There was a Republican debate yesterday? Who cares — at this point, the only reason anyone is watching them is like watching NASCAR, hoping for a spectacular crash. And Rick Perry delivers.
Everyone is groaning over how he couldn’t even remember which government agencies he plans to axe if he gets into office, but seriously—the ones he remembers are education and commerce? He seriously wants to shut down education? We should be howling at that, but that’s the kind of wicked nonsense we expect of Republicans anymore.
Apparently, the third agency was the Department of Energy, which he rails against every day in his regular stump speech. Again, now is the time to cut off energy policy? The man is insane as well as stupid.
He seriously wants to shut down education?
He’s from TEXAS, PZ.
Education just gets in the way of Designer. Makes people criticize god-loving candidates for being ignorant.
Let be and let Designer designate Perry the President of the US.
Plus, “aw shucks” should take care of everything. Perry and God’s not interested in your pathetic level of detail.
Glen Davidson
OK, abandoning a national energy policy is a loonytoons idea. But I think you’re wrong to assume that his wanting to shut down the Dept of Education is the equivalent of his wanting to “shut down education.” There is a case to be made for the idea that the Dept. of Education has not materially improved public education since its inception. [I don’t find the idea convincing but it’s not a trivial one.]
Second: anyone who does a lot of public speaking will freeze up on occasion. I don’t think it signifies a whole lot, his going dry suddenly on this one point in one debate. I think he’s a religious loon who’d be a disaster as President, but that judgment rests in no way on his freezing up in one televised debate.
I did wonder if all of those right wingers who jeer endlessly on blogs about the President’s use of a teleprompter are this morning wishing Perry had access to one last night.
How is this Perry brain fart really any different from the strangeness that is the Herman Cain campaign?
I keep waiting for someone to come on stage an announce the whole Republican Presidential race has been one big joke played on the world.
Sadly though I suspect the whole is supposed to be for real.
As someone living in Texas, I am sorely disappointed. I wanted him to win the nomination so this breakdown could have happened in the general election.
And the fact that he wants to shut down the Dept. of Education should tell the nation all it needs to know about this idiot. Education doesn’t matter to him. Which explains a lot about the educational system in Texas. And the fact that he doesn’t seem to believe that we need a government body to oversee energy and commerce in this country also speaks volumes about the shit we’ve dealt with in this state.
Hot damn ! That boy Rick’s just smokin’ them dee-bates ainty. I bet his ole lady is tearin’ him a new one night and day for fuckin up her chance at redecoratin the white house with lots and lots of jeezusy stuff.
“oops” – Rick Perry, former presidential candidate for the United States of America.
One good thing we can say about Perry: he has good hair!
Oh Becker, if we didn’t hear stupid shit from Perry all of the time we might give him a pass on the brain freeze. Good god, he’s a creationist.
So I’ll even say that this lapse might very well be due to fatigue and what-not, but it symbolizes his all-too-great ignorance, which is well-attested.
Glen Davidson
Doesn’t the DOE keep control over things like making sure that nuclear weapons and our nuclear power plants don’t malfunction?
Oh yes, here it is.
Yes. I can see where this is entirely unnecessary or should be put back into the hands of the military so it can police itself. *eyeroll*
re: Department of Education. I’m not sure if a federal department is even a good idea anymore. Many states could have avoided No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Race to the Top programs if they weren’t federally mandated. Also, I think this new Common Core (curriculum), which sounds like a good idea, isn’t federally mandated but is an agreement among 47 (I think?) of the states. In the end, I might prefer the federal government just giving block grants to the states so they can take care of their education problems independently.
(We also don’t have to worry about intelligent design getting in the schools because the federal courts have blocked it anyway.)
If I’m totally wrong about this, I would love to be corrected.
If I recall it was Eisenhower who insisted that there must be civilian oversight over military use of nuclear power and weapons.
Kele, given how local school programs still try to put things like creationism and graduation prayers in defiance of federal court rulings, I would say national oversight in the form of a Department of Education is still necessary.
@ #12
(We also don’t have to worry about intelligent design getting in the schools because the federal courts have blocked it anyway.)
At the moment. That could easily change if the Scalia wing of the Supreme Court gets one or two more votes, which will probably happen under a Republican president.
Perry is out of it, thank goodness. Cain is out of it. Every other Republican candidate except Romney is not very popular. It will be Mitt “Let’s stay in Iraq forever” Romney against Obama.
Oh, it’s a joke alright; but one of those mean-spirited jokes groups of young boys in films play where the butt of the joke is killed, through idiotic, unthinking negligence.
That wasn’t a brainfart, it was a wildcard operator.
He is going to abolish the Department of *.
#3 – “There is a case to be made for the idea that the Dept. of Education has not materially improved public education since its inception. [I don’t find the idea convincing but it’s not a trivial one.]”
Why clutter this space with assertions you don’t accept? Even a little evidence might be useful. Or does the lack of evidence imply your assertion is silly?
This is one of the reasons why I am critical of the NCSE policy of taking legal action against school districts that try to teach creationism/ID. The reason it should not be taught as science is not because it is against the law, but because it is not science.
Using the law may be necessary at times, but to have to go to court is an indication of failure.
I don’t think Cain is out of it.
Our society has a very high tolerance for sex offenders.
You gotta remember, guys, a lot of republicans don’t really understand these “policy” thingies or what they mean, they just like it when liberals get all mad and flustered. So they’ll vote for Perry explicitly because the notion of shutting down both DoEs makes liberals howl in frustration. The actual real-world effects on the economy or the environment don’t matter, just that some liberal somewhere is angry about it.
Sadly I think you’re right.
Did I write ‘negligence’? I meant ‘malice’.
At the risky of sounding cocky as a Canadian, here’s Obama inspecting Harper’s Remembrance Day poppy.
Lest We Forget that Harper practically came in his ginch at the thought of joining Bush in rampaging across Iraq.
In the debate Mitt Romney stated his policy is to literally dot he opposite of Obama.
Pinko Commie!!!!!
*sits in blockquote fail corner*
That epic brainfart will be seen as a positive with the Republican base, where the less you know, the farther you go, and the guy you want to have a beer with is your new king. And believe me, if you can name 3 federal departments, you’re not a guy these people want to have a beer with.
I can remember thinking George W Bush was a faux-redneck, totally unelectable joke. Turns out he was a 2 term president.
When the s hits the f, these people won’t vote for Romney (too Mormon), they won’t vote for Cain (too Black), they won’t vote for Bachman (not as hot as Palin), they are gonna nominate Perry.
And the more he can do to convince the Republican base that he’s dumber than they are, the better his shot at the nomination.
@ZincAvenger – “Wildcard operator” – genius.
I can forgive him forgetting, the brain plays all kinds of tricks on us, refusing to recall a simple word that we know quite well is a minor one. I can’t forgive the utter ignorance he displays in thinking these departments aren’t important.
My favorite comment on Cain, from one of his donors, interviewed b NPR: “I don’t believe it, and even if I did, Clinton did worse.”
Worse? Really? As far as I can tell the only difference between Cain and Clinton is that Clinton’s women consented. So consent makes it worse? How do these people’s brains work?
The Master Strategy in this case is to field a group of wingnut candidates so outrageous, so offensive, that Mittens comes out looking like a serious statesman by contrast.
Yeah, this is funny and crazy, but let’s none of us get COMPLETELY distracted.
I’m just really glad that the debates have clearly revealed, even to the Republican base, that Perry is simply not presidential material. If he’d been a smooth operator in the debates, I would be terrified. Now, not so much. The only question that remains is why he hasn’t tucked his tail between his legs and run back to Texas in embarrassment yet.
Also, is there really any doubt that Romney will be the nominee?
Wow! Shut down education? Wow! Just WOW! That’s a powerful moron move.
One wonders why this gaff is getting the attention. It’s not like Perry has pulled several others…like calling Hermann “brother” a few weeks ago when everyone knows that Perry is a card carrying racist.
It’s not surprising that arch Republican conservatives want to kill the Department of Education. Public education has been fought as “socialism” for decades. In Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein has a nice anecdote about it in relationship to schools in New Orleans after Katrina.
It is surprising that anyone right-winger would want to kill the Department of Energy. i’m sure what they mean is they want to reverse certain energy policies, but the DoE is essentially an arm of the DoD responsible for producing weapons-grade nuclear material, and (I believe) even the bombs. Perry is probably too ignorant to know that.
@ #20
This is one of the reasons why I am critical of the NCSE policy of taking legal action against school districts that try to teach creationism/ID.
When the people in charge are promoting creationism, how else can you stop them?
He doesn’t want to “shut down” education, he wants to privatize it.
The DoE is charged with producing nuclear weapons for the US military, and retains ownership of them at all times. The weapons are only lent to the military.
And by “privatize” he means the sign on the door will say “Straight, White Christian Males Only”.
@Gus Snarp:
Yes there’s a lot of doubt, the fundies really hate Romney. He’s a wealthy east coast elitist who subscribes to a strange, non-Christian* religion. And the health care reform thing is going to dog him throughout the primary (and the election in the off-chance he gets nominated).
*I don’t care at all whether Mormons are Christians but a lot of Christians do and refuse to accept them as such.
