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« Liberal Outrage: January 2014 | Main | Liberal Outrage: March 2014 »

Liberal Outrage

Twofer

Just some quick Kevin Drum link-blogging. The TPP is apparently stalling. No word on whether the Hulk smashed it (cf).

And this one's a twofer within a twofer. Kevin Drum quoting Paul Krugman on the Comcast/Time-Warner merger, and what it means especially for us cord-cutters that only use cable for internet.


By fnord12 | February 18, 2014, 2:34 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link



Off to a good start

Economic reporters adjusting to a female Fed chairwoman.


By fnord12 | February 12, 2014, 9:37 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link



Backwards

As i've said before, i don't really care about the gun control issue, and maybe Wendy Davis doesn't either. I also don't really care who becomes governor of Texas.

But Wendy Davis' supporters, both in state voters and those out of state who would send her money, by and large do care about gun control. And pro-gun rights people are going to vote for the Republican no matter what Davis does. So this kind of thinking gets it exactly wrong:

One Democratic consultant suggested that since Abbott supporters already tried to paint Davis as an anti-gun candidate, it may be pragmatic for the state senator to support the proposal.

"If the issue isn't important to you, then it would be smart to take it off the table by saying, 'Me, too; now let's go back to talking about education and how we fund road building and the stuff the mainstream of Texas is really concerned with,'" strategist Harold Cook told the AP.

Democrats needs to stop listening to consultants that think the way to win elections is to appeal to the mythical independent voter that carefully weighs each issue and decides, on balance, to vote for the candidate that supports slightly more of the same issues that you do. You win elections with turn-out, by rallying your base and getting people to come out on election day for you. And you win undecided voters by looking principled, not by flip-flopping and pandering.


By fnord12 | February 6, 2014, 10:12 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link



Well then your job sucks

Following up on the post below, here is the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza using Alice In Wonderland logic to explain why even though the CBO report on the ACA doesn't say what lazy pundits like him says that it says, it's still ok for him to say it.

My job is to assess not the rightness of each argument but to deal in the real world of campaign politics in which perception often (if not always) trumps reality.

Wow. Gotta go to Brad DeLong for this one:

Note the assumptions here:
  • That what actually happens to Americans as ObamaCare is implemented is not the "real world"
  • That the real world is the world of "campaign politics"
  • That in this real world of campaign politics reality does not count-"perception trumps"
  • That it is not his job to report on the "rightness of the argument" about what the consequences of ObamaCare implementation will be for all those Americans who do not live in the real world of campaign politics but, instead live somewhere else
  • That it is his job to report on the perceptions of campaign politics-because that is the real world

Even if you accept that Cillizza is only a political reporter and it's not his job to report on the facts of Obamacare but only the facts of campaign politics, his immediate rush to declare this bad for Democrats in yesterday's article still amounts to, as i said below, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he wanted to wait until after Republicans put out their "Obamacare killed 2 million jobs" ads and Democrats put out their "Bill was a 59 year old man with his cancer in remission who was ready to retire but was afraid of losing his healthcare until Obamacare was implemented" ads, then he's welcome to do analysis on that and tell us which was more effective. Instead he even now barely seems to understand the distinction and just says it's too complicated to explain. In his original article he called it "economic nerd-speak". Not sure what value he is bringing to the table.


By fnord12 | February 5, 2014, 4:46 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link



How Obamacare kills jobs

By giving people a little more control over their lives.

Compare to how the dimwits in the media report on the same. The amazing thing is that most of the media personalities seem to acknowledge the reality of the CBO report but nonetheless say that the news will play better for Republicans and that's the real news. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies.

Update: Credit where credit is due: Paul Ryan, of all people, corrects the misconception. And on the other side, an important clarification from Kevin Drum.


By fnord12 | February 5, 2014, 9:33 AM | Liberal Outrage | Link



Science

I don't normally like to wade into the abortion topic, and this is definitely nutpicking, but this was a new one to me and i had to share:

Marshall has also argued that children with disabilities are nature's "vengeance" for abortion.

"The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically," Marshall reportedly said in 2010. "Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children."


By fnord12 | February 4, 2014, 1:11 PM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (1)| Link



Most people work for other people

Apparently that's hard for some people to understand.


By fnord12 | February 3, 2014, 2:34 PM | Liberal Outrage | Link



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