The video below is amazing. If you have two minutes and 39 seconds, you should watch this clip from the Fox News show The Five. And it will tell you everything you need to know about both why people are so addicted to Fox News and why it is so effective at short circuiting the rational thought functions in their brains.

If you are like me, you are bothered by ISIS. They really are a vile group. But you aren’t terrified that they pose an existential threat to Iraq itself, much less to the United States or the United Kingdom. Zack Beauchamp discussed this over the weekend at Vox, The Nine Biggest Myths About ISIS. As he pointed out, when ISIS had the opportunity to attack Baghdad, it didn’t. And it didn’t, because it isn’t nearly strong enough and it doesn’t have civilian support there. So yeah: ISIS has some power and the group is terrible. But that’s the extent of it.

But if you listen Greg Gutfeld at the beginning of this segment, you would conclude that ISIS exists for the purpose of sending people from Iraq back to the UK to commit terrorist attacks. The UK government has said that as many as 3,000 UK citizens might be a part of ISIS. And that could only mean one thing: they went to Iraq to fight in a war so they could come back to attack in the homeland. Or something. If you think about it, it makes no sense. But Fox News viewers would be forgiven for thinking that London is in flames at this very minute.

The segment is just constant fear mongering. “There is an immediate threat and we must do something now now now. Also: Obama golfs too much.” It gets worse when Kimberly Guilfoyle (A lawyer?!) is asked if we can get rid of all this fear that Gutfeld has created in his audience “without so called violating their civil liberties.” You gotta love that syntax! Anyway, here is Guilfoyle “legal” opinion:

The line about wanting Putin to be president for 48 hours is what got the headline. It doesn’t mean that much to me. It’s been clear for a long time that the modern conservative movement has been proto-fascist. And there are many in its ranks who are absolutely desperate for an authoritarian leader to come in tell us all what to do. As I’ve talked about a lot: conservatives don’t like democracy—it is too messy and conservative policies are too unpopular.

But you may remember last week that I wrote, Conservative Obsession With Purity. In it, I quoted (indirectly) Robert Altemeyer, who said that fascism was based upon three things. The third was, “Obsession with unambiguously knowing one’s place in any hierarchy.” And that is what Kimberly Guilfoyle is begging for: some strong man (or strongman) to come in and protect us. Except, of course, Obama is actually stronger than Putin or Netanyahu. But he has this thing about laws and rights.

Kimberly Guilfoyle has seen a picture of her perfect future: a boot stamping on a human face—forever.

Since I wrote about Josh Barro earlier, I thought I would discuss his father Robert Barro now. Later tonight, I plan to write about his mother. (Note: I will not be writing about his mother.) Yesterday, Paul Krugman posted an article on his blog, Real Americans and Real Economics. This is a reference to a public fight that Krugman had with the elder Barro back in 2011, when he wrote an OpEd at The Wall Street Journal, Keynesian Economics vs Regular Economics. It’s a remarkable article. Let me go further: it is a remarkable title.

I’m not an economist, but those who are seem to think that Robert Barro is a very smart guy and a great economist. Krugman dealt with Barro’s claims at the time, Shocking Barro. But what I find amazing is that he’s completely disconnected from the real world. What he is arguing is that Keynesian economics has no theoretical foundation. I understand this, being an old environmental modeler myself. But I found out rather quickly that macro-scale models based on micro-scale phenomena are not necessarily better than a macro-scale model based simply on macro-scale observations. You would think that all economists would understand that having micro-foundations in a model does not necessary make it better, much less correct.

Of course, Barro throws out a lot of data and claims there is no support for demand side solutions to problems. In fact, the subtitle of his article is, “Food stamps and other transfers aren’t necessarily bad ideas, but there’s no evidence they spur growth.” But he is the Ricardian Equivalence guy. His idea is that government spending won’t stimulate the economy. The way this works in his theory is: (1) government spends by borrowing; (2) people see this and assume it means the government will have to increase their taxes later; (3) people spend less to save up for this future tax bill.

