Politico has the 2 minute video that pulls no punches, but does it fairly, in my opinion.

And here’s the longer version…

This definitely hits close to home since I live in Kansas City. And let’s face facts…but when all this was going on the idea of downsizing to improve profits was very attractive. The internet didn’t exist and nobody thought this stuff was going to get out. Why? Because that’s just business. Bankruptcy happens. Nobody really scratched the surface to see what was going on. But now it has, and Romney has to answer for it.

Romney’s potential response? Or the one that conservative columnist Byron York is providing…

The auto bailout:

How will Romney respond? The Romney campaign has given some broad hints lately. First, the campaign has carefully scrutinized Romney’s entire record at Bain and believes it is a strongly positive one overall. But that is the big picture — there are individual instances in which Bain investments failed. Given that, look for the Romney campaign and its surrogates to counterattack by focusing on an instance in which Barack Obama, in essence, took over a company and laid people off in an effort to save the larger enterprise.

That was, of course, the auto bailouts, and while Obama often cites his success in “saving” the car industry, few remember today how many (non-union) workers lost their jobs in the Obama administration’s handling of the matter. During the economic crisis, General Motors and Chrysler shut down more than 700 dealerships, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. And the companies did it under pressure from Obama.

“President Obama’s auto task force pressed General Motors and Chrysler to close scores of dealerships without adequately considering the jobs that would be lost or having a firm idea of the cost savings that would be achieved, an audit of the process has concluded,” the New York Times reported in July 2010. “The report…estimated that tens of thousands of jobs were lost as a result.”

Right, but the big difference? GST Steel closed after 5 years. The bailouts of GM and Chrysler were 3 years again and not only have they not folded, but they’ve started expanding and keeping plants open longer due to increased demand. And both companies have paid back their initial loans in a mix of cash and stock. In fact, 2011 was GM’s biggest year on record for earnings.

So yeah…there’s a bit of a difference between the two situations.

Stil, more from the right, this time from National Review:

I talked this afternoon with the reader who had worked at GST Steel in 1997 and e-mailed about the conditions there. This person, who wishes to remain anonymous, elaborated a little more on the working conditions at the plant, saying thanks to the union structure, there was little incentive to be productive. For instance, while some workers were required to file a report daily regarding certain productivity issues, they waited until the end of the day (when it was too late to fix things) to file the report instead of earlier, because they saw no reason to bother doing it at the most effective time. And he said for some of the employees – including those racking up $100,000 to $130,000 salaries – large chunks of the day were just spent waiting for something to fix or do, with up to an 80 percent of day just spent not working.

And that’s the hours they weren’t sleeping and getting over time. During those overtime hours, when they brought sleeping bags, there was once a problem which required a couple of them to be woken up. Our reader thought the gig was up, once their sleeping had become known, but as it ended up, a supervisor was written up and that was it: the sleeping on the job continued as before.

Yep, lazy union workers made Bain come in, suck all the money out of GST and then close up shop. Sure.

Key lines to remember from the GST video:

1. “Private equity is not, per se, bad, but what Bain Capital did was not capitalism, it was bad management.”
2. “The business model of loading a company up with debt in order to extract immediate profits out of it and then ensuring the failure of the company later on seemed like exactly the wrong thing we needed in America today.”
3. “Bain issued 125 million dollars in bonds. And out of that 125 million dollar debt, they paid themselves almost 40 million dollars.”

Okay…let’s take that in for a moment. Bain put the company into debt to the tune of $125M and paid themselves $40M.

Of course Byron York and National Review don’t mention details like THAT, but there it is.

More as it develops…

How bummed am I to see these Gallup numbers? Quite a bit.

No, strike that. Quite a lot.

Seriously Democrats? Seriously Independents?

Yes, seriously.

My guess is that these Dems and Indies are mostly older and southern and they will slowly be replaced by folks who really don’t care who you love and who you want to spend your life with.

Still, getting those 30+ constitutional amendments overturned is going to be a quite a long haul.

Paging SCOTUS…

It finally happened. We all knew it would, but for it to have taken this long is disappointing. And to find out that Biden essentially forced his hand is even more disappointing.

But hey, it is what it is. This is politics.

