Why Can't Billy Count?

Billy Jacobsen, the third worst blogging law professor in the U.S., displays his mad McArdle skillz in defense of his dinosaur pals.

He's unhappy with the Gallup headine "Tea Party Support Dwindles to Near Record Low," so he reimagines the hed as "Opposition to Tea Party drops to near record low."  Gallup is trying to trick you sheeple, by the use of graphs which illustrate its point.

Gallup plots Tea Party support at its highest in 2010, at 32 percent, and at its lowest in 2011, at 21. Current support is 22 percent, a number immediately adjacent to the record low of 21.

Gallup plots Tea Party opposition at its highest in 2012, at 29 percent, and at its lowest in 2011, at 21.  Current opposition is at 27, two percentage points from its high and six percentage points from its record low.  Closer to higher than lower, and five more percentage points above its record low than TP support is.  In no conceivable interpretation of the English language is Tea Party opposition near a record low. It's near its record high.

Billy's beef is that Tea Party support was actually lower in 2012 (21 percent) and then rose before falling again. Says he: "Tea Party support is significantly lower than three years ago, but about where it was two years ago. So the drop took place two years ago, not recently as the Gallup headline (picked up in the mainstream media) would have you believe."

But Tea Party support climbed to 26 percent in early 2012, and has dropped since then to 22. Thus, as Gallup correctly asserts, Tea Party support has dwindled from the last measurements, and it is now at a near-record low. The hed says nothing temporal, except the implied statement that Tea Party support was even lower in the past (when it was at the record low).  There's nothing inaccurate, or misleading, about the Gallup hed.

Even PolitiFact wouldn't try to get away with Billy's bullshit.

Billy Jake also posits that if you eat dinner with four other people representing the American electorate, one diner would be a Tea Party supporter.  He'll be the one playing with his food.

It's Always Sunny in Galt's Gulch

Libertarian Fonzie is at it again, leading the advance team for our newest Objectivist Messiah. This time, it's Rafael Cruz as "The Beaver":

Six years ago, it was Ron Paul who would lead us to the Promised Land if we clapped until we were clapped out:

When a fierce Republican foe of the wars on drugs and terrorism is able, without really trying, to pull in a record haul of campaign cash on a day dedicated to an attempted regicide, it's clear that a new and potentially transformative force is growing in American politics.

Well, Ron didn't make it to the mountain top, but Randy surely will:

In such a compromised moral and political universe, characters such as Rand Paul and Justin Amash are not just rare but necessary. We need more of them. Their willingness to articulate governing principles and then legislate accordingly is the reason they are leading an ideological insurgency in the Republican Party and stoking what outlets from The Atlantic to NPR to the Post are recognizing as a “libertarian moment.”

(A libertarian moment is when the Invisible Hand forgets your grandchildren's names.)

And if not Randy, surely Rafael:

There’s every reason to believe that the future belongs to the wacko birds and their general, transpartisan message that government is too big and too powerful. The trend throughout the 21st century, reports Gallup, is increasing skepticism toward Washington, D.C. The trend is particularly pronounced among all-important independent voters, who make up a plurality of the electorate. In 2003, 45 percent of them thought the government was too powerful. Now it’s 65 percent. They will vote for candidates—and a party—pushing limiting government.

There's got to be a pony in here somewhere! as Libertarian Moses once said.

Nick Gillespie is head crossing guard at the Great Man School of Libertarian History. One of these days, he keeps insisting, a visionary man -- it's always a man -- on the public payroll will inspire the yokels to cast of their chains and renounce the minimum wage. It's practically here. Why can't you see it?

P.S. Being a libertarian and a writer for The Daily Beast means never having to check facts. In his Cruz piece, Libertarian Fonzie demonstrates the same devotion to factual accuracy that led him and Matt Welch to falsely accuse "Janet Reno's FBI" of gunning down people at Waco:

It was like an old Chip and Dale routine from Looney Tunes, where the two excruciating chipmunks couldn’t stop complimenting each other.

That's all, folks.

(Cruz link via Roy E.)

