Nobody hates their politicians like California hates thier politicians

Seriously (link), here PPPs commentary:

Arnold Schwarzenegger of course is the least popular Governor in the country with a 20/64 approval rating. The battle to replace him looks like it will be between someone marginally unpopular (Jerry Brown and his 37/39 favorability ratio) and someone very unpopular (Meg Whitman and her 24/44 favorability ratio.)

In the Senate race right now an unpopular incumbent (Barbara Boxer, 37/46 approval) is still favored for reelection because her likely opponent is just as unpopular (Carly Fiorina, 22/30 favorability and that's before the Democrats start really spending money on attacking the heck out of her.)

Tough Day for Blogging

Lots of emergency analysis going on in my day job - so my blog crawl today has been severely curtailed.  On the plus side, I'm not as POed at the GOP as I usually am about this time of day.

Here is the one post that has me thinking bad thoughts (link).  It's a fun rant from Sullivan about Palin, torture, Israel, and Iran.  It red meat for those who sceptically view Israeli actions .  Enjoy!

I'd like effectively provided government services, please.

So, not this (link).

Peach County is one of more than 120 school districts across the country where students attend school just four days a week, a cost-saving tactic gaining popularity among cash-strapped districts struggling to make ends meet. The 4,000-student district started shaving a day off its weekly school calendar last year to help fill a $1 million budget shortfall.

It was that or lay off 39 teachers the week before school started, said Superintendent Susan Clark.

The article is unsure on whether or not this is bad thing.  Let me clear that up.  It is a bad thing.  I have never seen an educational study which says that less class time results in better student performance.  I have never read an economist that said educational performance is not a significant factor in our nation's future prosperity.  Every time you hear somebody complain about how much money government wastes and that we pay too much in taxes, I want you to think of four day school weeks in Peach County.

Let's put these guys back in charge....

I'm offended (link).  You should be too.  His presidency is an object lesson in how to become your enemy.

George W. Bush's casual acknowledgment Wednesday that he had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded -- and would do it again -- has horrified some former military and intelligence officials who argue that the former president doesn't seem to understand the gravity of what he is admitting.

Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is "unequivocably torture", said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years. 

I'm in the "Don't Gut Regulation" camp...

Ezra captures the key point on the oil spill (link).

It strains credulity to suggest that presidents will enter office and zero in on failures at tiny regulatory agencies. But their underlings should. And they appoint their underlings. So insofar as Ken Salazar fell down on the job, it's Obama's fault in a "buck stops here" sort of way.

But this is also evidence of what a bad idea it is to routinely elect people who make it a point to degrade the capacity of regulatory agencies. If your regulators are going to be effective, the commitment to their effectiveness has to be continuous, not episodic. If every other administration has to come into office and nurse a sabotaged bureaucracy back to health, they're going to miss some of the problems, and much of the damage will already have been done.

(Emphasis mine).

That's the Way You Do It

When the crazzies wake-up, the deficit solution becomes apparent.  It's called the budget deals of 1990 and 1993.  Here's a key chart from Jonathan Chiat's excellent post "Conservatives Ignore Their One Proven Success" :

(Hat Tip: Matt Yglesias)

Your 2012 Frontrunner

May I present, Sarah Palin (link):

This is a message to extreme “environmentalists” who hypocritically protest domestic energy production offshore and onshore. There is nothing “clean and green” about your efforts. Look, here’s the deal: when you lock up our land, you outsource jobs and opportunity away from America and into foreign countries that are making us beholden to them. Some of these countries don’t like America. Some of these countries don’t care for planet earth like we do – as evidenced by our stricter environmental standards.

With your nonsensical efforts to lock up safer drilling areas, all you’re doing is outsourcing energy development, which makes us more controlled by foreign countries, less safe, and less prosperous on a dirtier planet. Your hypocrisy is showing. You’re not preventing environmental hazards; you’re outsourcing them and making drilling more dangerous.

Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country’s energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It’s catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it.

That's right.  The environmentalists are to blame.  Run, Baby, Run.

Ack... I may end up buying a subscription to the NYT

I really like the free internet.  All the free news and analysis that you can read.  Links to the best sources.  All that.  Reading about the paywalls being formed has made me worried.  Will I eventually have to pay for this great stuff I've been getting for free?  I mean it hasn't happened yet.  And usually when I run into a paywall (Like the WSJ), you can do a google search on the article's headline and get a free full version being posted by somebody else (I have no idea how they aren't getting sued for stealing content).

