Sunday, February 26, 2017

A Twitter Thread Vol VII - F*ck The White House Correspondents Dinner

Yesterday, Cheeto announced he was not going to attend this year's White House Correspondents Dinner. The dinner, affectionately known as "Nerd Prom" (h/t @anamariecox) is a staple of "official" Washington. In recent years, it has taken on the air of the Oscars, with a full red carpet, hours of "pre game" discussion on cable news, and a parade of Hollywood celebrities rubbing elbows with the Wolf Blitzers, Chuck Todds, and Rachel Maddows of the world.

What the WHCA also is as an elite, totally-removed-from-the-struggles-of-ordinary-Americans exercise in self-congratulatory behavior. A pigs-sitting-around-the-table-at-the-end-of-Animal-Farm spectacle where the lie of Washington is exposed for all to see. The fighting, the filibustering, the hours of talking head debate on TV is the political equivalent of professional wrestling - highly scripted, with the characters acting out their roles, except here it is the lives of those ordinary Americans being toyed with, not some story line where evil is triumphing until good prevails. 

As I noted in the below thread, the median income at the WHCA is surely far greater, perhaps as much as an order of magnitude greater, than that of "ordinary" Americans. And when politicians and reporters, celebrities and movie stars don their tuxedos and formal gowns to congratulate each other on what swell people they all are, it could not be a louder "screw you" to the rest of us if they didn't scream it all out in unison.



Thursday, February 23, 2017

A Twitter Thread Vol VI - Media Gaslighting

There has been a lot of media pearl clutching at some of the more radical policies Trump has instituted. Oddly, those same members of the media ignore the fact that their wall-to-wall smearing of Hillary Clinton during the campaign, the days-long stories about her pneumonia, the weeks of coverage of her email server, Benghazi, and on and on, helped elect Trump. And oh yeah, reporting on email the media knew to be stolen by the Russians didn't help either ... 



Wednesday, February 22, 2017

A Twitter Thread Vol V - No Really, What's The Matter With Kansas?

After starving his state of revenue by massively cutting corporate and personal taxes, Gov. Sam Brownback took to Twitter to brag about a tax increase he vetoed. Under Brownback, Kansas has conducted a real-time experiment in the so-called "supply side" economics theory that first infected Washington, D.C. when Reagan became President. The idea is simple - cut taxes on the "job creators" (read: rich people and corporations) and the massive spike in economic growth will make up for the lowered tax rates. Only problem? It does not work. At the federal level, the growth was never enough to make up for the reductions, not to mention those pesky commitments to things like Medicare or Republican fetishes with military spending cost money. Oh, and loose regulation also encourage morally questionable decision making. It's no coincidence that the Savings and Loan crisis, two Wall Street crashes and three recessions happened under our last three Republican Presidents. Anywho, enjoy this little thread ...


Monday, February 20, 2017

A Twitter Thread Vol IV - Supply Side Economics 3.0


The idea that "deficits don't matter" if famously attributed to Dick Cheney quoting Ronald Reagan. This morning, a story from AXIOS indicated that Republicans are prepared to go to the supply side well for a third time (Reagan 1981, Bush 2001/2003) selling the same snake oil (or is it voodoo economics?) that a spike in production and economic growth will make up for the hole that's about to be cut into the Treasury's revenue stream. If it is true that "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" what happens the third time around? 




Friday, February 17, 2017

A Twitter Thread Vol III - Defunding PBS, NEA, AmeriCorps & Legal Services

Collectively, these programs are hundredths of one percent of the federal budget, but hey, people like PBS, college graduates serve in their communities, and lawyers defend poor people, so let's defund them. Makes sense. Can you feel the economic anxiety, everyone? 



A Twitter Thread Vol II - David Petraeus & The Media


Thursday, February 16, 2017