So what will it be?

Then again, they don’t worry about the burden of facts, do they?

UPDATE 4/7/12 12:04 pm: The U6 number for March shows a continued improvement. The U3 dropped to 8.1% while the U6 dropped to 14.5%. This is below February 2009, the first month the President had full control, and approaching being lower than the January figure of 14.2%. So what’s the GOP – and “professional left”  - spin on this? It’s not fast enough. There is continued job growth, more people not only back to work  but entering the workforce, and it’s not fast enough. Just goes to show – they have to find a negative spin, no matter how good the news is.

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Stop Talking To Ostriches

Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

This makes it hard for them to listen... Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

I keep myself pretty informed. As much as I can, I base my opinions on data, not other people’s opinions. Yes, I probably have a bias – most people do. But I do try very hard to back my assertions with facts, not conjecture.

I have come to realize that trying to express those opinions to some individuals just isn’t worth the stress.

These individuals come in all stripes. They range from the people who still believe the President is some Manchurian Candidate character whose birthplace is in question to people who complain that their health is failing while lying to the doctor about their diet and medicine regimen. They all make me crazy. And they shouldn’t. It’s my choice to discuss these things with them. And going forward, I’m making a concerted effort not to.

Why? Because they won’t change, they won’t listen to reason, and facts mean nothing. For example – one individual I know was recently admitted to the hospital for a possible stroke. When asked about what they had eaten that day, the response was “Coffee and a cookie for breakfast”. The doctor asked “Aren’t you a diabetic with blood pressure problems?” – the individual couldn’t see how their diet choices were that big of a deal. When asked whether they took their medications regularly, the answer was “Of course”. “Did you take them this morning?” – The answer was no.

This individual’s pantry is filled with a diabetic’s dream – pastries, breads, cookies – every form of bad carbs you can imagine. And yet, they can’t figure out why they can’t lose weight. Instead, they look to fad diets, like drinking “cucumber water”, which results in a temporary loss, but no improvement in the long term. They refuse to acknowledge that their own choices are killing them.

It’s like the proverbial ostrich sticking their head in the sand. If they just ignore the facts, ignore the evidence, and just say “Oh, that doesn’t work for me” without even trying, they think they can just keep on going the way they have.

I see the same thing with conservatives. Their need to hate President Obama is so consuming that facts are irrelevant. Here are some classic examples:

  • He’s going to take away your guns! Except the only gun legislation the President has signed granted the ability to carry concealed weapons in National Parks.
  • He’s a Communist/Socialist/Name your “ist”!  Except bank bailouts, multiple small business tax cuts, and cutting government payroll say otherwise. If they call a Communist, or a Socialist, they have no real concept of the meaning of those words.
  • He’s a foreigner! Yup, this one is still around. The “Donald” is still searching for clues, despite the fact that the Secretary of State in Hawaii has produced both versions of the birth certificate. Regardless of facts, they still want to question his authenticity.
  • He’s destroying the economy! This one makes me crazy. All evidence points the other way. Job losses have essentially stopped, and unemployment has dropped steadily. Of course, once the numbers for the standard measure of unemployment (U3) showed significant improvement, conservatives jumped on the bandwagon to say  that we really should look at the U6 numbers, which take into account ALL unemployment and underemployment. Except, that number is also vastly improved. If the trend for the last 20+ months keeps up, the current administration will reach U6 levels below the levels at which President Obama came into office before the elections. And, the Dow is at levels unseen since before his election. GM is showing record profits, back from the brink of extinction. And corporations are hiring again, and showing record profits in a wide variety of industries.
  • He’s gonna kill us with these gas prices! He wants them higher! A complete twist of the President’s statements. He has said that $5/gal gas prices might reduce demand further, but demand is already at 1997 levels, and the number if rigs drilling in the Gulf is 4x what it was when he took office, despite a one year moratorium on leases. If current production trends hold up (and the industry thinks the projections might be conservative) – with no additional drilling than is already approved – the US is poised to become a net exporter of energy products in about a decade. The price of gas has nothing to do with supply and demand. It’s about speculation.

There are plenty of other examples, like refusing to give the President credit for the killing of Osama Bin Laden, or the assertion that somehow, he’s soft on terror because he chooses to work with diplomacy first. Every single one of these is easily refutable with data and facts. But that doesn’t matter.

No, these folks will not change their beliefs. Period. If presented with facts, regardless of how valid, strong, unassailable they are, they will actually redouble their efforts to believe despite all evidence to the contrary. Those facts are perceived as an assault on their very core, and their resulting behavior is to simply stick their heads in the sand and ignore what is right in front of them.