But remember that the NYT announced that they would have a pay wall (link).  Maybe they'll back down if Murdoch's own play fails (link).  Maybe not.

But, I can get my news from other sources, right?  Well, Krugman's blog is part of the NYT.  And now, so will Nate Silver's (link).  Yikes.  If all the best web content gets put behind paywalls, big content will have forced my hand.  Again.

(Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan)

UPDATE:  Nate has his own take on this change on his blog (link).   I'm disappointed to hear that his posts will reduce in frequency over the next 9-10 weeks during his transition.  However, it's good to hear that he'll be up and running by September, just about the time that political news junkies like myself will be going completely nuts.

Massively

(Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Crazy is as crazy does

Yesterday, I noticed this headline over at RedState.com: "Sestak Job Offer Violated Federal Law?".  Which made me remember this post over at Ezra Klein's blog by Jonathan Bernstein (link):

The incentives all run to impeachment, as far as I can tell. The leaders of such an effort would find it easy to cash in (literally, I mean) with books and appearances on the conservative lecture circuit. It's hard to believe that Rush, Beck and the rest of the gang wouldn't be tripping over each other to wear the crown of the Host Who Brought Down the socialist gangster president. And we've seen the ability, or I should say the lack thereof, of rank-and-file GOP pols to stand up to the talk show yakkers. Besides, it's not as if a new Republican majority would have a full agenda of legislative items to pass, and what they did have would face an Obama veto (and most likely death in the Senate at any rate). Against all that is the collective preference of the Republican Party not to have a reputation as a pack of loons, but that doesn't seem to be much of a constraint in practice. Of course, also against impeachment is the lack of a serious offense by the president, but I don't see that as a major impediment -- if offering a job to a potential Senate candidate is an impeachable offense (and see Jonathan Chait if you think it really is), then they'll have no trouble at all coming up with something.

I'm beginning to fear the political impact of the oil spill on the mid-term elections.  I don't want to under-emphasize the environmental/economic catastrophe by making it seem that the only impact I care about is the political one.  Especially given the horse race sensibility of my comment.  So please read this as only one aspect of my thinking.

Basically, the oil spill contributes to the growing sense of frustration on the part of the citizenry.  This leads to greater anger at incumbents.  As the GOP is out of power, this increases their likelihood of retaking the house and possibly the senate.  And because the crazies are running the GOP show, we get to the Bernstein impeachment prediction.  Which is crazy.

This sounds nuts.  And I would bet against it today.  But what else would need to happen to change my bet?  If today wasn't in June but was in late October, would my bet change?

I'm real hesitant to blog this...

Because, I hate to raise expectations.

But, I keep reading this kind of sentiment (From PPP):

It's just another data point showing that Democratic troubles this year are not the result of them losing the center, but of conservative voters being more motivated to turn out.

And (From Charlie Cook):

Although no single district can be an accurate microcosm of a larger set of competitive districts, Pennsylvania's 12th District seemed to be a good example of a certain type. It is blue-collar with a mix of small towns, cities and rural areas. The Republican candidate was competent, well-funded and had a good story. Obama's job approval ratings in the district were below the national average. It might not have been a gimme, but it was a race the Republicans should have won. Not only did they lose, though, they lost by 8 points, just shy of the traditional 10-point yardstick of a landslide.

What happened? ....The Republican analysis seems to imply GOP victory is dependent upon Democratic vote depression, and for them to win, Democratic voters must be lethargic and not show up.

And (From Ed Kilgore at 538.com):

Moreover, a more stridently ideological posture by Republicans could arguably play into the hands of Democrats who are frantically trying to make the next two election cycles revolve around a "two futures" choice between two very different agendas rather than a referendum on Democratic governance. 

And (From Adam Abramowitz at The Democratic Strategist):

Evidence from U.S. Senate elections since 2000 provides strong support for the median voter theory of U.S. elections. This evidence shows that conservatism had a significant negative effect on the electoral performance of Republican incumbents. Based on these results, efforts by the Tea Party movement and other conservative activist to purge moderate incumbents and pressure Republican candidates into taking more consistently conservative positions are likely to have a detrimental impact on the GOP's performance in future elections.