There are two problems with this as far as I can see. The first is: really?! You really think that people are that informed and rational? Well, I know Barro does. It’s ridiculous, but I’ll move on. The second problem is that the deficit spending would not be paid back all at once. So if the government spent $10 and planned to pay it back with increased taxes over the following ten years, then the completely knowledgeable and rational taxpayer would cut his spending by $1 that year, not $10. So there would be a $9 stimulative effect. This means that stimulus could be used exactly as we want it to be used: to smooth out the business cycle.

Within hours of Barro’s article appearing, David Glasner wrote a response, Barro on Keynesian Economics vs Regular Economics. He makes the point that Barro had argued that monetary policy can stimulate the economy, so why not government spending:

I think the problem is precisely that Barro is a clever fellow. He can come up with a justification for anything at all. The problem is that he is so ideologically rigid at this point that economics isn’t a tool of discovery; it is a slave of what he wants to believe. So the real micro-foundations of his work are his rigidly held political opinions. Given this, it is no wonder that conservatives think that climate scientists force their data analyses and models to predict global warming—that’s what their economists do.

Martin Longman, or as I think of him “the felonious frog,” wrote an inspired rant about Maureen Dowd. Many people have covered Dowd’s most recent column, most notably Digby: yet another column about her disappointment that (this time) President Obama does not rush back to Washington because of something Dowd things is oh so important. (Crabgrass on the White House lawn, perhaps?) But Longman took a very clever approach in, With Apologies to Cicero. It is a parody of The First Oration Against Catiline, so I wish he had given it the title, The First Oration Against Maureen. But I fully understand why he didn’t.

But this puts Longman in the place of Cicero and Dowd in the place of Catiline. I like Longman so I don’t mind associating him with Cicero, although there is much to dislike about Cicero. It’s hard to put Dowd in the Catiline role. Her career has exemplified the kind of middle-of-the-road, cultural liberal commentator who though often amusing is politically uninteresting. Above all, she is no threat to the powerful—this is what makes her long relationship with The New York Times so understandable. And Catiline, regardless of what else you can say about him, was not the kind to make nice.

I think that Catiline has gotten kind of a bad rap. It’s not that he was wonderful or anything; I don’t think any of those guys were great as human beings. Did Catiline kill his first wife and son so he could get a better wife? Did he act like a despot while governing Africa? Did he cut off the head of his brother-in-law and parade it through the streets of Rome? Who knows?! History has been written by people inclined to make him look bad. Although, I kind of think he did do these things.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that he was a strong advocate for the plebs, which did not put him in well with the likes of Cicero who considered them, well, plebs. And yes, Catiline was power hungry and he was probably using the plebs as a base of support because he didn’t have a lot of other options. And I have little doubt that he would have been a terrible ruler if he had taken over Rome. But he did stand for something—and something radical at that.

To call Maureen Dowd vanilla is to gravely insult my favorite ice cream flavor. In the political realm, Dowd is more like plain yogurt. And even that overstates her importance. But it is possible that Cicero’s speech is more appropriate for her than for Catiline. Because Catiline definitely had committed treason against the Roman Republic. And so Cicero’s understated Oration with its “We are so tired of your trying to overthrow the Republic all the time!” tone probably addresses Dowd’s crimes against journalism better than Catiline’s crimes against the Republic.

Regardless, Longman’s piece is brilliant. He’s the first paragraph:

I believe that Ms Dowd will be abusing our patience for at least another decade. Catiline died heroically, shortly after Cicero wrote those words. No one wants that for Dowd. But couldn’t she go off somewhere alone and write novels like Anna Quindlen?

About a year ago, I wrote, Josh Barro Phenomenon. It was a response to his article, How Republicans Made Both Parties Stupid On Fixing Infrastructure. In it he provided an apologia for Chris Christie’s decision to kill the new Hudson River tunnel. His argument was that Christie was only against it because it was larded with pork. I countered saying that this is always what people claim. No one ever admits that they are doing this kind of thing because they want to use the money on their own crony capitalism.