Still, his support seems pretty weak right now. Yes, he’s the first President to come out in favor, but there’s no passion behind it. And states keep passing constitutional bans, North Carolina being the latest.

So what will that mean for Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington in November?

LA Times has more:

Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state are expected to decide in November whether to allow gay marriage. Despite growing public support for such unions, opponents have won almost every time the question has come before voters. [...]

Proponents of gay marriage hope Obama’s move will tip the balance; opponents say it won’t.

David Mixner, a longtime Democratic and gay rights activist, noted wryly that Obama’s endorsement was “no more symbolic than President Johnson endorsing the Voting Rights bills…. It’s going to give momentum. It’s going to give real legitimacy. It’s going to impact those who are sitting on the fence. Anytime the president takes a major stance on any civil rights issues, whether it’s Harry Truman or John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, it lends the power of the presidency to that issue.”

And it gets even more disheartening when I read things like this…

“I think it is a mistake to try to make what has traditionally been a state issue into a national issue,” Obama said, alluding to presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s support for a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage.

You can’t have it both ways Barack. Enough’s enough. Either you’re for it and you push for a country wide mandate or you’re just saying the words. Because if those 4 states pass bans on it in the Fall and that’s coupled with a loss of the Senate and possibly even your presidency…how far do you think that’ll set the movement back?

Mark Halperin lets us know why the Obama campaign is confident…almost.

From Swampland:

First, in the view of the Obamans, Romney is still a weak candidate. His stump skills continue to be uneven at best, with speeches plagued by awkward jargon and passionless rhetoric. They believe his tenure as head of Bain Capital and his term as governor of Massachusetts conceal vulnerabilities yet to be unveiled. “No one’s ever looked at Romney’s record, and there’s a lot there,” said one senior campaign official. “He developed this set of values at Bain about what the economy is all about … Whatever it took to make money … He took that same philosophy to Massachusetts [as governor].” Obama’s team is sitting on a multimedia treasure trove of research about both phases of Romney’s career and expects to launch powerful missiles at key moments throughout the campaign, discombobulating the Republican each time.

Second, they maintain, their research suggests Romney has exactly one rhetorical path to victory, as a can-do businessman able to fix what’s broken. Chicago intends to focus as much of its formidable firepower as necessary to dismantle Romney on that front and prevent the election from becoming a referendum on the President’s economic tenure.

Third, the Obama team argues, Romney has taken many positions to the right of public opinion. The President’s team plans to throw two years’ worth of provocative statements in Romney’s face, using sophisticated micro-targeting to impacted demographics. On an unrelenting messaging loop, Hispanics will hear about Romney’s ties to the country’s most controversial anti-illegal immigration leaders and laws. Senior citizens dependent on Medicare will be told again and again about Romney’s backing of Paul Ryan’s House budget plan. Women will be warned about the threat to reproductive freedom. And on and on.

Fourth and finally, presidential politics, in the end, is all about the Electoral College. The Obama campaign’s analysis, matching recent media number crunching, indicates that Romney has a paper-thin margin of error to get to the magical 270. The map is littered with states the Republicans must take from the 2008 Democratic column in order to win, and in many of them, such as Ohio and Virginia, they are behind.

They are certainly gearing up for an epic battle, but do you agree?

Let us now in the comments!

When you look around your city or hometown, do you wonder how your tax dollars are being put to use? Well, look no further, because the infographic below outlines a number of ways in which your hard-earned money is being spent, and whether it’s doing any good.

For the first time in history, our Tax Freedom Day landed on the same day that taxes were due. It took the average American 107 days to earn enough money to pay for their taxes. Now that we’re all anxiously awaiting our refunds, cursing the government for making us pay, or hoping that our extension will be long enough, it’s time to see where most of that money is actually going.

The average American spends about 12.7% of his or her income on food, while over double that, 29%, is spent on federal, state, and local taxes. The government is throwing that money at a number of services, including national defense, health care, social services, education, veteran benefits, law enforcement, and more.

For example, we’re spending 24.9% of our taxes on national defense, including the $8 billion we’ve put into the TSA, and the unaccounted for billions we’ve squandered away in Iraq. Another huge chunk, 23.7% goes to health care, yet 50 million Americans don’t have it, and it’s the number one cause of personal bankruptcies in the country. If we’re not getting anything from our tax dollars, who is?