If the people in charge are promoting creationism then you have already lost. Going to court is just a holding action, and winning the case is not a real victory.
So, Texas is the area with the dumbest population on the planet, since they have been electing him for decades?
He didn’t say anything dumber than what he has been saying for decades..
Not really. Keeping people ignorant and fearful is the perfect strategy to keep them voting Republican. As long as they have their master ruling class getting decent private education, it doesn’t matter to them that the rest of us are serfs.
Seriously, the man has shown himself, not through mistakes but through his honest statements, to be so completely, mind-numbingly ignorant that he not only has no business in a Presidential race and no business being the leader of a state comparable in economy, geography, and population to many nations, but has no business doing anything at all beyond asking if you want fries with that. He should never ever have any kind of public platform again, let alone at the national level. How terribly sad is it that this moron can be elected governor, be talked about seriously as a Presidential contender while so many incredibly bright, thoughtful people are stuck voting for the lesser of two evils, writing futile letters to their congressman, and signing equally futile White House petitions? Perry should be writing letters to the editor of his local paper that don’t get printed because the editors want to spare him the embarrassment.
@Carl:
Carl, it almost seems like you support such a move. Have you considered the consequences? For example, when you look at computers, have you noticed how the good-quality computers cost way more than the low-quality computers? Just about every private market works that way.
So how does this work with education? The best schools will be the most expensive. Then there will be the “budget” schools that cut corners everywhere possible to stay as cheap as possible. The people who get a decent education will be the ones who can pay for it and everyone else will get something almost certainly worse than a typical public school.
This is what blows my mind about libertarians. They keep talking about “equality of opportunity” and then endorse policies that can only possibly ERODE equality of opportunity by reducing the opportunities for economic mobility. If you want equality of opportunity then you should be endorsing a 100% estate tax and mandatory nationalized public schools for everyone.
Bingo. And it keeps them religious, which facilitates keeping them ignorant, scared and eager to hurt outsiders.
I’m not so sure he’s done.. The GOP practicly puts stupid on a pedestal and worships it. Which would make Perry worthy like few others. I wouldnt be in the least bit surprised to see his polling numbers actually go up a little.
@Dan L – But Romney is still whipping every one else in the polls consistently. The religious right has been an important part of the Republican base ever since Nixon made abortion an issue, but I think this is the year when we see how committed the party power brokers are to the religious right, and just how important the religious right really is compared to the “moderate” Republicans.
How does Perry tell the difference between an agency that needs to be abolished and an agency that just needs a heartfelt prayer?
I’m wondering if the Perry supporters see this inability to think on his feet and “‘member things” as a feature not a bug?
“The only question that remains is why he hasn’t tucked his tail between his legs and run back to Texas in embarrassment yet.”
Because he still has lots of money. Barring a loss of financial support, he will have to see his way through a couple of primaries where he gets slammed before he will quit. Wish I could be sure that would happen.
It can only blow your mind if you ignore one very clear, consistent thing about libertarians – they are just another arm of the “Fuck you, I got mine” party.
Libertarians don’t give a rat’s ass about politicians eroding rights and opportunities for other people. They believe they are special and, even if they lacked the money to survive in their Fuck You I Got Mine utopia, obviously the powers that be would see how special, brilliant and important they are (read: they’re white dudes), and so they would get
special considerationspull themselves up by their bootstraps! Fuck everyone else!The only thing that blows my mind is that they think they’re fooling anyone.
It should not surprise that we have already lost in a large number of districts. We face up to that fact.
Dover was not just a holding action, it was a political embarrassment (it could hardly be a scientific one) to the DI, and even strategically damaging to IDiocy. IDiocy had its day in court and could produce nothing except Behe’s babbling.
Indeed several of science’s greatest political successes have been in the courts. Creationist bullshitting isn’t given free rein there, so science wins.
Glen Davidson
Meaning he wants to make education a privilege of the rich.
Or rather even more so.
The Voices in His HeadGod tells him, duh! And, it just so happens that God agrees with Perry on everything! So whatever Perry wants is automatically what God wants. Its just so synergistic!Do you think that anyone who would vote for him in the first place will really care?
He should organize a large prayer event to beg God (who he says sends him messages in the weather http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgpDnXcuhD8) to save his campaign. It’s the only hope this disturbing fuckwit has!
Bush was a wealthy east-coast elitist and it didn’t stop _him_ once Daddy’s friends bought him an oil well and he dumbed down his speech enough.
Off course you do, but please do not deny the fact you do is an indictment of science education in the US. The rest of the developed world does not have the same problem after all.
The fact that it had to take place at all should embarrass you.
Again, the fact you have to resort to the courts is not a sign of success.
Didn’t Newt want to shut down the DoEd in the ’80s? I haven’t watched the clip, but I’m surprised none of the other candidates accused Perry of stealing another republican’s idea.
As for DOE…Perry ought to know that they own and upkeep all our nukes. DOD is only responsible for deployment. Perry is too ignorant to realize this, but he just essentially committed to eliminating our nuclear arsenal.
Bill Clinton: It’s the economy stupid!!! It’s the economy stupid!!! It’s the economy stupid!!!
Really whether we close a few minor cabinet agencies or not is a minor consideration.
Clinton’s genius was realizing that people like to eat, pay their mortgage and rent, buy stuff, and have jobs.
We need to fix our economy NOW. Bush wrecked it so badly that the Federal Reserve is projecting a recovery in 2018. This is a lot generation.
Oddly enough, most economists don’t think this would be too hard. We need to raise taxes carefully, cut spending carefully, and be patient. You can’t wreck a huge economy like the USA one and fix it very fast.
What we are lacking now is a functional political system to actually do the obvious.
We have to be honest and admit that, on average Republican primary voters and Democratic primary voters show no difference in intelligence. There are plenty of smart Republicans, and a whole lot of average intelligence Republicans. They just suffer from having a very public, very vocal, very stupid (or at least willfully ignorant) group of core voters who they have to win over, at least in part, to win primaries. But even among Republicans, primary voters are looking for electability, and there’s no way that after Perry’s performance in the debates, they are going to nominate him. He’ll win some votes from the hard core religious right, but even many of those will not vote for him, because most Republican primary voters are just smart enough to realize that if they put Perry on a debate stage with Obama they’ll be forced to suffer four more years of
center-right, pro-business, policysocialism.We already elected on more moron from Texas and it wrecked the USA.
We don’t need to try it again with another moron from Texas.
@ #41
If the people in charge are promoting creationism then you have already lost. Going to court is just a holding action, and winning the case is not a real victory.
That’s an odd way of looking at it. You could just as easily say that any policy or law is a holding action until it’s reversed. The Constitution could be a holding action until it’s amended, or the government, until it’s overthrown. When Louisiana passed a law requiring creationism to be taught alongside evolution the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in Edwards, in 1987, which has been the law of the land ever since. Obviously, a holding action until it’s reversed. Would you have just said we’ve already lost and given up?
Re creationists in education. You can’t start from where you’d like to be; you have to start from where you are. And the courts have changed a lot of things: Roe v. Wade, Civil Rights vs. Segregation, etc.
With Scalia, probably our only hope is a drunk driver.
He seriously wants to shut down education?
He’s from TEXAS, PZ.
Ironically, his senile mom was a teacher.
Go figure.
Well, at least one regular here was very worried about Perry because xe thought he was highly intelligent, able to present himself in a way to appeal to his audience of the moment, and therefore the most dangerous of the Rethug candidates. So there may have been a lot of Rethugs labouring under the same misapprehension. Barring accidents, I think Romney will be the candidate – he’s got money, organisation, and a solid support base – but at least one of the wingnuts will stand against him and split the vote.
Gus@48:
Good points. It would be very interesting if this was the year where the religious right came to be seen as a liability to the republican party. Well, obviously a lot of people thought that happened in 2008 with the Palin nod pushing away swing voters, but the republicans didn’t seem to catch on until very late in the game.
It’s all part of his
grand schememisguided brainfart to bring cheap labor back to America. It’s the only way we can compete with China!That isn’t the problem. It isn’t hard to teach the basic facts of science.
The problem is the 20-30% of the US population who identify with fundie xianity. They are willfully ignorant.
The service class has no need to waste any time on learning things that have nothing to do with their jobs. Think of all the money that can be saved on math and science teachers.
@raven – I only mention this because I think it’s incredibly important that we have the right discussion when we talk about the economy, and currently Republicans and Democrats alike have turned to talking about deficits to distract from the real conversation about the economy. Raising taxes and cutting spending will both be detrimental to the economy, not beneficial. We should not even be thinking about the deficit when we have weak economic growth and are paying some of the lowest interest rates on long term debt that we’ve ever seen. We should be borrowing money hand over fist and pumping it into the economy right now. If we want to talk about cutting deficits we should do it after the economy has recovered. Attempting to do so now will fail, and it will slow recovery, if not lead to a double dip recession.
The point is that creationism/ID are not science, and that is why they should not be taught in science classes. If you have people trying to pass laws that allow it to be taught as science something has gone very wrong. Relying on the law is to miss the point.
illuminata@52:
I’ve been wondering about that, actually. I checked out Carl’s blog and he seems like a nice enough guy, just with some weird political ideas. People don’t always think out the logical consequences of their beliefs and I think it’s very possible for people to hold bad opinions in good faith.