Barro hit back, tweeting to me that what I had written was the stupidest thing he had read all day, and he had read some really stupid things. I was honored that he read me. I was not at that time used to such people reading the site. But as I noted in an update, “I don’t see his problem. He is providing cover for the same conservative politicians that he claims to want to reform.” Even at the time, I thought it was clear that Barro wasn’t fully processing my argument because of his rage at me. (Admittedly, I was not very nice. I wrote, “Josh Barro is a middling writer who uses most of his intellect to make conservative ideas sound palatable.”

Let me quote from the article, where I don’t think I could have been more clear:

So who was right? Did Barro nail it when it when he claimed that Christie was the Good Conservative just looking after the money of the people? As it turns out, no. Charlie Pierce brought my attention to the fact that the Department of Transportation was working behind the scenes to get Christie to go along—offering him “concession after concession.” And none of it mattered, because Christie never intended to allow the tunnel to be built. Martin Robins, the original director of the project even said that Christie had no intention to do it. He would always come up with a reason to justify not doing it—just like I said.

But what did Christie want to spend the New Jersey people’s money on? Pierce explained:

But I’m sure that Barro has not lost faith. I’ve noted before that he seems to have man-crush on Christie. And if he was naive enough last year to claim that Christie had good reasons for being against the tunnel, I’m sure he’ll have good reasons this year to apologize for Christie. It is probably like John Roberts’ idea of corruption. We need a three camera set up recording Christie saying, “I hate public transit so I’m going to kill this tunnel no matter what. Plus, I want to use the money to give my friends tax cuts and building contracts.” With that, plus Christie publicly admitting that the video is real, maybe Josh Barro would admit that Christie isn’t the Good Conservative that Barro so desperately believes must exist. Somewhere.

Imagine the day when all the teachers unions have been neutered and all the bad teachers have been fired and only highly effective teachers are left. In other words, imagine the utopia that the so called education reform movement is working so hard for. Then ask yourself a question, “How are we going to get good teachers to work at schools that serve low income children?” Certainly we won’t pay them more—at least by default—because that goes against the very idea of how we fund education where more money is spent on richer kids. We also aren’t likely to see such teachers getting the “good teacher” bonuses. They will be teaching with less and worse infrastructure to kids with parents who do not have as much ability to help at home. So why would a teacher work with low income children except out of a sense of altruism?

This is a really important question for the education reform movement. Obviously, there are solutions to this problem. We could, for example, provide financial incentives to teachers to work in low income areas. But that would require a policy change. We could provide more funding for schools serving low income children. But that would require a policy change. We could start providing financial incentives to low income families. But, again, that would require a policy change. Any and all of these could be priorities for the education reform movement right now. But they aren’t.

My point here is that the main policy goal of the education reform movement doesn’t seem to lead us anywhere with regard to the better education of our kids. I’ll fully admit: it seems to be doing a hell of a job decreasing worker rights. But the best you can say about the stated goals of education reform is that it will get rid of a small percentage of teachers who are incompetent and whip some other teachers into shape. This isn’t something that is going to revolutionize teaching, much less help the students who need the most help.

What I fear will happen is that after the “reformers” are done stripping away teacher rights, all the money (and therefore enthusiasm) will go away. Then we’ll be left with pretty much the same system we have now—except, of course, teaching will be an even less appealing job for exactly the kind of people we would want teaching. This kind of shortsighted and simplistic approach to problems is very common here in America.

Remember after 9/11 how suddenly flying was a much bigger pain without us being any safer? Remember how the changes that were made were the ones that were easiest for government and business? Remember how difficult changes like separate compartments for pilots were not done, because they just weren’t easy and would cost money? Well, that’s education reform. Whenever I get into an argument about education reform, I always hear the same thing, “Well at least they are doing something!” It is more correct to say, “At most they doing something.” And that something doesn’t seem to have much to do with improving education.