Created by: AccountingDegreeOnline.net

Seems like GOPers are taking part in a lot of wishful thinking with this poll, but here are the numbers…

The poll asked Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP to choose from eight names who could be among the two dozen or so potential running mates that the Romney campaign may be considering as the vice presidential nominee.

According to the survey, Condoleezza Rice is on top of the list. Twenty-six percent questioned said they would like to see Rice, who served as national security adviser and later as secretary of state under President George W. Bush, as the Republican vice presidential nominee. In second place in the survey, at 21%, was Rick Santorum, who was Romney’s chief rival for the nomination until early last week, when the former senator from Pennsylvania suspended his campaign for the White House.

Interesting part is how close Santorum is. Just 5 points behind Condi. Evangelicals clearly want a guy like Santorum in the mix when it comes to the veep-stakes. That’s why I think Huckabee makes more sense because he’s not nearly as polarizing as Santorum. Still, I doubt Romney will ask since it’s common knowledge the two don’t get along.

By the way, Rubio has said he won’t accept the position if asked. Given that he’s only 40, I think that’s a very smart move. He has his eyes on the White House and he knows he’s not going to get there by playing second fiddle to a guy who won’t help him with his Tea Party bonafides.

More as it develops..

2012 is the second year of our most recent divided government incarnation, a presidential election year, and the Chinese Year of the Dragon*. In our constitutionally checked, balanced, gridlocked and divided government, it seems appropriate to use the three headed dragon King Ghidorah to illustrate the electoral choices confronting us this fall.

As recently noted by Justin, with the Romney nomination a fait accompli the general election is underway in earnest. I don’t find it particularly useful to look at presidential elections as simply a choice between individual champions of the two major political parties. Between the R and D presidential nominees I find the level of corruption and hypocrisy to be a question of degree. Whether the red or blue team winds up in the White House serves only to indicate which special interests will have the inside track. I prefer to look at the likely final configuration of House, Senate, and Presidency, then make a voting decision by choosing between the most probable partisan configurations.

Voters have seen fit to install divided government four of the last six years, interrupted by two years of Democratic Single Party Rule, and preceded by six years of Republican Single Party Rule. Prior to the Republican reign, we enjoyed what many think of as the golden age of divided government – six years of Clinton/Gingrich. Currently, conventional wisdom among professional prognosticators is that we will again select divided government in 2013-2014.

Charlie Cook is representative:

“With the odds that the 113th Congress will be even more closely divided than the current one, it puts an additional twist to this fall and a potential lame duck session of Congress… Historically, Americans have liked divided government: They fundamentally didn’t completely trust either party. They saw split control as a form of checks and balances. And historically, divided government resulted in compromise: splitting the difference and toning down the excesses from each side. But in today’s more-polarized setting, divided government more often results in paralysis and dysfunction; each party is increasingly influenced, if not dominated, by their most-ideological and less-pragmatic factions. The question is whether the configuration of the 113th Congress will result in even worse paralysis, or force compromise.“

Some have taken analysis of future divided government scenarios to another level of granularity. Not content with simply looking at whether a Democrat or Republican sweep is possible, they are handicapping each of the eight distinct possible R & D configurations for the executive and legislative branches, then assessing the relative merits of each.

Steven Johnson at Reuters sorts through two united and two divided scenarios:

“OBAMA RE-ELECTED WITH DIVIDED OR REPUBLICAN CONGRESS …paralysis should not be assumed. Obama would not have to worry about re-election, which could increase his flexibility to deal with the Republicans, who themselves will want to avoid being blamed for failure to deal with the deficit. For Obama, re-election would be a chance to show “he can deliver for the American people,” said Alan Wilde, head of fixed income and currency at Baring Asset Management in London, with $50 billion in assets. “This must mean swift progress on fiscal consolidation and working with Congress in a constructive way.”