I'd really like to see the GOP punished for their tea party nonsense.  Based on these readings, the mid-terms may hinge on how far to the right the GOP has moved.  If Democratic voters do turnout, then there will be a chance to turn back the red tide. You can't know what will happen in this next round of national elections, but maybe the GOP really has taken their rhetoric a step too far.

Sell Everything. Immediately. Quickly.

(Hat Tip: Greg Mankiw's Blog)

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

Oil Map

Excellent interaction chart at the NYT (link) on the Oil spilled into the gulf.

(Hat Tip: The Big Picture)

Like I'm not pysched about this...

My commute's reading list just got longer with Bloomberg's top fifty business books (link).  Sweet!

(Hat Tip: The Big Picture)

"Wall Street CEOs Are Nuts"

James Kwak has a great take the relationship between the administration and Wall Street (link).  But I like this passage on the CEOs the best:

Wall Street CEOs like to think they are the adults, the big men in the room, the ones who know how the world works. Well, you know what? They screwed up their own banks, the financial system, and the economy like a bunch of two-year-olds. Every single major bank would have failed in late 2008 without massive government intervention — because of wounds that were entirely self-inflicted. (Citigroup: holding onto hundreds of billions of dollars of its own toxic waste. Bank of America: paying $50 billion for an investment bank that would have failed within three days. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs: levering up without a stable source of funding. Etc.) The financial crisis should have put to rest for a generation the idea that the big boys on Wall Street know what they’re doing and the politicians in Washington are a bunch of amateurs. Yet somehow the bankers came out of it with the same unshakable belief in their own perfection that they had in 2005. The only plausible explanation is some kind of powerful personality disorder.

Enjoyable stuff.  The link is worthy of a quick read -- plus the comments below are fun too.

Nate is fixated on Rasmussen. Good for him.

A few posts ago (link), I mentioned the 'house effect' on Rasmussen polls and even linked to Daily Kos' take (link) that its all part of a right-wing conspiracy (For the record, I don't buy it).  Since then there have been several blog posts by Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com on Rasmussen and why their results are so odd.  Here's part of his latest (link) on the Wisconsin Senate Race:

But if we indeed take this result literally, it is pretty ridiculous. Johnson is good on the stump and has started to generate a lot of buzz among the conservative and tea-party intelligentsia. He has some upside potential -- and may well defeat Feingold in the end. But common sense would dictate the number of Wisconsinites (even "likely voters") who know who Ron Johnson is right now is closer to 6.8 percent than 68.

I've had a lot of criticisms for Rasmussen Reports over the past couple of weeks. Many of the problems their polls exhibit are common to other pollsters throughout the industry, if they seem to be a bit exacerbated in Rasmussen's case.

But the fact is that Rasmussen is the 500-pound gorilla in the room. They drive a lot of traffic and narrative. They account for something like 30 percent of all horse-race polls that have been released thus far this election cycle.

I love that Nate is drilling in on the pollsters and making them accountable for not only their accuracy, but also their methodology.  Polls very often make headlines and can be used to nudge people towards stronger views than they might have had without the headline.  Pollsters may even want to influence our opinions.  So, taking 'em down a notch is very worthwhile.  Their results should be called into question, especially when they don't make sense.  

Go Nate!

Back

No internet for three days.  Whoa!

I have to admit, I don't feel like I missed anything.  I will say that the cable news in hotel rooms gives you a sense that you know what is going on.  I like the blogs much better, but spin is everywhere regardless.  The great things about the blogs is that they are far more likely to be interesting.  Plus, clicking the channel is much less promising than clicking the mouse.

My usual posting schedule should resume.  I'll be trying for at least one thoughtful post a day.  Also, I finished the Black Swan on the plane so my 'Quick Thoughts' on that will be available on my reading sub-blog before the weekend.

Away from internet until Thursday...

So, no posts for a little while.