In the end, we will have a mediocre education system, just like we do now. It might be slightly better, but I think it will likely be slightly worse. And we’ll have the same choices that we have now if we are serious about reforming our educational system. But then, like now, we avoid those hard things. Because we aren’t very serious about reform. And the people subsidizing “reform” aren’t interested in it at all.

See Also

Alfie Kohn and Real Education Reform
Problems with Standards-Based Education
Liberal Education Reform Push Conservative Ends

Image edited from one displayed on Hemlock on the Rocks.

Yesterday, Ken over at All Things Democrat had an interesting suggestion, A Proposal on the Washington Football Team Name. The name? The Washington Racists. Personally, I’ve been thinking of them as the Washington Genocides. (Interestingly, I am not the only person to think of this.) But Ken backs up his idea.

Back in May, Ken wrote another article, Dan Snyder & Roger Goodell Are Not Racists But George Marshall Was. This is in reference to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell statement, “The intent of the team’s name has always been to present a strong, positive and respectful image.” Saying it doesn’t make it so. George Marshall was the guy who bought what had been the Boston Braves and changed the name. He also made the coach dress up in a headdress and war paint for games. And, of course, Marshall fought against the integration of football.

What is most interesting, however, is that the Washington fight song honored the native peoples with the following lyrics right out F Troop, but without the respect:

These were the lyrics that were used into the 1980s. F Troop was canceled in 1967, and it is far more evolved in its presentation of native peoples, even if Chief Wild Eagle was played by an Italian:

Ken makes an excellent point, “It is beyond laughable when league officials and Washington team management and fans claim the name is a sign of respect, and honorific of American Indians.” But it still comes back to the same point: it doesn’t even matter if Dan Snyder thinks he is honoring Native Americans: they don’t think so. It’s like if someone calls you “meathead” all the time. You tell them to stop. They respond, “But I only say it out of respect for you!” Well, if they really respected you, they would respect your opinion that you don’t like to be called “meathead.” The “redskins” name is racist and I figure Dan Snyder is more racist than most people too. But he doesn’t have to admit that. All he has to admit to is that the name is rude.

As for the name, The Washington Racists is growing on me. I’ve reworked the fight song:

It’s catchy. I think the Washington Racists could really catch on.

I found this graph in an article this morning by Brad DeLong, In Which I Go Around, Over and Over Again, in Circles as I Try to Understand What Is Going on in Europe. What is displayed in the graph is GDP for the European Union. You see that it grew very predictably from 2000 to 2008 and then the crisis hit and the recession started. But then the economy started to recover very consistently (although anemically) from 2009 to 2011. And then it just died.

Everyone understands the recession. But why, after a short period of recovery has the economy stagnated? In a word: austerity. It has somehow become God given knowledge that governments should raise taxes and cut spending. This will supposedly create a strong economy because… Well, the truth is that no one can really say anymore. They used to have the work of Alberto Alesina, but that’s been shown to have been wrong.

Also this morning, Paul Krugman quoted the German government spokesman Georg Streiter saying, “We continue to work for stronger growth and employment and our government still believes there is no contradiction between consolidation and growth.” By “consolidation” he means austerity. You would think that the graph above would prove that there most definitely is a contradiction. But don’t expect those in charge in Europe (especially in Germany) to admit that. As I say a lot around here: bad economies are great for the rich.

DeLong’s article included an extended quote from Eurointelligence, in which they talk about how German newspapers are obsessed with the French budget defict:

What’s going on in Europe now is one of the cases that students in the future will look back on and say, “What were they thinking?!” People will look at graphs like the one above and rightly wonder how those who were pushing for austerity could have missed such an obvious problem. Of course, the point is that those in power don’t care; they have bigger fish to fry. And the German papers aren’t publishing graphs like that or even talking about the issue. And when they do talk about bad economic times, German nationalism tends to rear its ugly head with the people thinking it is all about those morally bankrupt countries in the south who over-borrowed. (And who, exactly, were the bankers who over-lent? The Germans. Not that the bad economy has anything to do with such old “sins” at this point.)