But maybe you’re onto something in regards to whether they’re fooling anyone. The part that blows my minds is the too-casual juxtaposition of “equality of opportunity” with “no more food stamps, you’re paying for your kid’s grade school, and we’re implementing a 10% flat income tax.” Whether the dissonance is motivated by self-delusion or disingenuous greed is really secondary to “how can anyone say this crap with a straight face?”
And put towards Bible study classes, prayer meetings and the daily 2 minutes of hate!
Zugswang@70:
You joke, but I’ve often wondered just how much conservative policies are geared towards diminishing the quality of life in the U.S.A. to make sure we’re cheaper labor and therefore more competitive in terms of manufacturing. Sounds like paranoia but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Of course you have to start from where you are, but do not pretend that where you are starting from is not a position of abject failure.
A lot of the christofascists hate public education as much as they hate science and Kenyan born, Moslem terrorist presidents.
It teaches kids things like Barton is a liar, the earth isn’t flat, the center of the solar system, 6,000 years old, and how to think.
OTOH, one of the strengths of the USA has always been…public education. Anyone who wanted to could get a high school education free. There were lots of cheap, heavily subsidized universities so anyone who wanted a university education had a good chance to get one.
This makes for social mobility and an educated population.
Despite our reputation for being morons, something like 40% of the US popuation has at least attended college. In my area 70% of the adults have college degrees. 30 of the top 40 research universities of the world are in the USA.
Perry and his co-wreckers would end all that. It is a recipe for a banana republic.
A fair point. It is very possible to hold terrible opinions without actually being a terrible person.. We’re pretty used to casual bigots around here, which is the same thing. It usually just takes equal parts not thinking through and oblivious privilege. The proof is in whether or not that person can reason their way out of that bag, when exposed to information.
I think it still comes back around to believing that they, for whatever magical reason, are special. Therefore, the horrible conditions they set up for other people wouldn’t have the same negative consequences for them. Either because they’re just so magically superior that they could overcome, or because they’re just so conveniently privileged that they would be spared the realities this childish political stance would create.
oblivious privilege + dunning-kruger = libertarian.
I stopped wondering a long time age. I’m positive this is their plan. I don’t think it sounds paranoid at all.
In addition, when your military is an all-volunteer force, and you want to use your military to build and maintain an empire, it’s helpful to keep a large segment of your population unemployed and desperate so you have somewhere to recruit from. The British Empire did this in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
His reasoning for wanting to shut down the Dept of Education seems obvious to me – for one it would mean fewer people able to see how stupid he really is, and for another it would allow him to push his right-wing evangelical/fundamentalist christian agenda for getting creationist dogma into our schools as ‘alternative science’.
Luckily he is so dumb even my cat can see it, but we are truly screwed if the voting population can’t or won’t see him for the idiot he is – he’s the first person I’ve seen in politics who makes the shrub look half-way intelligent!
I don’t entirely disagree with you. Or agree with you. But these are details, not overall strategy.
With our huge 15 trillion USD, debt, borrowing money hand over fist right now would ordinarily be a good idea but right now it might be a disaster. There is such a thing as too much debt and we are crowding it badly, as a percentage of GDP.
Keynesian economics says you spend your way out of recessions and pay it back later. So right now, major federal spending cuts would probably toss us back in negative economic growth.
That is why I used the word “carefully”. The spending cuts would be biased way out in the future and chosen carefully.
There is little correlation between tax rates and properity. Bushes tax cuts were a huge part of his genius for destruction. It really is starving the federal budget badly.
Obama did all the obvious Keynesian things. Unfortunately, they didn’t work very well. We aren’t in a typical economic slowdown. Something more needs to be done. Or else we aren’t ever getting out of it. Call us New North American Greece.
Carefully or not, that will simply guarantee a double-dip recession or worse. You’re likely to get one anyway because raising taxes and cutting spending is exactly what the Eurozone idiots have been forcing on the weaker countries, without Germany doing the opposite. What is needed is redistribution – the poor spend more of their income than the rich – and nationalisation of failing banks, which can then be directed to invest in infrastructure to create jobs – particularly anything that will cut GHG emissions.
This, coupled with union-busting and vote suppression, seems pretty bang-on.
It would definitely be more profitable to make in-country people beg for crumbs and be desperate to hold onto a low-paying, potentially dangerous job (because Osha is socialist!) than it would be to pay them livable wages and clean up the place.
Then they could move the jobs back home and they’d be heroes. They brought jobs!
It was a policy that backfired as well. The result was a shortage of educated men who were capable of serving in the more technical branches of the military (artillery, naval gunnery, engineering) as well as low and middle ranking administrators for the Empire. It is one of the main reasons mandatory education was introduced.
“That epic brainfart will be seen as a positive with the Republican base, where the less you know, the farther you go, and the guy you want to have a beer with is your new king. And believe me, if you can name 3 federal departments, you’re not a guy these people want to have a beer with.”
The stupid, it burns and it burns most brightly in the hearts of the christian base.
Dept. of Education? Believes in evilution..get rid of it.
Dept of Energy? Regulates the ole bidness, keeps nuculer wepins out of the hands of Real True Christian Airforce officers…gone.
Why not just get rid of government interference altogether? I for one welcome our new Randroid overlords.
I hope Cain isn’t out of it.
He would be a much weaker and easier to defeat opponent than Romney in the general election.
(Unless the fundies hate Romney so much that after he wins the nomination, they raise up a third party candidate to split the right wing vote. Would they be that stupid and self-destructive?)
Another aspect of court trials like Dover is that the proceedings effectively disseminate and publicize the science to a wider audience.
For more important than the actual ruling in the long run was the total public shredding of the ID positions in the testimony.
Raven:
Multiple military leaders throughout the years (centuries?) have remarked that the mediocre leaders worry about things like battlefield tactics and strategy. The really great leaders worry about whether they’ve got enough shoes for their troops. Even in war (or perhaps, especially in war), ‘it’s the economy, stupid.’
Is there a point to the senility crack?
Gone unnoticed in all this is how Ron Paul helpfully suggested the EPA as the third agency to be axed. Somehow Perry backed off of that, but everyone had their laugh. I’m glad I haven’t watched any of the rest of these debates, they really seem like a freak show.
Amphiox @88: They’ve done it before, though for different reasons.
Hot damn ! That boy Rick’s just smokin’ them dee-bates ainty.
Stop–you’re creeping me out. It put me right back in East Texas.
One wonders why this gaff is getting the attention. It’s not like Perry has pulled several others…like calling Hermann “brother” a few weeks ago when everyone knows that Perry is a card carrying racist.
I’m having a hard time believing this one, given that I know for a fact that Rick Perry has been friendly with Hispanics and African-Americans for many years now. He and Lena Guerrero, for instance, were friends from the time they were freshmen legislators until her death in 2008. But he used her in the end, just like he uses everyone else, because he’s pretty much a classic sociopath.
He has a sociopath’s obsession with the abstraction of “fiscal responsibility” and it just doesn’t occur to him how that impacts people’s lives. He just can’t connect anymore the consequences of his actions.
He’s self-centered and dumb enough that he just doesn’t think through the effect of his words and actions. When he screams about illegals, he doesn’t think through what that says to Hispanics, or about them–he only cares about the drain they are on the state budget. When he signs bills that hurt minorities, hurting them isn’t his objective–he’s only looking at how it affects the state budget, and it just doesn’t occur to him how the poor and minorities view these things. Or the effect he has on their lives.
Classic sociopath.
crossposted from tet
Cain makes a great point
For Every Woman Herman Cain Harassed, There Were Thousands He Didn’t
I’d link to the story on Addicting info but I tried that three times and the all got eaten.
@ #41
The point is that creationism/ID are not science, and that is why they should not be taught in science classes.
Of course, and this is what the courts have consistently said. When one side says ID is science and the other says it is not, who else but the courts can make the decision? You seem to be saying we’ve failed because half the country is so religious that they want creationism taught in science class. OK, perhaps we have, but since it’s not really practical to extract religion from the equation, the only recourse is to make laws preventing religion from being taught in science class. So far, this is what’s happened. That could easily change with a few Supreme Court appointments by a Republican president.
If you have people trying to pass laws that allow it to be taught as science something has gone very wrong.
What has gone wrong is the simple fact that religion infects a large part of the US population.
Relying on the law is to miss the point.
There is nothing else to rely on.
What would make it perfect would be if the mastermind behind it all turned out to be Andy Kaufman and he’d been planning the whole thing for thirty years now. After seeing Reagan elected, he decided to see if he could get someone even dumber elected president. So, he faked his death and went behind the scenes to groom George H. W. Bush’s idiot son to be eventually be president. Having succeeded at that, he went to work putting together the single most batshirt crazy collection of candidates for 2012.
The final coup de grace will be in 2020 when Tony Clifton announces his candidacy for president.
There’s the possibility his staff thought this “look at me, I’m dumb lol” maneuver would actually make Perry’s numbers go up.
Nice to see the “I hate gubment so much I can’t even remember why” position fall on it’s face.
Psst…. hey Perry. Next time write it on your hand.