...It's Blowing Those You Know

The New Republic has shocking news:

The list of interns who toiled in the executive mansion during the summer of 2013 included the offspring of Ron Klain, the former Joe Biden former chief of staff; Steve Rattner, the financier and onetime car czar; Don Baer, the communications powerhouse and former Clinton administration speechwriter; and Margaret Hamburg, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner. There’s also a young man named Summers,whose father will not be chairing the Federal Reserve—though it’s safe to say his family had a certain familiarity with the White House and other corridors of power before he landed that internship.

The proud parents of the class of 2013 also included Raghuveer Nayak, a Chicago democratic donor and fundraiser for former Illinois pols Jesse Jackson Jr. and Rod Blagojevich (he also donated $19,800 to Obama between 2004 and 2009). There was also a scion of the Lerner family, the real estate titans who own the Washington Nationals, and children of at least two different VIPs among influential Washington law firms: Winston & Strawn’sTimothy Broas and Holland & Knight’s Rich Gold.

I was an unashamed beneficiary of nepotism in my youth.  The only hitch was that jobs I got through nepotism were uniformly shitty -- landscaper's assistant, hospital kitchen worker, substitute teacher, etc. So my main beef with nepotism is that my relatives are all miserable failures.

But at least I got paid.  Not only do these prestigious interships only go to the well-connected, the portions are so small mummy and daddy are footing the bill:

A recently launched operation called the Fair Pay Campaign aims to bring attention to the White House’s failure to pay its interns. Mikey Franklin, the campaign’s founder, said the White House is just the first target in his crusade against the rise of the unpaid internship. “It’s an obvious place to start,” he said, because the White House should be a model for the rest of the country. “It’s a particularly egregious case.”

I guess Mikey won't like this either,

The New Republic will hire both Politics intern [sic] and Books and Arts interns. To apply, submit a resume and cover letter to ebreger@tnr.com with the subject “Fall Web Internship.” The cover letter should explain why the applicant is interested in working at The New Republic and specify if the application is for the Politics or the Books and Arts internship. The internships are full-time, unpaid, and based in the D.C. office.

I'm guessing the salt of the earth didn't get a callback for those slots either.

The Butthurt of Dylan Byers, The Man Who Would Be Kurtz

Dylan "PoliticHo" Byers is crestfallen that his crush, Ted "Filibuster Bluth" Cruz, gets no respect from the media outlets Byers hates:

Yes, the difference between filibustering and grandstanding plays a part. Equally important is the fact that Cruz's theatrics are frustrating members of his own party. But, part of the disparity in coverage is due to the fact that the mainstream media, generally speaking, don't admire Cruz the way they admired [Wendy] Davis — or rather, they admire him only insofar as he makes for tragicomic theater, whereas they admired her on the merits.

Cruz is portrayed in the media as "aimless and self-destructive" (NYT ed board), elitist (GQ) and likely guided more by presidential aspirations than principles (CNN). Josh Marshall, the editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, had no qualms about coming right out and calling Cruz, his former Princeton colleague, an "arrogant jerk" — and worse.

These portrayals may be accurate or inaccuarate — Cruz certainly has an elitist strain and he certainly has political ambitions. But that's not the point: The point is that the coverage of Cruz has been critical, and in some cases unforgiving, from the outset. At least initially, Davis wasn't viewed through a critical lens at all. Her willingness to stand for 11 hours was evidence of the American dream in action. Period.

Byers apparently reserves his greatest respect for Long Dong Strom, who lapped Davis twice with his 24-hour plus actual filibuster in 'Fifty-Seven. That marathon session was Byers' American Dream, because who besides the nefarious EMESSEM gives a shit about ends or goals or motives. Or "merits."

More fundamentally, Byers plays the EMESSEM canard from the bottom of the deck, failing to mention that such right-wing publications as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have also bashed Cruz's stunt, that the FOX News Channel has frequently fellated Cruz (and sometimes criticized him), or that supposedly liberal e-rags like The Daily Beast slandered Davis. Like every other dishonest wingnut, Byers pretends that the top-rated U.S. cable news channel, the newspaper with the largest national circulation, the newspaper with the seventh-largest national circulation and PoliticHo itself (publisher of this President Cruz fluffer, among others) aren't -- unlike GQ, Vogue and TPM -- part of the EMESSEM.

Byers is so dishonest that he purports to quote Peggy Nooners as conceding Davis' greatness. Is Byers a lying sack? Judge for yourself.