Alex Pareene at Salon comments on a Goldman Sachs Analysis:

Goldman Sachs says if you want fiscal conservatism, vote to keep things exactly the way they are. The analysts at Goldman’s Global Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research team have released a note arguing that a divided Congress plus a Democrat in the White House equals “fiscal restraint”… Smart “fiscal conservatives” have long understood that divided government is best for dragging all government business to a halt, which is generally the unspoken (or occasionally spoken) goal of professional “deficit hawks.” Goldman gets that you want Democrats in charge of most of the government if you want a balanced budget, because Democrats crave compromise and balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, on account of modern Democrats being for the most part Rockefeller Republicans.”

Ron Insana at CNBC made a very granular observation about the single best divided government configuration:

“If you listen to the folks at Ned Davis Research who have tracked this back to 1850, a Democratic President and Republican Congress yields the best stock market returns of any possible governmental combination. If you look at the presidents with the biggest gains in the 20th and 21st centuries, it has been Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. Now, it may have nothing to do with them. Maybe they just came in on the bottom of a particular cycle.”

As luck would have it, this is the exact configuration currently favored by the Intrade Prediction Markets. As I write this, Intrade shows President Obama with a 61% chance of being reelected, the Republicans with a 63% chance of taking the Senate majority and a 70% chance of retaining the majority in the House of Representatives.The Intrade Prediction Markets have a good track record of forecasting winners when the election is imminent. While it is a great barometer of current sentiment, it is less reliable as a soothsayer when the election is still many months away. I am guessing it is a better sentiment snapshot than these early Gallup or Pew Polls indicating a statistical tie for President.

For my part, this is how I stack up all eight possible 2013 federal government configurations for the leadership in the White House, House of Representatives and Senate – ranked from most to least likely:

1. Obama (D), Boehner (R), McConnell (R) [Intrade favorite]
2. Obama (D), Boehner (R), Reid (D) [Status quo]
3. Romney (R), Boehner (R), McConnell (R) [GOP sweep]
4. Romney (R), Boehner (R), Reid (D)[Obama falters]
5. Obama (D), Pelosi (D), Reid (D) [Epic GOP Fail]
6. Obama (D), Pelosi (D), McConnell (R) [Only like Obama]
7. Romney (R), Pelosi (D), McConnell (R) [No incumbents]
8. Romney (R), Pelosi (D), Reid (D) [Dem tsunami except Obama]

This looks like a horse race tout sheet. I am thinking only Win, Place, and Show have a realistic chance of occurring. Of these, I find the first scenario to be the most likely, and preferable. Nothing against Romney – I just find our constitutional checks and balances work better when our leaders are not all on the same team.

The early call: The Republicans will keep the majority in the House. Senate majority is leaning Republican but it’s too close to call. If the Republicans win the White House it is virtually certain they will also take the majority in the Senate and One Party Republican Rule will again hold sway. Voters who prefer to avoid a return to the “good old days” of 2000-2006 cannot rely on the Democrats holding the Senate, leaving only one certain way to avoid that outcome.

The Divided Government vote for 2012 is a vote to re-elect Barack Obama.

=========================

* SPECIAL NOTE:

While researching this post, I learned that I was born under the sign of the Dragon – specifically the Water Dragon – the most auspicious, desirable, and luckiest of the Chinese zodiac menagerie:

“Force and power are the symbols attributed to the Dragon… those born under the influence of the Dragon are considered the luckiest of all and good fortune simply follows them wherever they go.. Indeed, whether male or female, Dragons are libidinous and score quite a hit with the opposite sex.”

This addendum has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this post. I just thought it important to take note of these facts for the enlightenment and edification of the Donk commentariat.

^{Cross posted from Dividist Papers selections (here, here, and here)}

That’s the big news in the first daily tracking poll Gallup has put out. Why? Because when you look at Dems and Repubs, the support is exactly the same…

Of note…this is a swing from last time these numbers were collected…

This initial report is based on interviews with 2,265 registered voters, and highlights the potential closeness of this year’s race, with Romney and Obama essentially in a statistical tie. Gallup’s previous general election trial heat, from a national poll conducted March 25-26, showed Obama with a slight 49% to 45% lead over Romney.

More as it develops…

Not that this surprising, but the numbers are bigger than I thought…

Listen, we’re not dummies. Obama is going to go after Romney’s wealth and ask why he doesn’t favor taxing the rich the same as all of us.