Ask Sarah Palin, it works like a charm.
After all,it worked well for all that
indoctrinationclassing ya took in skool.To my Texan bretheren: I apologize for using the “Good ol boy” sterotype but this guy makes it hard to resist.
Are you insane?! The man is advocating shutting down entire departments of government. He’s proposing eliminating cabinet positions! And he can’t even remember which three he wants to eliminate That’s not just a minor public speaking gaffe!
Really glad I wore my boots 2nite because I really stepped in it out there. I did still name 2 agencies to eliminate. Obama has never done that!
Heh, heh! I may be an idiot but I am still better then Obama. Now there is an excuse that will work for the base.
Reverend BigDumbChimp
Wow. Just wow. Do they try to be this stupid? Imagine pulling that shit at an actual trial.
“Sure, this man may or may not have killed those three teenagers. But just look at all of the teenagers that he didn’t kill! Surely, he deserves some credit for that!”
“The defendant before you might have stolen the plaintiff’s car on that night, but do you know how many cars in this city the defendant didn’t steal? I believe that we, in this courtroom today, should acknowledge the fact that there are thousands of cars in this city that my client didn’t steal and should be grateful towards him for that.”
“Yes, my client might have committed insurance fraud. But he probably only did it once. He could have done it ten or even thirty, forty times over the years, but didn’t. I rest my case.”
This is why Perry wants to do away with the DOE: So that the unwashed masses never have the opportunity to learn the sheer magnitude of dumbfuckery that is Republicanism.
Quiz time!!
Rick Perry:
a) is more knowledgeable than George W. Bush.
b) is less knowledgeable than George W. Bush.
c) is just as knowledgeable as George W. Bush.
d) is George W. Bush.
I honestly can’t answer this question. They are so much alike.
Janine, quoting Perry:
Yeah, and Obama never covered up information after executing a most likely innocent man and never gave vast cuts to a firefighting budget for a state prone to drought and consequent wildfires. That’s three points he has over Obama! Perry wins! Perry wins this round of Perryball ! Better luck next time, libruls!
So, Texas is the area with the dumbest population on the planet, since they have been electing him for decades?
He didn’t say anything dumber than what he has been saying for decades.
You haven’t taken a gander at Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Robert Bentley or Nathan Deal have you? They’re the governors over the stupid belt, aka Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Georgia likes to put on airs that it’s not a backward shit heap, but they elected openly racist Sonny Perdue and self-serving scumbag Nathan Deal back to back as governor, which re-affirmed for me that I’m still correct about Georgia being insanely stupid.
Texas is lucky not to have any of those moronic douchebags as governor, actually. Bad as Perry is, he’s still not as bad as that Rogue’s Gallery of Stupid.
@raven – It’s not details versus strategy at all. Debt and deficits are not the right conversation right now at all for two reasons. First because we are paying stunningly low rates on long term debt, which means that investors simply are not concerned about our solvency, no matter how dire the warnings from S&P and political deficit hawks, the people who buy sovereign debt think we’re in great shape. Second, because cutting spending and raising taxes hurt growth. That’s not really up for debate, even conservatives know this, even if they’re only willing to admit one side of it. Economic growth leads to increased tax revenue. Conservatives admit this one too, it’s their main argument for tax cuts, they’re just wrong about the impact of tax cuts on economic growth – it’s minimal. When you combine these two basic facts the conclusion you come to is that we will not cut the deficit, much less the debt, without strong economic growth. Every spending cut and tax increase will be counter productive, the real deficit will continue to grow until we have strong economic growth. Even spending is strongly tied to our economic problems. Most of the increased spending under Obama has been automatic increases in federal programs for the poor, things that simply increase because more people are out of work. Like unemployment, medicaid, and WIC. Obama tried some stimulus spending, but it was far too little for not nearly long enough. This is not post hoc rationalization, this is what Keynesian economists were saying from the very beginning, before the stimulus. Finally, we should recognize that we are not anything like Greece. We are on firmer financial ground in general and we have our own currency, which gives us remedies unavailable to the Greeks. And how are those spending cuts and tax increases working out for European economies?
Really, I only harp on this because it’s important, it’s basic economics, and it’s being buried an ignored by most of the media and politicians.
@105
Don’t forget California.
We elected der Boobengrabber at one point
I’m not convinced raising taxes would make the recession worse. It all depends which taxes are raised. Clinton and Congress raised taxes, and it didn’t prevent the economy from pulling out of that recession.
Most of the Illinois governors elected in my lifetime have served prison time. Most are still waiting for Blago to serve his time.
Now that is fucking gold.
I agree with ericR @45.
It hurts to see so many fall for the same stuff again as they did in the Gore campaign.
The Repubs are better at assessing the public, also better at assessing the liberals themselves. Previously, while Gore was Prince Albert from the private high school with eye rolls, Bush was mixing up words and racking up votes. Joe Blow loves that stuff; it’s him. So Bush even says, “So I’ve been known to mess up a few words at times.”
The Repubs know how to debate. Both Perry and Cain have probably helped themselves, the stupid pundits be damned. Cheney and Kissinger have said as much about these candidates if you had been listening. (Actually glad you didn’t to them.)
A few days ago PZ pointed out to us that the debate does not bring out the truth. The debate is a play aimed at an effect on the audience. The debater picks the audience he plays to. What pundits or (we) Dems think of it makes only a borderline difference to a minute few, not enough.
Al Gore let us down, and this is one way he did it. You might say he played into the “elite” trick. Never having been in the trenches, he was clueless about what was happening.
Dems will be Dems, hard to change, but we would be better off if we realized that those news stories are written by idiots who just want to get published, so they can eat and their kids have cereal, and have nothing to do nor with truth nor with effects on the target audience of voters.
Agreeing with EricR, if Perry is out, it’s for other reasons than a debate flub. He does have good hair, like another cheerleader, as Larry McMurty says, seven Baptists on seven horses, all he had to say to be understood.
For the mainstream of the Republican base, the only dent in Perry’s armor so far is that he signed an executive order to vaccinate females against HPV. Think about this. Let it set in…
…and then you will realize that Perry will be the Republican nominee.
Which, in an of itself, means quite possibly, if not probably, he will be the next POTUS.
@truthspeaker – fundamentally, you’re absolutely right, it does depend which taxes are raised. This is where the difference between Republican and Democratic policies actually matter. Tax increases (or cuts) for the wealthy probably have less impact on the economy than tax increases (or cuts) for lower incomes. The magnitude of the increase matters too. I don’t think there are any magic numbers for exactly how much to raise taxes on exactly what income brackets, but as KG noted at #84, poorer people spend more of their income, and therefore more of their tax cuts, than rich people. And if we assume (and this seems to fit the facts) that rich people are sitting on a huge amount of cash, it makes sense to take some of that in taxes and redistribute it to the poor in tax cuts, unemployment payments, and job creating spending. But as a general rule, tax increases do hurt the economy at least some, if not as much as spending cuts, and when we talk about cutting deficits, any package of tax increases and spending cuts, whatever the ratio, that is large enough to have a real impact on the deficit on paper, would be harmful to economic growth and lead to failure of the deficit cutting plan in the first place.
From what I can tell, Mitt Romney is just sitting back, watching them feed on each other and thinking “This is sooooo easy”.
Seriously, has the mitt said a word in the last month?
The dissolution of the DoE would immediately be followed by its nuclear manufacturing / regulatory arms being funneled into the hands of the USAF.
So instead of private citizens having control of the most deadly weapon known to man in its entire history, it’ll be the right-wing wackaloon Conservative “bomb-dem-mooslems” Christians in charge of them.
Cain has the Koch support. It seems more and more that those two votes matter most.
They supposedly hate each other’s guts.
But then again, it could just be self-loathing.
Okay, seriously. I literally laughed out loud. Well done. Here is a sniny new internets just for you.
jasper79:
Look at the current polling data. Although its still possible that Perry might ultimately get the nod, interest in him as been waning and the struggle is now mostly between Cain and Romney. Romney has been a key candidate since these debates began. Currently, Perry is as popular as Gingrich and Ron Paul. He was at peak popularity in mid-September and plummeted in early October (though, in fairness, this was probably due to Cain skyrocketing in popularity at the same time, so if Cain plummets, it might propel Perry back again). Like I said, his nomination is still possible, but it’s not looking too pretty for him right now. Which is good for us. All of us. Keep your fingers crossed, and maybe Republican voters will show that they aren’t as insane as we expected (Insert delirious laughter here).
From what I’ve heard, it’s actually his policies on educating the children of illegal immigrants that hurts him most.
And his latest polling numbers suggest he’d have a better chance as a snowball in hell.
Of course, they say the last circle of hell is frozen….
@Ing – Ummmmm, WTF is that?
I still hold to the opinion that if Lincoln had known that this would happen back in 1861, he would have thrown the Civil War.
Polls show that people vote for people like them. The average IQ is 100. That isn’t much really. That is why people vote for candidates of minor intelligence.
It’s why they don’t vote for intelligent people. Clinton’s genius was to appear to be a good ole boy hick from Hope Arkansas. Which he was. He was also very, very smart and good at hiding it.