This is just not right

Source

Sarah Palin's Speaking Demands

A draft contract containing details about Sarah Palin's speaking fee and requirements was obtained by California State University, Stanislaus, students who claim they found the document in a Dumpster.  Here are some of her demands:

• Hotel room must have a "moose couture" styling to it
• Most recent copy of all newspapers
• Children's caretaker must be of Korean ethnicity or higher
• 50-gallon aquarium containing a minimum of eight piranhas that haven't been fed in a week and a bucket of ducks
• If the name of the speaking venue exceeds four syllables, then it must be temporarily changed to "Thompson Hall"
• Book of word searches and package of string cheese for Todd
• Extra red clothing just in case something happens to her other red clothing
• Audio engineer must ensure speakers are capturing full cuntiness of voice
• Dressing-room lighting fixtures must be equipped with non-efficient bulbs
• Palin must have "five (5) black pillar candles of 13" in length and 3" in circumference, one (1) stone altar of Baphomet, one (1) obsidian dagger, and one (1) baby delivered to her dressing area no less than two hours prior to her speech"

Unemployment Still Bad

But here's a cool chart from Calculated Risk that puts our woes into historical perspective (OK, very recent history. 1976) :

Looking for a job?  Would you consider moving to North Dakota?
Source

American Homeowner Preservation

This is a great idea (link).

American Homeowner Preservation negotiates with lenders to approve short sales for underwater homeowners. If a lender approves, the home is sold to an investor who provides the selling family a five-year lease at affordable rates, along with a recorded option to repurchase. The lease and option prices are all predetermined at the outset and are a derivative of the investor's acquisition price.

AHP passes on the majority of the benefits of the short sale discount to the family, thereby creating the incentive for the family to stay, pay and repurchase. We offer the homes to all investors, who are typically private parties looking for higher returns than they can get at the bank and many of whom are equally attracted to the direct positive impact they are having on American families.

Hat Tip: Felix Salmon (link)

Note: He's Up By 25 Points

Rand Paul, the GOP primary winner put his foot in mouth yesterday (link) and its unclear to me if it will matter at all.  However, if it does, then Ezra Klein knows why (link):

What's gotten Paul in trouble, however, is that he's so skeptical of government power that he's not even comfortable with the public sector telling private businesses that they can't discriminate based on race. That, I fear, does have public policy implications.

For instance: Can the federal government set the private sector's minimum wage? Can it tell private businesses not to hire illegal immigrants? Can it tell oil companies what safety systems to build into an offshore drilling platform? Can it tell toy companies to test for lead? Can it tell liquor stores not to sell to minors? These are the sort of questions that Paul needs to be asked now, because the issue is not "area politician believes kooky but harmless thing." It's "area politician espouses extremist philosophy on issue he will be voting on constantly."

Interestingly, Rasmussen has him up over Conway (D) in the polls by 25 (link).

As a side note, Rasmussen is a very reputable polling company that has a strong 'house effect'.  Their polls have leaned more towards the GOP during this cycle than all the other pollsters.  This doesn't mean that their polls are wrong, but has more to do with how they are modeling for likely voters.  For more on this, here is Nate Silver (link).  And for those who like a good conspiracy, here is Daily Kos on the Rasmussen house effect (link).

It's The _____s Fault

Personally, I blame myself.  I woke up one morning and took a good look in the mirror.  Anyway, if you want to blame somebody else, have fun with this chart.

Hat Tip: The Big Picture

Beware The Easy Story Line

When you start hearing the same story line again and again and again from the media, it's good to be skeptical.  Here's Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly (link):

But it's the nuances and details that poke some important holes in the "anti-incumbent" narrative. Specter didn't struggle because he's a sitting senator; he lost because he ran in a Democratic primary after serving as a Republican for 30 years -- a Republican who backed Bush, Cheney, Santorum, McCain, and Palin. Lincoln's career isn't in jeopardy because she's already in office; she's in trouble because Democratic voters aren't pleased with her voting record and aren't convinced she can win in November.

Even among Republicans, the major shake-ups -- in Kentucky, in Florida, in Utah -- have very little to do with incumbency and a great deal to do with ideology.

The media's rush to oversimplify things is consistent with how major outlets cover developments like these. It's just what they do. But it also leads to unhelpful reporting that doesn't fully capture the larger dynamic.

To be clear, this doesn't mean anti-incumbency isn't going to be a factor this fall.  What it does mean is that the press often picks the facts (or lack of facts) to fit a pre-existing, easy to understand, narrative.  And mainstream reporting seems to have done that again with their headline analysis of yesterday's outcomes.

Hat Tip:  Eric Wagner - Thanks for sending the link along!