Gallup has more…

Given President Obama’s persistent emphasis this year on the need to increase taxes on higher-income Americans, and his adoption of a “fair share, fair shot, equal playing rules” campaign theme, it is not surprising to see that Democrats favor the Buffett Rule by almost a three-to-one ratio. More than six in 10 independents, a critically important group in an election year, favor the law. Republicans oppose the law by an 11-point margin, with 54% against and 43% in favor.

The fact that this close with Repubs is a big campaign problem for Romney. A vast majority of Americans won’t be swayed that rich folks don’t pay as much as the rest of us. That’s not to begrudge the rich, it’s just a fact.

What do you think?

The way Rosen said what she said was clumsy and inartful. There’s no doubt about that. That’s why so many Dems are backing away from her comments, including Obama.

But, as the title suggests, she’s right. Sort of. Because she was talking about actual work. You know, the kind we measure and report and obsess over every month? Yeah, that kind.

Still, given the way she said it, it appears as if Rosen is saying that raising children isn’t work. Of course it is, and I doubt that’s what Rosen meant. Her friend Greta Van Sustren backs that up…

In making that remark about Mrs. Romney and her choice to raise a family and not work outside the home simultaneously, I know Hilary knows raising children is hard work, really hard work…the absolute hardest work. Hilary has children. That is the best way to know the challenge of raising children – have them! Hilary is not anti-stay-at-home mom.

I did not read Hilary’s comments to in anyway take away from the hard chore of raising children or staying at home and raising them and not working outside the family. I read it to mean that raising children without financial pressure is easier than having financial pressure.

Well put Greta, but I think there’s something else missing in your argument. The idea of choice.

Listen, I have a TON of respect for women who decide to stay at home and raise children. One day I hope to have children of my own and I’d hope my partner would stay at home to raise them…or vice versa. Yes, I’d love to be a stay at home dad. That would rock and I would be awesome at it. True story.

But having children is a choice. Having an actual “job” and making your way in the world is not. Well, at least for most people. There are some trust fund babies out there who don’t have to work if they don’t want to, but they’re few and far between.

So yes, while the way Hilary Rosen made her point almost invalidates it, the idea that having children is an actual job that compares to going to work at McDonald’s is just not correct. Because, if it is, we should measure the economic benefits of being a mom (or dad) and add those folks to the numbers of gainfully employed.

But if we’re not willing to do that, well, being a mom isn’t a job. Not in the technical sense. And that’s what Rosen meant.

I welcome your thoughts.

Many issues in America faced an uphill battle at the turn of the century, and several unresolved ones still do. From gay marriage to medical marijuana, there are thousands of individuals pushing to change current legislation and fully progress into the new millennium. The infographic below actually outlines some of the reasons why America should go green – for marijuana legalization.

With a floundering economy, it’s hard to pass up the financial benefits of legalizing the green stuff. The number one cash crop in the United States – marijuana – is unregulated, untaxed, and prohibiting it costs the U.S. $7.7 billion each year. If we were to legalize it, we would not only save that $7.7 billion, but also gain $6.2 billion on marijuana tax revenues, and another $7 billion on a variety of cannabis shops, natural medical products, and more.

Since the war on drugs began in the 1960’s, it hasn’t made much of a long-term impact on drug use for teens and adolescents. Twelfth grade drug usage has hovered around 40% for decades, and teens between the ages of 12 and 17 say that it is easier to get marijuana than cigarettes, beer, or prescription drugs. A national study found that 40% of teens could get marijuana within a day, and 25% said they could get it within an hour. It seems like legal, regulated substances are a lot easier to control, and a lot harder to obtain, than illegal ones. Check out the infographic below for more details:

Created by: Online Paralegal Programs

So Mitt is it. But who will be his #2?

Names being floated? Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Governor Bobby Jindal. I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind right off the bat.

Personally, I think McDonnell and Daniels are out right away. Although McDonnell would make sure Virginia is locked up, he’s just not very compelling. And Romney won’t lose Indiana. Plus, Romney is the old, boring white guy in the race. He doesn’t need another one.