DeLong presented another graph that looks at the change in 10-year bond rates compared to five years ago for the US and Germany. They are right in line with each other up to the beginning of 2013. But then they uncouple in a big way with the bond rate decrease in Germany over twice what it has been in the US. This is going in the opposite direct that it should be going. But it is a great opportunity for Germany: it could spend some money. But it is insisting on austerity all around. The idea is that all of Europe will save its way to prosperity. But that isn’t how it works.

The “tighten our belts” argument always sounds reasonable. But in a macroeconomic sense, it doesn’t work if everyone is cutting back at the same time because everyone’s expenditures is everyone’s income. So austerity only makes sense in the context of the already rich and what is good for them. Meanwhile, there is widespread suffering in Europe. And it will apparently only abate when the rest of the world is doing really well economically. That will allow Europe to recover via exports. But that could take ten years. And what’s really sad is that if and when that happens, the power elite will proclaim, “See! Austerity and growth are compatible!”

This morning, I finally got around to reading Reed Richardson’s newest column, If It’s Sunday, It’s Meet the (1%) Press. And I realized something: my sidebar had an error. You see, Richardson writes a column most weeks, and it is posted on Altercation, Eric Alterman’s blog at The Nation. I’m not quite sure why that is. I think Richardson may have been an intern at the nation under Alterman or they are friends or both. Regardless, at the end of Alterman’s commentary is the obligatory, “Now here’s Reed” (or something very similar), followed by Richardson’s column.

I’ve been reading Alterman for years. He is one of those writers who I’ve read so much that I don’t even think about him; much of his view of American media have simply become a part of my thinking. As a result, over the past couple of years, I’ve come to look forward more to reading Richardson than Alterman. But that’s especially true recently when all the older master does are his Alter-reviews.

Eric Alterman has fine taste is music and narrative art and he is well worth reading. For example, he prefers Shaw to Shakespeare and Mozart to Beethoven. My kind of guy! But some time ago, I began thinking that Alter-reviews were written each week to remind me that Eric Alterman has a better life than I do! So I tend to forgo his insights about plays and concerts I will never attend.

But even though I was going over to Altercation each week primarily to read (!) Richardson, my sidebar referred to “Eric Alterman.” So this morning I changed the link to “Altercation.” I figured that that was a good compromise because (1) that is its name and (2) Alterman still writes for it—even if the politics are sporadic these days.

The real question is why I even have to do this. Would it really be such a big deal for The Nation to provide Richardson with his own blog? He has, after all, written at least one cover story for the magazine, The GOP-Fox Circus Act. Not that I’m saying The Nation should just do things for my ease. They did, after all, add the #nowheresreed anchor name to <i>Altercation</i> at my urging. (Such is the juice I have with the liberal media establishment!) How could I ask for more?

As for this week’s column, it’s about how Meet the Press is pushing David Gregory out, only to be replaced by David Gregory, I mean, Chuck Todd. I make it a point never to watch the Sunday political shows unless I can watch Mary Matalin get upset when Paul Krugman brings up “science” and other distasteful things like “facts.” Otherwise, Richardson nailed the reason why these shows have always sucked and will always suck:

There was never any hope that NBC was going to replace Gregory with Glenn Greenwald. As it was, the network (as MSNBC) fired Phil Donahue back during the Iraq War because they were afraid to have even one voice to push back against the administration. So of course the mainstream media are going to be the fearful lapdogs of the power elite.

This the main reason we need people like Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson. And it may seem that Richardson gets more attention under the Alterman umbrella. But I think it is time to decouple the two. Or at least to start the process with cross-posting. Plus, I could really use another “Weekly” link.