That is something of an illusion. Rates are about zero right now. But that won’t happen forever. A lot of public debt is short term and gets rolled over. If rates go up, the interest on a huge national debt is going to eat our budget alive and we can’t spend it on anything else but paying out interest.
The data says, when debt gets up around 100% of the GDP, countries are in big trouble and never get out of it easily. We aren’t quite there but we are getting close.
The US hasn’t been doing Keynesian economics right. You are supposed to borrow and spend your way out of recessions. And pay it back during the good times. All we’ve been doing is borrowing and spending and then borrowing and spending even more. This isn’t sustainable.
Don’t forget, Clinton left us with a budget surplus. That is what economic growth will do for you.
@ Gus Snap
The defense of Cain
http://www.nydailynews.com/2.1308/ladies-time-man-cain-accusers-sharon-bialek-karen-kraushaar-send-wrong-message-women-article-1.975243?localLinksEnabled=false
I have a simple litmus test for all presidential hopefuls.
“New Clear” you are in.
“New cue lar” you are out.
How does Perry say nuclear?
I know it’s silly but this is one pet peeve that drives me batshit. Especially when the entire world is listening.
No, privatized means no more teacher’s union. When teachers began organizing and unionized is the same time that conservative support for public education disappeared.
Not if they are Republican. How many wives did McCain cheat on? How about Gingrich? Now compare that to Edwards. McCain is still in the senate. Gingrich is stil a power in the GOP. If they were Democrats, they would have been gone long ago.
That, and he actually thinks educating the children of undocumented immigrants is a good thing. Or he used to think that.
I view spending cuts as tax hikes. Spending on road repair is cut, I spend more to repair my car. Spending for public education is cut, my local taxes go up far more to cover the gap. Spending for public universities is cut, I spend far more sending my kids to college. Funding for national parks is cut, the entrance fees increase. Funding for FEMA is cut, my local economy collapses because of flood damage.
Many cuts in federal spending make life more expensive for the middle class and the poor. Yeah, I may get a $35 per year reduction in my already low federal taxes, but I end up spending thousands of dollars more in increased fees, local taxes, and other costs.
This is one of the hidden gems in the GOP program — tax cuts for the rich, combined with cuts in programs for the poor and middle class is, in fact, a huge increase in the financial burden on the people actually producing goods and services.
http://www.funnyordie.com/lists/e0cb0351f6/presidential-candidates-explained-through-dungeons-and-dragons-character-sheets
Or not. Apparently, it’s exactly how the great depression ended.
I thought I recalled a few other similar graphs for some European countries but I cannot find those with quick google searches. Krugman has been arguing against this, though, you should be able to find some old columns dealing with it.
@127
I have never seen it more clearly.
My first language.
Thank you.
Surprised Bachman’s comments about China’s secret super tunnels of nukes isn’t getting more chatter.
He wants to shut down education because he doesn’t have any of his own.
I don’t want die nits zu picken, but it should say
“We elected den Boobengrabber at one point”.
This and his other appearances raise an important question. Is Perry drunk?
Ing,
that doesn’t count, Nicolas Sarkozy can apparently still manage to give drôle keynote addresses on international security policy while drunk.
LOL. And, the the worst (best?) part is, THAT is the BEST possible explanation for his behavior.
Ing @133: When isn’t he?
Ing, that does not matter. There are people who will take a drunk who mouths the proper prayers over a marxist muslim anti-colonial Kenyan.
How does anyone take a Republican seriously ?
I am not American but I really don’t understand how a politician who stands up and says he is going to destroy education and ‘I can’t remember what’ would have any voters.
It is mind boggling.
The last poll I saw, one week ago, had Rick Perry mired in fourth place with 8% of the republican vote. Evidently his performances in the debates has steadily been costing him support. Cain was in the lead with 26%, Romney second at 23, and Gingrich third with 14%. Michele Bachmann was down to 2%.
It’s still a very fluid situation, however. And by “fluid,” I mean Perry, Bachmann and Santorum (1%) seemingly are headed for Davy Jones’ locker.
madbull: The sensible people here can’t understand it either.
This and his other appearances raise an important question. Is Perry drunk?
If I were him I would be as much as possible.
@Madbull:
Because Communism, that’s why!
9/11!
Just keep in mind that these sensible people are the elitists who are out to destroy ‘merica by dissing god.
Forgot the link
How did it get this bad? rust me, I have been paying attention, but since the Reagan years, Americans have just volunteered to be slaves, and stupid slaves at that.
I am at a loss at how this can get on T.V.
Haha, I’m thinking of a republican who says, Government is the problem so as soon I am elected to office, I will fire myself.
could anyone check if this guy seriously belongs to the species homo sapiens? cause if so i do not want to belong to the same species as him, he is embarrasing for every primate on this planet o.0
@138
For some in the U.S., desire for destruction of government is more important than knowing what to replace it with.
But they’re not anarchists. Oh no, you could never call them that dirty little word. After all, anarchy is SATANISM *gasp*!!!!
Or may Satan is socialism. ehh, what’s the difference?
madbull: If only…
I think we should abolish the Department of Homeland Security. Obviously, this means that I hate security and want terrorists to attack the US.
Madbull, You just reminded me of a little fact.
People in other countries are watching this!
Would putting a bag over my head be too drastic?
@feralboy12 (#139):
Santorum, at least, is very fluid…
Richard Smith: I was under the impression that it could occasionally be chunky (no experience in the area though, so I am by no means authoritative)
He doesn’t seem to be a genius at spinning either
gaffe aftermath glow:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57322139-503544/perry-debate-gaffe-wont-break-my-campaign/
Alex,
your nit-picking is wrong. In English, if German articles are treated as part of a title, they are unchangeable.
Case in point, look at “Der Spiegel” in English news sources. Regardless of grammatical function, it is always “Der”.
Another exercise: change language setting in Google to English only, and search for “* Der Fuhrer” v. “* Den Fuhrer”, where * stands for several transitive verbs, such as “admired”, “followed” etc. You will never get any hits for “Den”.
The Dept of Commerce includes a large mix of odds-n-ends. One of them is NOAA. So no more hurricane monitoring for Texas! Let’em be surprised, sort of like Galveston in 1906.
Which conservative pundit/candidate/governor spoke out publicly against hurricane monitoring again? Or am I mixing this up with the Bobby Jindal wanting to defund volcano monitoring?
nemo the derv,
I don’t think any country is perfect. Everyone has their share of loons. The Indian government is famous for putting up with fraudulent ‘swamis’ like the late Sai Baba who turned out to be a child molester.
So it does get worse!
http://www.skepdic.com/saibaba.html
If God wanted us to believe in Intelligent Design, He would not have enrolled in Texas A&M
nemo @ 141
If Perry gets elected, I’ll try to be drunk as much as possible.
Rick Perry’s comment after being asked if he would quit after last night’s “performance”:
“This ain’t a day for quitting nothing”.
A presidential candidate who can express himself that eloquently obviously doesn’t want a Department of Education looking over his shoulder, constantly correcting his grammar.
Eric Cantor. And, what was it, about a week later when some natural disaster hit his own district?
That’s definitely the best strategy for Romney. Sit back and let the forerunners shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly. Hell, as Jon Stewart said, he should just give his speaking time at debates to his opponents.
Ah good old fashion Republican job creation:
Dept of Energy – 16,000 federal and 93,000 contract
Dept of Education – 5,000
Dept of Commerce – 43,880
(numbers from Wikipedia)
Thanks. Sadly enough I can’t say I’m surprised…
Okay, I see it’s time to give another teal deer economics lecture or three.
The total public debt is actually divided into two categories: the debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings. Here’s how the debt held by the public works:
● To raise money, the federal government auctions off treasury securities to domestic and foreign investors. These could be government bonds, Treasury Bills (T-Bills) or other notes.
● During the auction process, investors bid for securities in two different ways: competitive or non-competitive bids. To make a competitive bid, investors state the interest rate at which they’re willing to buy the security. For a non-competitive bid, investors agree to purchase the security at the average interest rate of all bids.
● The government sells enough securities at each auction to satisfy a certain spending goal, like $18 billion. It starts by selling to the lowest interest rate bidder and works its way up until the stated goal is reached.
● At some point the investor will cash in those securities along with any interest that’s accrued over time. The debt held by the public, currently $5 trillion, is the total amount that’s owed to all of these investors at any given time.
Intragovernmental holdings, the other $4 trillion, are treasury securities that the US government buys from itself, using money from federal savings programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Obviously, the US is not alone in holding a large national debt. A better indicator of a nation’s indebtedness is the ratio of its public debt to its GDP, or total national income. The US public debt ratio in 2005 was calculated as 61.8 percent of the GDP. In the same year, the UK’s ratio was 46.7 percent, France’s was 76.1 percent and Japan’s was an astonishing 173.1 percent.
But how does the public debt affect the economy as a whole? Is a large public debt an indicator of bad economic times to come? A rising national debt, particularly when viewed as a percentage of a nation’s GDP, is a big problem, although a long-term one.
The more debt a country holds, the less money it’s able to put away in savings and reinvest in the nation’s economy. In the US the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid savings accounts are going to be hit hard by the retirement of the Baby Boomers. The government will no longer be able to tap into these accounts to pay for other federal programs. There’s a further point that federal borrowing to pay off the deficit will inevitably lead to higher interest rates, affecting the ability of citizens to buy homes and take out loans.