That leaves the other old white guy, Chris Christie. He’s certainly charismatic, but he has gone off script a couple times as a Romney surrogate and nobody wants a rogue VP again. Palin spoiled Christie’s chances.

Ryan is out because, respectfully, he’s a nerd. Nobody wants a nerd for President. Plus, he looks like he’s 28.

Jindal wouldn’t be a bad pick in theory, but he has had the national stage before and he just doesn’t have very much charisma either.

But who should Romney pick?

Mike Huckabee. Why? Because if Huckabee had ran this year, he’d be the nominee.

Think about it. Huckabee has Santorum’s evangelical bonafides, Gingrich’s conservative credentials and a likability that Romney simply doesn’t have. I know a bunch of Dems and Indies who don’t necessarily like Huckabees politics, but like him as a person. He would have won Iowa no problem, and most likely would have won South Carolina too. Gingirch wouldn’t have had a chance. And then it would have been Romney vs. Huckabee. Think Huckabee could have won all of the states Santorum won…and then some? I do.

But back to the Veep speculation. What the Repubs desperately want this election cycle is for Dems and Indies who turned out in 2008 for Obama to stay home because a) they wouldn’t mind having Romney/Huckabee as president and b) they’re not passionate enough to drive down to the polls. Also, a guy like Huckabee would wipe away any question the base has about Romney’s religion, stance on abortion, etc. All of that goes away.

So that’s my guess. What’s yours?

He had a good run, but he just couldn’t pull it off. No surprise there. The real surprise was that he lasted this long.

From The Hill:

Santorum announced that he is suspending his campaign at an event in his home state of Pennsylvania — his first public appearance following the release of his daughter Bella from the hospital and after he took a break from the campaign trail for a long Easter weekend.

“While this presidential race is over for me, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting,” he said from Gettysburg, Pa., flanked by his family.

The former senator thanked his supporters for what he called the campaign’s “improbable” success. But Santorum’s poll numbers were dropping ahead of Pennsylvania’s April 24 primary, with Romney throwing the full weight of his campaign into a push to win there.

As The Hill points out, Santorum didn’t want to suffer a loss in his home state of Pennsylvania, but you can bet if the poll numbers were different he’d be right there, tearing Romney a new one.

So with Newt done quite some time ago and Santorum wrapping it up, looks like the general election can start in earnest.

Still, do you think Santorum’s and Newt’s attacks will hurt Romney in the general? I can’t help but think the answer is “yes.” So many soundbites! Hillary wasn’t nearly as caustic as the Republican also-rans were. Mainly because she probably thought she was going to win it and wanted to seem presidential. Newt and Santorum knew that they could only win if Romney really tripped up.

Buckle your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride for the GOP this year.

It’s all in the framing.

The President’s comments at the Associated Press luncheon on Tuesday received a great deal of media attention. Much of the punditocracy was focused on the President’s preemptive strike at the Supreme Court and apparent attempt to direct judicial decisions from the oval office. The political grandstanding by the President precipitated a grandstand volley between the judiciary and the DOJ, as well as predictable partisan posturing from both the right and left.

Frankly I am at a loss to explain what Obama hopes to gain from this kind of rhetoric.  Sure it will fire up his base, but it also fires up the GOP base to a degree that the presumed Republican nominee could never hope to achieve.  I don’t see how it helps Obama with centrists and independents. When both a former mentor and student think he got it wrong, it is no surprise that his press secretary was on the defensive.

The President also tried to make hay with the oft-repeated point that the individual mandate was supported by Republicans before they were against it. Avik Roy  and Ilya Somin point out the converse is also true, with many Democrats (including candidate Obama) opposing the individual mandate before they supported it.

We once again see partisan hackery, hypocrisy, and cynical opportunism from partisans and politicos on both the right and left. Nothing new there.

But is it true equivalent hypocrisy? Or is it false equivalence?

Which brings us to this response from the President during AP luncheon Q&A that did not merit quite so much media attention, but it got mine:

Indeed. So the President thinks the press might be afflicted by an “impulse” to suggest that both Republicans and Democrats are at fault for failing to compromise. He goes on to patiently explain that this is completely untrue – in fact this is “false equivalence” and bad reporting. The correct way for the Associated Press reporters to cover this story is to blame only Republicans. Any questions?