How else do you explain Tea Party proponents who want government “entitlements” slashed, but turn around and say “keep your hands off my Medicare”? They want to cut the very programs that they rely on – but don’t want those programs cut when it comes to their own welfare.

In a nutshell, you won’t change these folks’ minds. The more you show them that the facts are against them, the more entrenched they become. And the deeper their heads dive into the sand.

So, I had to come to a conclusion. I’m not going to try. Their beliefs are so entrenched that no amount of persuasion, fact, data or debate will change their minds. So, the easier solution is to focus on those folks who haven’t buried their heads in the sand, who are open to discussion. The independent thinkers who still value information over rumor, data over innuendo.

And when things continue to get better, the ostriches still won’t see it.

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This Time, It’s A Boneheaded Democrat Making Up Numbers In San Jose

Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Yes, Democrats Can Be Idiots Too - Image © Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

My conservative friends claim I only look at one side of the fence when finding stories. It’s just not true. It’s just that Republicans and conservatives have a tendency to act holier-than-thou, so their gaffes and missteps are that much more egregious.

But when someone on the left is an idiot – or worse, a flat-out liar – I have no problem calling them out. Like this guy, San Jose, CA mayor Chuck Reed. And yes, he’s a Democrat.

Reed used a made up number to trump up a “problem” with the city’s pensions. Claiming that the cost was $650 million, he proposed legislation for cuts to the city’s pensions. But the number is over estimated by more than $200 million.

So where’d he get the number? The director of retirement services made it up off the top of his head, and told Reed not to use it. Apparently, that advice wasn’t heeded.

via San Jose Mayor Uses Made-Up Budget Number to Assault City Pensions | Crooks and Liars.

Affected San Jose workers and citizens have already given up pay and benefits that will save the city more than $340 million over the next four years. They have already proposed a solution that would save the city nearly half a billion dollars more. Reed and the city council are ignoring the proposed solution and Reed has refused to back down from his support for the $650 million lie. Instead they are focused on a ballot initiative that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees say is unconstitutional. Reed and the council can withdraw the initiative at their March 6 meeting.

The workers and citizens, including police officers and firefighters have already proposed solutions, and yet Reed sticks to his bogus number.

Yes, sometimes Democrats are just as ridiculous as the GOP. Boneheadedness knows no political boundaries.

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Want Better Investments? Invest With Dem Presidents

Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Invest with Dems - 1100% return. Invest with GOP - 200%. You do the math - Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Bloomberg is no bastion of liberalism. So, when they release a report that shows Democrats make better investments, it carries a little extra weight.

Bloomberg Government did a study going back to the Kennedy inauguration – 50 years – and used as a benchmark a $1000 investment in the Dow average. They then did analysis on how that investment would grow if it was only invested during either a Democrat or Republican president. For each analysis, the investment was “pulled out” during the opposing party’s administrations.

via Analysis: Stock Returns Are Significantly Higher When A Democrat Is President | ThinkProgress.

But as it turns out, Obama is not the only Democratic President under whom the stock market has done well for investors. A Bloomberg Government report shows that since the 1960′s, stocks have done significantly better under Democratic administrations than under Republican ones:

The BGOV Barometer shows that, over the five decades since John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, $1,000 invested in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) only when Democrats are in the White House would have been worth $10,920 at the close of trading yesterday.

That’s more than nine times the dollar return an investor would have realized from following a similar strategy during Republican administrations. A $1,000 stake invested in a fund that followed the S&P 500 under Republican presidents, starting with Richard Nixon, would have grown to $2,087 on the day George W. Bush left office.

That’s more than 500% difference.

The GOP likes to say that they are pro-business and that Democrat policies are bad for business. They like to claim business is stifled under Democrat administrations. They like to complain about regulations, about government intrusion into business affairs.

But the numbers put the lie to those claims. According to the report, even if you remove the Democrats best run (under Clinton) and the Republicans worst (under George W. Bush), the Dems still come out ahead. Keep that in mind the next time you hear the GOP blather on about how bad Democrats are for business.

By the way – The Dow closed over 13,000 today, the highest since May 2008.

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GOP Worried About Negative Tone – Seriously?

Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

They're worried about being too negative. Unless it's about the President - Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

It seems the GOP establishment has started worrying that the race has gotten a bit too nasty. They’re worried they’re hurting their brand.

via 2012 election: GOP frets over nasty tenor of presidential race – POLITICO.com.