@pelamun
I wasn’t aware that Der Boobengrabber was a fixed expression like Der Fuhrer or Der Spiegel, but since the article was not in English, I could have guessed. I think you taught Der Alex a lesson :)
Alex,
according to Urban Dictionary:
But even if it wasn’t an established term, it could’ve been a nonce-expression.
According Ron Paul, Galveston did just fine without any help from the federal government.
Well, other than the fact that it was still Galveston.
Thanks ‘Tis.
As of 2011 total US debt is 99.6% of GDP.
The more important metric, total debt held by the public is 68% of GDP. Not good but not as bad as I thought it was.
Some people say Japan’s debt at 173% has really hindered them from getting their economy moving again. They never really recovered from their banking-real estate bubble.
We haven’t recovered from our banking-real estate bubble either. Monetary shocks take a long time to recover from, according to the Fed. Reserve, average is a decade.
A lost generation right now. Maybe we can make it two generations.
I was working off some old data and forgot to update it.
Only 10,000 people died and the city was destroyed. Other than that, it was no big deal. Oh well, at least it was just people and who cares but them anyway.
@pelamun/illuminata, not sure if Cantor was “also, and”, but I thought it was Ron Paul:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/stormy-weather.html
@ Raven #87
The meme that the U.S is dangerously close to some catastrophic limit for public debt as a percentage of GDP is one that annoys me quite a bit. We’re currently #32 in public debt as a percentage of GDP, and countries which outstrip our debt include such economic wrecks as Germany, Sweden, Iceland and Japan. Granted there are also countries that have more debt than we do percentage wise which have poor economies, but there are also many countries with less debt and worse economies. I don’t see any real evidence that debt as such is a major issue, as opposed to what the debt was incurred for.
The only way to reduce the debt is to reduce annual deficits, and the only way to do that is to reduce spending and/or increase revenues. Families reduce what they owe by the same means, but administrations play by different rules and are more comfortable with substantial debt than most households. One reason is the government can borrow money at a much lower rate than individuals.
Also, since so much US debt is owned by the government itself or other Americans, that debt is not seen as extremely risky. Greece, on the other hand, owes most of its debt to foreigners and is in deep trouble.
The bet an administration makes is that the cost of borrowing the money will be less than the economic and political benefits that will accrue through not raising taxes and leaving money in the economy. So it doesn’t sit on a surplus. But government has large obligations it can’t put off and often can’t plan for so it borrows.
Government obligations are quite different than those of a household. A government has to respond to large emergencies like natural disasters affecting many people.
The government also must invest in the future in ways that go beyond what any family has to focus on. Governments may not have high enough revenue to pay for things that can potentially increase long-run income like infrastructure and education. The ways those expenditures and government deficits are calculated are misleading and don’t work the way family budgets do.
A family finances a mortgage on a house and that’s a capital expense. They pay it off, but they get the use of living in it as they do. They have that asset down the road. But the government invests in education and that is not seen as a capital expense. It’s seen as a current expense and part of the deficit. It just doesn’t work the same way. But investing in education is not like you’re buying a six-pack. It’s an expenditure that will pay off in time.
There’s another large difference exists between public and family finances. If debt and the interest payments on it get too high, a government can tax, whereas a family usually can’t increase its income so dramatically.
Texas and jobs; Krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/the-texas-unmiracle.html
Texas and federal money; Bernstein, via DeLong:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/08/yes-virgina-the-recovery-act-worked-best-in-texas.html
Hmm.
@raven – Nothing you wrote in #123 is at all at odds with what I’m arguing. Your last line:
is exactly what I’m saying. What we need is to focus with single minded focus on economic growth, which means lots of spending, financed at least in part through borrowing at the low rates now available to us, and probably printing more money and not worrying about inflation until we actually have some, and not worrying about the deficit until our rates go up. If we get the growth, we can balance the budget, just like Clinton did. What you really have to wonder is why the Republicans intentionally destroyed the Clinton budget. Why the supposed fiscal conservatives gave back the surplus instead of banking it against future payments on the debt. It’s almost as if they want a huge deficit so they can use it as leverage to cut social programs.
Two of your examples aren’t so good. Iceland is a wreck, being one of the first countries to crash and burn.
Japan has been floundering for decades.
I’ll leave it to the economic experts to figure out what the optimum national debt levels should be. But they can’t be infinitely high.
More important IMO, we really need a coherent long term plan or we will never get out of the Great Recession. The Tea Party just seems to think wrecking the economy and impoverishing the US people is a perfectly reasonable idea.
Obama seems a little better but I haven’t seen them really facing the problem and coming up with a knowledge based plan. I suppose if he hadn’t done the obvious Keynesian things, we might be in the Second Great Depression by now.
Elect a Tea Party president and we might well have another chance at that.
Yes, in Texas Perry is known as Bush but without the brains.
Which conservative pundit/candidate/governor spoke out publicly against hurricane monitoring again?
as an addendum, seeing as you got your answer, don’t forget that getting back to Perry, he was the one who cut support for fire services by 75%, just before fire season started in Texas, which turned out to be one of the worst in the State’s history, as was of course predicted by most forestry and fire departments there.
FWIW, as another addendum, don’t forget, people of Texas, that Perry first was voted into office as a liberal democrat, and even ran Al Gore’s Texas campaign for President in 1988, before completely and utterly doing a 180 in 1989 and registering as a conservative republican.
It’s amazing Texans have given this guy free reign as Governor for so long.
Anyway, the reason I argue so hard on this debt business is that we’ve been entirely derailed by the media and politicians. The conversation needs to be about the economy first, but Republicans know that everything going on with the economy right now invalidates everything they’ve been saying and doing for the last twenty years and that it absolutely requires policies they hate on an ideological level. So they twist the conversation around to be about the debt (or the deficit, and they use the terms interchangeably in whatever way suits them best, intentionally capitalizing on the fact that most people don’t know the difference to deceive us), and the media and the public and some Democratic politicians buy it because the numbers sound so outrageous, because Greece seems like such a prominent example, and because we don’t fully understand the differences between government debt and individual debt. Then the rest of the Democrats get on board because they’re afraid of losing votes if they don’t address deficits until even Bernie Sanders is acting as if the deficit is really important. Meanwhile, the Republicans have successfully diverted us from the economic crisis their policies created and continue to exacerbate, and they don’t really care as long as they can cut social programs and use the economy to make the Democrats in the Senate and the White House look bad. And if they’re lucky, things will slowly improve by the time they have a President up for re-election.
I do agree that we need a “single minded focus on economic growth,”
The best way to get the deficits down is economic growth. That is what Clinton did. He promised to focus like a laser on the economy and did it.
As to how to do this, I put down my 7 cents but anything that works is OK. I’m sure that crowd sourcing will turn up some good ideas.
The Tea Party spends all their time and what substitutes for thought trying to outlaw abortion, promote weird xian cults, and beating up on climate change and evolutionary biology scientists. All of which are more or less totally irrelevant to what we need.
When the Tea Party isn’t flogging social issues that we rejected in the 1970’s, they seem to spend the rest of the time mindlessly blocking any attempts by Obama and the Dems to fix things.
I can see why the xians invented hell. If there was a hell, they should end up there. They could work at part time minimum wage jobs in a country in a Great Depression to support a family of 10 for a few centuries. One that looks a lot like the one they want to create here.
@raven – Don’t know if you read Krugman, I’m a bit of a fanboy, I don’t always agree with him one hundred percent, but on most issues where I feel vaguely qualified to have an opinion, I find him right there with me. And when I don’t I usually find his explanations compelling. You should give his blog a read on this for another perspective, if you haven’t.
Japan
This is also why Japan is in a much better position than Greece is, because the debt is mostly held domestically. After the Bubble crash in 1991, Japanese households have exhibited a downright aversion to investment in the stock market, so T-Bonds (JGBs) are the main thing to invest in.
raven, the recession in Japan was caused by the Bubble and a dysfunctional banking system. But I have a pile of thick books on the Japanese crisis lying around, haven’t had the chance to read them yet, probably the high debt level and the mistrust of the public in the system (translating into insufficient private consumption levels) didn’t help either.
Your numbers are out of date I think. In 2010, total debt was at 198% GDP (no 2 after Zimbabwe), net debt was 125%. (See also this interesting article I came across)
Iceland
I don’t know how Iceland could possibly be a counterargument here. Ever heard of the Iceland Financial Crisis, which started in 2008? This is what Wiki had to say about sovereign debt levels in Iceland
Hurricane monitoring
Changeable moniker, thanks. Now I remember, it was the Ron Paul comment which was especially salient…
What is this I don’t even. I mean education? Commerce? Energy?
I don’t even.. if our politician said that he’d be laughing stock!
I’m a little sad Perry’s campaign has imploded, I would love to see a candidate who represents what the republican part actually is in a debate with a sane intelligent reasonable person like Obama.
robertm,
be careful what you wish for. You always have to plan for the case the Republican candidate actually wins. Romney might still be the lesser of all the evils.