I have a few. We’ve often heard this “false equivalence” complaint from the left about media coverage in recent years, but exactly what does the charge of “false equivalence” mean to a reporter on a practical level? Does it mean that the reporter should simply blame Republicans 100% for legislative failures at the behest of the administration?  Or should the reporting be more nuanced than that? Should the reporter only slant the reporting to assign 75% blame to the Republicans and 25% to the Democrats?  Or is it adequate to blame Republicans 52% and Democrats 48%?  Who makes these fine judgments about whether there is false equivalence or true equivalence or some finer gradation of equivalence in a news story?  

Unsurprisingly, Democrats James Fallows and Greg Sargent are happy to tell you exactly who to blame and exactly what percentage to apply to Republicans.

My take is that the “false equivalence” meme in general and this speech in particular are just another partisan attempt to shape the narrative, which is another way of saying – manage the press. In some ways this is a continuation of Professor George Lakoff’s thesis (widely embraced on the left) that conservative and republican framing of issues in the media was the major electoral problem for progressives and the Democratic Party. Lakoff asserts that progressives need only properly “frame” their policies in the media to garner support of the American electorate.

On the right, republicans have made political hay for decades by accusing mainstream broadcast and print media of having a liberal bias.  It is a de rigueur meme in virtually any GOP campaign that garners national attention. Any perceived criticism in the press is deflected with that charge.

It is a popular and well mined meme. Best-selling books have been written about liberal bias in the media. Blogs are dedicated to monitoring and exposing liberal bias in the media.   Conservative pundits bloviate about liberal bias in the media. The very  raison d’etre for the Fox News Network was to provide a “fair and balanced” counterpoint to the perceived liberal bias in the media.

“Liberal bias in the media” may be a cliche’ but it is a politically effective cliche’. When a conservative politico complains about “liberal media bias” they are simply complaining about how a story is being reported. If they can change the narrative in the press, or get supporters to ignore a negative narrative by charging “liberal media bias” – why not drag out that reliable chestnut? It’s effective.

But, what if you are a progressive politico and you want to similarly influence the press to use a narrative more sympathetic to your cause? What are you going to say? Are you going to accuse the press of “Conservative Media Bias”? Outside of Fox News, who is going to take that seriously? It’s ineffective. No one believes it, not even liberals.  But – a charge that media is reporting a “false equivalence” between Republicans and Democrats – well – that sounds different and kind of intellectual and maybe that is a good reason to dismiss reporting that is insufficiently sympathetic to Democrats.

The charge of “false equivalence” from the left is nothing more or less than political spin hoping to have the identical effect on perception of MSM reporting that the right seeks to achieve with “Liberal media bias.” 

The notion of charging the media with reporting “false equivalence” strikes me as an absurdity. Certainly there is media bias. There always has been and always will be. Sometimes it is left and sometimes it is right. Certainly a reported story will not match everyone’s perception of how equivalent blame should be weighted. This is not going to change because the right accuses the MSM of “liberal media bias” and it is not going to change because the left accuses the media of reporting “false equivalence”. It is just another way of saying “We are right, they are wrong.”

This is politics as usual. I expect it from partisan Republicans. I expect it from partisan Democrats. But I do feel there is something unseemly and demeaning about the President of the United States stooping to this level.

But whether it is a president or a pundit making the charge, I’ll stick with the “Doctrine of False Non-Equivalence”  which is to say….

They are equivalent.  Deal with it.

^{Cross-posted from “The Dividist Papers“}

As we have chronicled from the first week that MF Global declared bankruptcy, the mystery of the missing “sacrosanct” segregated client funds was not something that could be explained away with run-of-the-mill corporate incompetence and executive malfeasance. If investors cannot trust the custodian of their brokerage funds, the system cannot work.

Friday we learned from a memo prepared by congressional investigators that the person of interest for directing segregated client funds be used as collateral for MF Global’s bad bets is non other than Ex- MF Global CEO, Ex- New Jersey Governor, Ex – NJ Senator, Ex- Goldman Sachs Co-CEO - Jon Corzine. Surprise. The memo describes background material for a March 28 House Financial Services subcommittee hearing focused on the firm’s collapse:

Looking back at Jon Corzine’s statements before congressional committees investigating MF Global’s failure, it is clear that he knew that e-mail was out there. He used the committee hearing to lay the groundwork for a “he said / she said” defense vis-a-vis treasurer Edith O’Brien.