Whether or not the 2012 primaries are literally the most negative in memory, there’s no question that the race is taking a uniquely painful toll on the Republican field.
While the 2008 primaries were certainly divisive for a time, none of the candidates received the severe, lasting damage that surveys show for the 2012 field. The POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll published Monday placed three Republican candidates — Romney, Gingrich and Ron Paul — in horrendously negative territory among voters, with Santorum well on his way in the same direction.

Republican pollsters Ed Goeas and Brian Nienaber, who conducted the poll with the Democratic firm Lake Research, wrote in an analysis that their party’s candidates were essentially eating themselves alive.

Of course, that’s just within themselves. Questioning the President’s faith, insinuating that if he gets a second term we will see a nuclear detonation in the US, calling him the food stamp president, allowing birthers to continue their relentless pursuit of the futile, denigrating the poor – none of that is negative in their books. As long as they play nice with each other, they really don’t mind.

Hypocrites.

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Oklahoma’s Ultrasound Requirement Replacement Is Useless

Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

OK wants to require women listen to a heartbeat that can't be detected - Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Have you noticed how many ultrasound laws are popping up all over the country? Think they might all be coordinated? Naw, who would do that, right? Sure.

In any case, Oklahoma apparently wants to avoid the controversy that ultrasounds are generating by requiring instead that women listen to the fetal heartbeat using Doppler heart rate monitors. Except – that’s pretty much useless for preventing abortions.

via Oklahoma Proposes Forcing Women to Listen To Heartbeat 

It would be a clever work around, if not for one small problem.  You can’t hear a heartbeat on a doppler at 8 weeks.  In fact, you are lucky if you can hear the heart beat at 10 weeks.  General guidelines on seeking the heartbeat with a doppler is to wait until 13 weeks for sure, in order to be certain that you can find one, and most doctors and midwives don’t even try to beforehand because it’s so unreliable (one of the reasons why most initial prenatal appointments are scheduled for 12 weeks or later in a pregnancy).

Meanwhile, 88 percent of abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks.

In other words, Oklahoma legislators are proposing a mandatory procedure that will in almost all cases provide no actual results.  And that’s what happens when lawmakers try to legislate medical issues.

If these guys spent even a fraction of the effort on legislation that creates jobs instead of invading women’s uteri, we’d have the whole unemployment thing licked. Instead, they want into your bedroom, into your private lives.

It amazes me that these are the same guys who rail about big government, and wanting government to get out of our lives. Right up until it involves a woman making choices about her body. Then, they’re all for big government, right up to forcing women to have intravaginal ultrasounds. Yes, some of those requirements are being defeated due to public outcry – but don’t be fooled. The intravaginal requirements are being beat back slowly, but the requirement for an ultrasound remains, and in some cases, a doctor who refuses to do the ultrasound can receive a sentence of 2 to 20 years for a class 3 felony. But we don’t want government making heathcare decisions, right?

If you are a woman, and you value the right to make decisions about your own body without fear of jail time, make your voice heard.

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GOP Worried Santorum Will Sink Them

Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Is Santorum Sinking the GOP? - Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Watching the GOP start to tremble about a possible Santorum nomination is entertaining…

via The GOP’s Panic Over Rick Santorum – The Daily Beast.

For more than six months, worried conservative chieftains talked up the need to unite behind a single rightist candidate in order to block the potential victory of the “mushy moderate” from Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. Now, on the eve of crucial primaries in Michigan and Arizona, and with Super Tuesday looming just one week later, some of those same leaders speak privately of the need to unite behind that same, once-dreaded Romney in order to avert an even more dire disaster: the nomination of Rick Santorum.

For decades, the GOP has tried to nudge the country to the right. With the advent of the Tea Party, that nudge became a shove. But like the supertankers they dream of filling with Canadian tar sands oil, once that kind of movement is rolling, it’s really hard to slow it down, much less stop it. Enter Rick Santorum.

If they were really honest about it (I know, a stretch), they would admit that Santorum is simply saying out loud what they all think. But the problem is, what they think and what has a chance of winning an election are two totally different things. And what Santorum has been spewing for the last 6 weeks has been increasingly further from the mainstream. Make no mistake – Republicans want want Santorum says they want. But the more seasoned, savvy pols know that to get it, they have to win elections. And Santorum’s heavy-handed shift to the right – practically dragging the rest of the GOP with them – will alienate moderate, independent voters.