Though back in 2008 I thought McCain would be ok too, that was before he picked Palin of course..
@ #188
Though back in 2008 I thought McCain would be ok too, that was before he picked Palin of course..
Ah yes, that deep thinker McCain. When asked who his model Supreme Court justice would be, he replied, “Of course, Antonin Scalia.” If he had been elected we would have two more Scalia clones on the Court.
I can count to three
Lost in Perry’s mini-stroke was the fact that these are three cabinet level departments that were created by an act of Congress. The president can’t just make them “gone” by decree no matter how much bluster he spouts.
@#21 Ing
First you convict, then you punish.
Holy shit mythusmage
Is this supposed to be some defense of Cain and indictment of the accusers?
Really?
That’s what you come up with?
People tend to continue doing what they’d been doing before, unless something happens to make them change their behavior. So what happened to get Herman Cain to stop harassing women 14 years ago?
#193
Raising questions. BTW, I do take comments at my place.
There is, of course, the distinct possibility that anyone Cain harassed in the last decade or so is still in his employ, and isn’t willing to give up their job in this economy to add to the pile of complaints.
Yes you’re repeating what I quoted.
And giving you a shit ton of leeway on your assumption based nonsense…
Perhaps the fact that a complaint was filed against him?
But really, your entire premise is based on nothing other than conjecture and assumptions.
And completely unsupported assumptions about what people “tend to do”.
And simply, it’s just stupid. There are a multitude of explanation to your pedestrian gotcha question.
seriously
yawn
mythusmage:
You’re displaying a great deal of ignorance about harassment and how people often react to it. First of all, what makes you think that Cain has stopped? He may simply have learned to pick his victims better, a lot of people like him do.
People who are harassed, especially sexually, are often in a position where they are easily silenced, very often, victims will find a way to rationalize what happened to them for a very long time, which is why some victims take so long to speak out and a lot of victims don’t feel safe enough to speak out until others do so. There’s also the problem of a justified fear victims have of not being taken seriously. The consequences for a victim of harassment speaking out are often severe (Think of all the shit Anita Hill got for speaking out) which leads to more women keeping quiet. In this particular dynamic, all the power and credibility was on Cain’s side, not the victim’s.
Speaking out about being harassed can also impact a victim’s ability to secure employment along with how people perceive you, etc. It’s very difficult for women to speak out about such things, even today.
You don’t seem to have thought this through much at all.
Caine and BDC,
I’ve seen what happens when people are falsely accused. Sometimes it means they die, as has happened on too many occasions in the state of Texas. (It’s a big part of why I oppose Rick Perry, for he has allowed all too many people to be executed who were convicted under false pretenses.)
American jurisprudence starts with the assumption that the accused has to be proven guilty. Proof has to be provided. So far Herman Cain’s accusers have yet to testify before a court of law. They have yet to face questioning by investigators for that matter. All we have to go on is what they assert, with nothing to back up their claims.
What I am pointing out is the observation that people tend to continue behaving in a certain way until and unless something happens to get them to stop that behavior. What made Herman Cain stop harassing women 14 years ago, assuming he harassed them in the first place? For that matter, all we have to go by in one case is that a woman says she found his behavior towards her harassing. For all we know it could be her interpretation of his behavior, while he sees it differently.
Where the groping incident is concerned, while the woman in this case identified her assailant as Herman Cain, I have to wonder if it was indeed Cain, and not somebody who identified himself as Herman Cain.
I support The Innocence Project because I’ve seen what happens when people are falsely accused, and convicted on false charges. One thing I’ve learned from science and its practice is that you don’t accept claims, but verify them. When and only when you have the data gathered that supports your suppositions do you reach a conclusion. That’s how we got Newtonian mechanics, the theory of evolution, and the General and Special theories of relativity.
As far as I know Cain might have harassed women some 14 years ago, but I have yet to see any proof he did. If assertions were proof, then creationism would be taught in biology.
Yelp makes fun of Perry in their Apple app update.
http://i.imgur.com/5SOux.jpg
WTF??? She worked for the NRA, she had met him on her job, and after she was fired she contacted him to ask for his help to get her job back or another similar one. How on earth would a different man who just happens to look like him, be able to impersonate him????
Sorry but by posting nonsense such as this, you’ve lost pretty much all credibility here.
(The second woman to come forward also worked at the NRA and would probably know him as well. But AFAIK she hasn’t described her ordeal any detail yet.)
mythusmage,
At least two of them didn’t wait. They complained and received settlements from the National Restaurant Association back in the 90’s. The fact that the other allegations would lend credence to their own and that they don’t wish someone who harassed them to become president can easily explain why the other two women waited. Or they felt traumatized, shamed or embarrassed over the incident and didn’t report it at the time. That’s not unusual.
psycholist,
this is so cool! I just checked my iPod to see if it wasn’t a hoax!! Hahaha…
Seconded.
#197, BDC
Have you ever been sued in a court of law? I knew a man who once was taken to court because he dared to publish an RPG. Accused of all sorts of things, such as including elves and orcs and mechanics involving statistics and rolling dice. Things people had done before him, but whom the plaintiff decided weren’t worth their time to sue.
When it became clear the plaintiff (TSR INC.) was going to lose, and lose big, they made an offer to my friend, and the people who had published his game for him. This after some two years of legal wrangling. TSR would drop the suit and pay court costs if Gary would sell them the rights to his game and all materials associated with it. It was a seven figure settlement, most of which went to Gary’s lawyers
Accusations and assertions don’t prove a thing, they need to be backed up by evidence. It’s why hospitals have rape kits, and why doctors search for evidence whenever someone claiming rape comes before them. Sexual assault is a daunting experience, but evidence needs to be gathered lest the assailant get away with his crime. What do I see in the Herman Cain case but people confusing accusations with conviction. Present your case, back it up with evidence, then see what the courts have to say.
Just remember, if assertions were proof, the Sun would orbit the Earth.
Pelamun,
How big is your place of work? Do you know everybody there? Once any organization gets past a certain size you can’t know everybody there. I know nothing about the NRA, so I can say nothing about who should know whom in the association. I have seen nothing that supports the claims, or anything that opposes them. What I am going by is a standard of American jurisprudence, that the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
There is more to be learned here, until we do it does us no good to condemn a man for what somebody claims he did. I may be wrong, Cain may be a foul woman harassing bastich. You may be wrong and he may be pure as the driven snow. Only time and evidence either way will show us which is the case.
#202
And then nothing for fourteen years. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, people tend to be consistent in their behavior. Not only that, but people talk. Behaviors get talked about. Schwarzennger has a reputation for being a womanizer going back to his early movie career. There are stories about Arnold. Where are the stories about Herman Cain?
Now I can understand a woman being reluctant to come forth and speaking before strangers, but not her friends. Why haven’t the women’s friends come forth to support them?
As for the settlement (I know of just the one); yes, people will do foolish things like settle even when they have done nothing wrong. Sexual harassment is a serious crime, and some people are short sighted fools. Better to pay a bribe than get your name dragged through the mud.
As I said, supra, what in the fuck makes you think he’s stopped?
Exactly why are you so determined to defend this reprehensible fucker?
mythusmage,
if you don’t know anything about the NRA, maybe you should then STFU about it… There’s a fact you might try and remember: Herman Cain was the fucking president of the NRA from 1996-1999.
Two other fact, easily googleable: they occupy ONE floor in a DC office building and have 99 employees. It’s not a mega corporation we’re talking about here.
Idiot.
Maybe he watched a particularly moving film about a woman being harassed? Or had a frank talk with a woman significant to him that gave him a lightbulb moment?
Sometimes people grow and sometimes people change.
And sometimes they don’t.
Who knows? Who cares?
It’s completely, utterly, and totally irrelevant now.
The matter is not, at present, before a court. Jurisprudence is irrelevant.
The most telling thing is not the question of the veracity of the accusations, it is the unconscionable and odious manner in which Cain and his supporters have responded to them. The evasions, the distortions, the outright lies, the intimidation.
That response in on the public record, for us all to see and judge.
On this, too, jurisprudence is irrelevant.
mythusmage:
Who is the one being non-scientific?
Anyway, you obviously aren’t thinking straight about this.
Oh, I left out this:
mythusmage:
Holy shit, you are all kinds of fucked up. Please, do me and everyone else a favour and speak for yourself and yourself alone. I don’t want to be connected to this awful bullshit in any way.
@Matt Penfold:
@20
Then eventually @78
How do these 2 statements go together? Of course there should be, and is, a whole lot of embarrassment about the state of science education in the US. Read this blog, the Bad Astonomer, Why Evolution is True, or anything at SciBlogs. There is general agreement among a lot of people that things are pretty messed up.
Now while people work hard to educate the masses and change public perceptions, someone has to step up and take the holding action to buy time. That, or are you advocating that anyone who cares about science and, well, reality, should just pack their bags and leave the US to the fundamentalists?
The religious right has gained power in Canada and their main targets for cuts are education, atomic energy (being privatized), environment (fewer inspectors), social safety nets like Canada Pension, Old Age Security, Employment Insurance and health care (all being “defunded” in preparation for privatization). Just because Chomsky is paranoid doesn’t mean he is wrong.