Consumer Prices Fall, "Unexpectedly"

I'm expecting Krugman to comment on this as soon as he has finished his grading.  He's been talking about the risk of deflation being far more likely than the risk of inflation in the mid/short run.  Plus, he's also been railing against the 'fear inflation' crowd.  So, I have to believe that this news will make his blog.

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- The cost of living in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in April for the first time in more than a year, reinforcing forecasts that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero for much of 2010.

The 0.1 percent fall in the consumer price index was the first decrease since March 2009, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Excluding food and fuel, the so-called core rate was unchanged, capping the smallest 12- month gain in four decades.

As a side note, I don't think this he will see this as good news either.  It points to high joblessness acting as a dampening pressure on the overall economy.

UPDATE: Just to toot my own horn, I posted this (above) around 1:00 PM ET.  Krugman posted this at 1:51 PM ET.  Nailed it.

The Difference

Kevin Drum has a great blog post that really captures what a lot of us who are now considered left (And 20 years ago would have been considered 'center') really find offensive about the GOP.  It's only one example, but suffice it to say that I get annoyed each time I see a disingenuous equivalency argument made.

It's bad enough that prominent conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Liz Cheney, and Sean Hannity have flirted with the birthers. But what's worse is that birtherism seems to be a perfectly acceptable belief among actual Republican leaders. Sarah Palin thinks it's a question well worth asking. Roy Blunt isn't sure Obama is a citizen. Dick Shelby thinks it's curious that we haven't seen Obama's birth certificate. Michele Bachman recently showed up at a tea party event and palled around with birther queen Orly Taitz. My congressman, John Campbell, said that Obama was a citizen "as far as I know" and then, with a wink and a nod, cosponsored a bill requiring presidential candidates to submit a birth certificate. The bill currently has 13 Republican cosponsors.

This is just a huge difference. With the ambiguous exception of McKinney, who's not exactly a big wheel in Democratic politics, there's just no one of any stature on the liberal/Democratic side of the aisle who buys into trutherism. If Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne and Rachel Maddow took it up, that would be one thing. If Dick Durbin and John Conyers and George Miller and Jerry Nadler were truthers, that would be another. But they aren't. They don't flirt with it, they don't make jokes about it, and they don't pander to their lefty base by delivering clever applause lines about it. But where the birthers are concerned, Republican politicians and significant conservative thought leaders do. That's the difference.

'Tea Party Candidate'

I heard that the 'Tea Party Candidate' won in Kentucky.  I have mixed thoughts on this kind of headline.

1. Isn't 'Tea Party Candidate' just a reference that means a member of the GOP who panders to the worst elements of the base by using irrational and populist slogans?
2. This is likely good for the democrats.  It means that the crazies are running the show in the opposition party.  It also means that the opposition is putting up candidates that have the lowest chance of appealing to, so-called, independent voters.
3. On the other hand, its probably bad for the country.  I've yet to read a policy position from the 'Tea Party' that could stand up to questioning.  The fact that this group attracts a strong enough following to win primaries, is awful.  Why can't we have a sane opposition?  I have a hard time believing that the democrats will hold onto power for long enough for the GOP to become rational.  When the extremists start winning seats we may see some truly bad government policy.

If you are following the political races, here's one the only link (538.com) you need to click for the significance of yesterday's outcomes.

Projected Returns > Actual Returns

I'm really enjoying this graph.

Basically, be wary of analyst projections.  They seem to be off by a factor of two.
Source
Hat Tip: Paul Kedrosky

Facebook = Openbook

Here's another example of how open Facebook is.  It's called Openbook and it's a Facebook profile search engine.  You can run searches on anything: "Rectal exam", "Copy and Paste", "I hate my job", etc...  Give it a try, here's the link.

That's pretty cool, right?  The more I think about Facebook as an issue the more I realize that all users need to understand that it's public.  The site owners want to make you think that you have control over your privacy, but because they can (and do) change their privacy standards all the time, you actually have no control.

So if you're going to use Facebook, just assume that any information you put out there will be picked apart by anyone who wants to pick it apart (Marketing Organizations, Russian Hackers, Spammers, Nosy People, Your Boss, Potential Clients, Potential Employers).  Assume that regardless of your privacy settings, you are fully public.  Then behave appropriately.  Remember any perceived control you believe you have over your privacy is false and potentially to your detriment.

(Hat Tip: Kevin Drum)