In his December testimony to the House Committee, he was asked the relevant question. CNBC:

The operative word is “intend”. He was misunderstood. Just a simple CEO with a routine request that an employee solve a problem to prevent the company from crashing down all around them. He had no idea that his company treasurer would misinterpret his instruction to mean transfering segregated client funds to JP Morgan. That may be what happened, but that wasn’t his intent. Certainly not.

The preemptive defense becomes more explicit in this bit from the December Agricultural Committee hearing as reported by the Huffington Post:

October 30th is two days after O’Brien’s e-mail specifying the money transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions”. Let’s be fair. It is possible that O’Brien’s JC reference was not referring specifically to Jon Corzine. Perhaps O’Brien has a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Many do.

- Or – Perhaps O’Brien simply misunderstood JC’s intent. “You gotta fix it” could easily be misinterpreted to mean something like “Raid the client accounts if you have to, but get me the time to sell this piece of crap before the street figures out we’re insolvent.” That kind of misunderstanding happens all the time.

Consider the off-the-cuff remark by King Henry II: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”. He makes an innocent statement, it is overheard by nearby corporate treasurers knights in his employ, and the next thing he knows, the Archbishop of Canterbury is lying in a pool of his own blood.

^{Cross posted from “The Dividist Papers“}

In the age of domestic and international terrorism, a few inconveniences at the airport seem pretty trivial. Most of us happily hand over our belongings to be scrutinized by airport security, because the alternative is unbearable. Who cares if we have to take our shoes off, and throw out a few bottles of perfume every time we fly, if it’s to ensure that nobody on our plane is going to get through with any weapons? As the infographic below brings to light, millions of Americans put their blind hope in the TSA each time they fly, without realizing quite how risky that is.

Despite over 6 billion tax dollars of funding since 9/11, the TSA has allowed more than 25,000 security breaches. To date, at least 16 individuals that were later accused of involvement in terrorist plots flew through different U.S. airports since 2004, and not one was stopped. Statistics tell us that 7 out of every 10 weapons get passed scanners, and in May of 2011, 4 chef knives were brought on a plane. Controversial full-body TSA scanners became mandatory in 2010, yet even at $170,000 a pop, they are useless because they can’t see objects concealed at your sides.

The TSA is probably one of the most despised organizations in the United States, yet the government continues budgeting out $7.6 billion to fund it. What’s worse: private security could screen 65% more passengers, and would cost 40% less to taxpayers than the TSA.

Created by: Online Criminal Justice Degree

[YouTube]
In case you missed it, a Rick Santorum campaign rally in Arlington Heights, Illinois got a little awesome on Friday:

Santorum was 15 minutes into his speech when the two men shouted and got the attention of the crowd. They exchanged a kiss, prompting guards to eject them and the crowd to chant “U-S-A” while they were leaving the gym.

When asked whether the kiss was a public display of affection or merely a symbolic act, Timothy Tross of Lombard and Ben Clifford of Algonquin, declined to comment.

“I don’t think the message should be about what my sexuality is,” Tross said. “It’s the message that he’s saying about sexuality that matters.”

About 50 protesters lined the street before the rally with signs that read “LGBT No H8,” “Catholics Against Santorum” and “If I incorporate myself, would you treat me like a person?” LGBT activist Matt Muchowski, who created the Facebook group “Carmel Catholic Alumni Against Rick Santorum,” planned the protest.

Here’s the video (1:50 into the clip).

To be honest, I’m not sure why the crowd started to chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” It seems to me that, while disruptive, the kiss was not a tacit endorsement of any of (the many) Santorum’s political rivals. Usually, when the crowd at a rally starts shouting like that, it is to drown out whatever dissenting voice(s) is/are present.

In this case, it was not a vocal repudiation of Santorum’s political ideology — rather a display. If the crowd really wanted to ‘fight fire with fire’, all of the heterosexual couples should have started making out, right?

Head nod: Taegan Goddard