Prime Minister Harper will not allow funds to go to aid agencies that advocate abortion, contraception other then abstinence, or for AIDS. When various women’s groups had their funding cut or completely stopped, they complained to the Minister responsible for Women’s Affair they were told to “..shut the fuck up”. (That minister was a woman BTW)
Raven @ 62 Unfortunately, the Clinton administration bears some of the most fundamental responsibility for the 2007 crash, in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and other financial deregulation pushed by Goldman Sachs’ boy Treasury Sec. Robert Rubin. I voted for Clinton, Gore and Obama, but I have to admit that they are all center-right DINOs (probably least-so Gore) who have largely taken on the positions of the Republicans of fifty years ago, since the current republicans have all stampeded off to John Birch/KKK land.
mythusmage,
You’re completely Finchley, as we already knew from all the nonsense about Bigfoot. The fact that you think Cain “makes sense” is abundant confirmation of this. The accusations are not wild and unconvincing: they are based on financial settlements to two women, and Cain has been consistently shifty in his responses, while many of his followers have embarked on a misogynist campaign, denying the very existence of sexual harassment. No sane liberal would support a far-right fuckwit like Cain with his ludicrous “9-9-9” mantra. Liberals are disappointed in Obama because they expected him to push through liberal policies, or at least hoped he would; they are not going to vote for a fruitcake whose ideas would accelerate the concentration of wealth and power rather than reverse it just because he’s black.
Axe Education?
Speaking as a Brit, that sounds just fine. We’re getting a little overcrowded here in Blighty, so we’ll just wait for you to fall back into the dark ages then reclaim you as a colony.
Then first job: Raise taxes on tea.
KG:
QFMFT.
That was not why Obama was elected. Many people voted for him despite him being Black, not because of it.
@124. Ing : 10 November 2011 at 6:57 pm
Latest figures :
I think Perry – like Bachmann – is gone. I hope so.
Methinks that Romney is the lesser of evils and the best Republican Presidential candidate apart from Jon Huntsman who doesn’t have even the whiff of a chance.
If the economy is so bad in 2012 a Republican victory becomes inevitable as might well happen then far rather Romney than anyone else. (Except Huntsman but, again, no hope of him winning, alas.)
(Aussie observer speaking here.)
From what I gather from along distance away and based on what I see online and in the media 2012 US election~wise :
Think the prospect of Cain and Perry being President are both absolute nightmares.
Mitt Romney might not be *too* bad. Maybe?
Obama winning probably just means more of the same which ain’t working out too well either – unless the Democratic party wins the Congress too which is unlikely isn’t it?
Problem is, whoever you vote for, you get a politician.
Motorsport fan here too. More a MotoGP and F1 fan than a NASCAR one but just want to note there is a bit more than that to NASCAR and its fans.
Ever seen a NASCAR race, PZ?
There’s some skill and good technology, strategy and spectacle involved even if the tracks usually* do just involve turning left four times and an awful lot of luck.
* With a few honourable exceptions such as the former Grand Prix track Watkins Glen.
@219. Caine, Fleur du Mal : 11 November 2011 at 10:36 am
QFMFT = ???
Please.
You can keep ignoring the fact that accusations were made back then as a reason (among a host of other possibilities), but it only enforces the ridiculousness of your stance.
But I still contend that your assertion about people is nothing more than conjecture.
No but I’ve sued. But more importantly, that has absolutely no bearing on me calling you on your ridiculous conspiracy propped up with assumptions.
Shiny shiny mirror. Just look at your entire premise posited here.
And speaking of accusations, conspiracies and assertions…
You’re a fucking joke.
Sorry meant to quote the entire section of glaring insanity from you mythusmage. I wouldn’t want to short you of your glory.
And yes, you’re still a joke.
I’m normally an opponent of the death penalty, but I’d make an exception for the pretentious gits who write “methinks” when they mean “I think”.
mythusmage:
Testosterone level drop?
Just sayin’.
Here’s what seemed to me to be a better question: Assuming that Herman Cain is 100% innocent of all wrongdoing in these cases, do you believe he is a good choice for President?
Also:
(emphasis added for TEH DERP)
I know that asking for a reference on crazytalk is kinda pointless, but I’d love to hear your source for this.
Really.
On the other hand, I’d also love for you to droop your tail between your hindlegs and admit you pulled it wholesale out of your rosy red rectum.
As you don’t seem nutty enough to try the former, or honest enough to do the latter, I’m not holding my breath.
StevoR; the MF in the middle stands for, at least in the polite form so as not to upset the tone trolls ;), MotherFreaking.
mythusmage, if that conspiracy theory of yours isn’t a Poe, you need to go back on the meds stat, and stronger ones at that by the sound of it.
No one has said the idea to cut back departments is itself stupid. What is stupid is asserting that it is necessarily a smart idea without looking into what the departments do.
Homeland security is part of a system of redundant agencies, and failure for the agencies to communicate with each other is one of the things that led to 9-11…and we responded by adding MORE agencies.
Which considering until the D20 Open Source agreement the rules of a P&P RPG system were closed intellectual property sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Even in the Open Source Agreement those who don’t own the copy right to D&D for example cannot use or publish information on the material considered specific to D&D (Mind Flayers, Beholders, Aboleths) even though they are allowed to reference the source books and use teh D20 system (though I’m not sure how that stands in lite of 4thed)
D&D incidentally faced a similar legal issue with their use of Hobbits, which is why they’re called Halflings now if I’m not mistaken.
Oh I’m not even going to address the Left bullshit he did.
If the economy is so bad in 2012 a Republican victory becomes inevitable
ah, the grand GoP lie.
in fact, if you look, the last 4 republican administrations have actually been responsible for the slowest economic growth, biggest economic scandals, highest tax raises, biggest deficits DURING their terms, biggest increases in government size, and even the biggest recessions, of the last 50 years.
Really, what you should have said there was:
“If the economy is so bad in 2012 a Republican victory becomes AS inevitable as shooting yourself in the foot.”
because that is what it is. Every time Americans have voted Republican for “economic” reasons in the last 50 years, they have just shot themselves in the foot.
every.
time.
and yet they keep doing it.
It’s a wonder you have any toes left.
Homeland security is part of a system of redundant agencies,
It’s the single biggest government agency EVER created in the US.
It’s budget is FAR larger than the Dept. of Education.
In fact, it’s even larger than the entire budget for social services.
It’s rather obvious that the GoP strategy to “grow the economy” for the last 50 years has not been to invest in infrastructure, like Clinton for example, but rather to invest in war.
The internet killed far fewer people as was far more successful at increasing economic growth than 10 years of Homeland Security and War in the Middle East have been.
but hey, if people WANT to be stupid and keep voting for the commercialization and industrialization of the Military to “increase economic growth”, more power to ya.
literally, I suppose.
good luck on the bread line.
Check out my Remixed version of this video!
Rick Perry’s Presidential Debate “Goof” – Remixed!!
StevoR:
Quoted For Mother Fucking Truth.
4 republican administrations. 10 toes.
They’ve got 6 left…..
@229. John Phillips, FCD & 236. Caine, Fleur du Mal :
Thanks.
@227. KG : 11 November 2011 at 1:34 pm
Really? “Methinks” is pretentious ya reckon? I’d have thought the opposite. Different styles and perspectives clearly, mate. I don’t get your hatred for that word, I really don’t.
Are you really saying there that I should change my language use and style just to suit your personal prejudices then?
@233. Ichthyic : 11 November 2011 at 6:31 pm
Fair enough.
Thing is if the economy keeps going down the S-bend people tend to blame the govt of the day on whose watch it’s happening whether that’s justified or not.
I’m not the world’s greatest Obama fan – he lost me when he cancelled the ‘Constellation’ program – and I think he’s been a big disappointment but I also think he’s far better than almost all the alternatives on offer. Not that it matters much anyhow as a non-American who gets no vote anyhow, my opinion counts for little.
PS. Meant to add there :
I don’t think Obama is to blame for the state of the global and American economies either.
Just in case that was unclear.
@Limey Brit #218
Jokes on you, we drink coffee.
I regularly read really stupid things from conservatives, but that has to be among the stupidest. When someone starts an argument with a logical fallacy, the reader knows that more nonsense will follow. No leftist believes that being black qualifies someone to be President.
Actually, the first part of this statement is correct. Obama has disappointed the left, because he has shown that he is not actually a leftist. But we are pretty sure that he is probably the best we can get at this time, so we are prepared to support him in 2012. After all, the Republicans have thrown up some complete loonies, and we hope and pray that none of them ever get near the White House.
Perhaps in some alternate reality, but in fact he is just another lunatic conservative. His “9-9-9″ tax plan made absolutely no sense, and would raise taxes for everyone except the wealthy.
I do not know enough about the sexual harrassment accusations made about Cain to say whether they are valid or not, although the National Restaurant Association settling with two of the women seems to say that their allegations may be legitimate.
The number of actual leftists who support Cain, either overtly or covertly, is zero. I’m sure you believe that we are all ideologues, so wouldn’t it make sense that we look at someone’s ideology rather than his race? Do you really expect us to support a conservative simply because he is black?
We do not see Cain as “a responsible black man”. We see him as just another in the looney right.
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