So now, as vehemently as the GOP establishment was against Romney, they are now starting to worry that Santorum will sink them. Of course, they can change tactics right up until the actual nomination. None of the delegates assigned during the primaries are binding – they can change their vote right before the convention vote.  But of course, Santorum would raise a stink that would fracture the Republican Party. But so will a Santorum win, as they see their chances of taking the White House go up in a puff of neo-papal smoke.

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Another Town Mitt Won’t Be Popular In

He’s gonna have a hard time selling this one. When a wide swath of the center of the country has been revived due to the auto industry bailouts, trying to justify that they should have been allowed to go under is a tough sell. Just ask the folks in Kokomo, IN.

via Town says it owes its life to the auto bailout – Business – Autos – msnbc.com.

Flash forward. The U.S. auto industry has staged an amazing comeback, and the town’s largest employer, Chrysler, has pledged to invest nearly $1.3 billion into its plants here, added about 1,000 workers and helped boost Kokomo’s fortunes — it was honored in 2011 by the state chamber of commerce as Community of the Year.

But the resurrection of U.S. automakers has done little to resolve a deep political divide over the bailout. Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, call it an undeniable success. The Republican presidential candidates, most notably Mitt Romney, condemn it as government meddling, both unfair and unnecessary, and even some Indiana politicians agree.

To many folks in Kokomo, though, the political debate seems disconnected from this reality: Kokomo survives.

When the President took office in January of 2009, Republicans set in their minds that the number one goal was to oust him. They stood in his way at every opportunity. What they were counting on was him failing. And when 2010 rolled around, it looked like they had achieved their goal.

But then a funny thing happened. Things started looking better. To be honest, they started turning around six months after the President took office. But it was damned deep hole to dig out of. Now, unemployment continues to drop, the markets are higher than before he took office (nearly double), consumer confidence is back, and the auto industry is booming.

All of this in direct contrast to the bleak predictions of the right when he was elected. None of their fears have come true. So, they’ve got to ratchet it up a bit more, raise the fear level.  But with what? Now it’s religion and birth control. And education. All their regular complaints are gone. They can’t even use terrorism, as this President has seem more disruption of terrorist networks than his predecessor who preached about. Think Osama Bin Laden.

It’s gonna be tougher and tougher for Republicans to make a sensible case for their views. If current trends hold up (and there is every indication they will), by November, there will be less people unemployed than there were before the President was elected.

And the people of Kokomo like that just fine.

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Mitt Inserts Foot In Mouth – Again

Over the weekend, Romney had a remarkable weekend of opening his mouth and letting stupid stuff come out. Not that this is any surprise. But at this point, he might be giving Joe Biden a run for his money…

On Friday, Romney talked, in Michigan, where he was willing to let the auto industry go belly up, about the fact that he likes cars. Has two of them. And then, he volunteered that his wife owns two Cadillacs. Apparently, it never dawned on the guy that the people he wants voting for him can’t afford one Cadillac.

So, on Sunday, he headed over to a NASCAR event – should be simple, right? Shake a few hands, smile a bunch, get out of town. Except, we’re talking about Romney.

No, when he was asked about NASCAR, he said he didn’t follow it as much as avid fans, but “I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners”. Don’t we all?

He topped off the gaffe-fest when he walked by a bunch of NASCAR fans wearing plastic ponchos to ward off the rain. Via The Maddow Blog:

In case it seemed as if Romney’s NASCAR visit wasn’t awkward enough, this was pretty remarkable, too: ”The crowd initially booed Mr. Romney, who occasionally struck a discordant note, as when he approached a group of fans wearing plastic ponchos. ‘I like those fancy raincoats you bought,’ he said. ‘Really sprung for the big bucks.’”

Yup. He taunted NASCAR fans because they were wearing inexpensive ponchos. I guess they didn’t have enough corporate sponsorship for him.

You’d have thunk that by now, he would have clued into the whole idea that he’s sounding less like the average guy and more like the rich, self-entitled corporate raider he has always been. Not a very voter friendly persona. But what lies at the heart is simple.

He doesn’t see a difference.

To Romney, everyone is rich. Everyone has four cars. Everyone has investment income. It’s why he says things like “I’m not concerned about the very poor”. He thinks they have a safety net. He doesn’t realize the whole problem is that they’re in the safety net. If you need that safety net, something has already gone wrong.

He thinks corporations are people because he thinks like a corporation. Plain and simple. It’s why he can’t connect with people – he just doesn’t see the difference.

We’ll see more of these gaffes in the upcoming weeks. But if he keeps this up, he may give Santorum a real opening.