Update (two minutes later):  I see Charles Pierce has already sliced and diced Byers like Ron Popeil's uncle on speed.

Ted Cruz's Fractured Fairy Tales

Ted Cruz will be reading these bedtime stories from the floor of the United States Senate this week:

Goodnight Loon

Hop on FOX

The 500 Toques of Bartholomew Cubbins

         Only a Miracle Can Save America from the Red Conspiracy

Mi Lucha

Calling Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard

Mickey Kaus has just discovered that private hospitals -- including the one in which he was dropped on his head as an infant -- offer additional amenities for well-to-do patients.  (Yes, now you can recuperate after childbirth in the equivalent of a Residence Inn, located atop an institute named for a billionaire advocate for socialized medicine who became wealthy via a U.S. government grant!)

Kaus frets that this means the best nurses will begin gravitating toward "VIP-high roller duties," unlike in all previous human history, when health care professionals clamored instead for the prestigious but poorly-paid duty of sponge bathing psychosomatic Slate bloggers earning high five figure salaries for 20 minutes of work a day.

The hairless hack's muddled point appears to be that Obamacare won't eliminate luxury medicine and is therefore a failure or, possibly, that Obamacare is not needed because luxury medicine exists.  Either way: Obama sucks!

The only thing missing is Kaus's concern that ferriners are using high-end hospitals to drop anchor babies.

Try The Po' Boy (pg. 47) and Mitt's Grits (pg. 124)

For those of you who need help spreading peanut butter and marshmallow creme on white bread, help is at hand.

Home is where good things happen—and for the Romney family, the heart of the home is the kitchen. Ann Romney, wife of former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, invites readers into her home and kitchen, combining some of her favorite foods with memories of raising a family. 

Part "insider look," part cookbook, The Romney Family Table starts out with a unique blend of personal memories, homegrown traditions, and the foods that have made family events special. Join the Romneys for family nights, summers at the lake, Christmas Eve, and many other occasions, detailed in an intimate and welcoming style.

Then, indulge yourself in scores of additional mouthwatering recipes. From the simple (Fluffernutter Sandwiches) to the sophisticated (Peppered Pork Chops with Peach-Vinegar Glaze); from the Honey Wheat Bread Ann made regularly for five growing sons to the Buttermilk Pancakes she and Mitt shared with their Secret Service details at the end of Mitt's presidential campaign, these recipes will become treasures for you as they have been for the Romney family.

Which is to say, not at all.

Note:  You will be asked to relinquish all mobile devices before you join the Romneys for family nights, summers at the lake, Christmas Eve and many other occasions.

Roger's Required Reading

"Moses Wine and the Curious Incident of the C*** in The White-House," by Roger L. Simon

Grand Old Police Blotter: No, That's Too Obvious Edition

Surprisingly, someone was arrested in Michele Bachmann's office who wasn't Michele Bachmann.

WASHINGTON — A top aide to Republican Rep. Michelle [sic] Bachmann of Minnesota has been arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police and charged with theft.

Senior legislative aide Javier Sanchez, 37, of Virginia, was arrested Thursday after an investigation into a series of thefts in the Rayburn House Office Building, where Bachmann’s Washington office is located.

Bachmann spokesman Dan Kotman said Monday that Sanchez’s employment was terminated the following day.

“Any further questions should be directed to Capitol Police,” Kotman said.

Sanchez was charged with second-degree theft, indicating the stolen items were worth less than $1,000, according to Capitol Police spokesman Shennell Antrobus.

 I blame the vaccine.

R.I.P. Michael Hastings

Journalist Michael Hastings, author of The Operators, died today in a car accident in Los Angeles.

Good News BoBos

From St. BoBo's epistle to the wingnuts:

 Correction: June 14, 2013

An earlier version of this column misattributed a passage from Corinthians that ends with the statement, “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” The letter to the Corinthians is by Paul, not Jesus.

In the draft, he attributed it to Ricardo Montalban.

Let me speculate that Bobo didn't work his way through the U. of C.  Or learn anything when he there.

Conflict of Interest Kurtz Strikes Again

The ash burns on Howie Kurtz's ass are getting more noticable by the minute.

Update: Erik Wemple keeps his speculation clean.

Libertarian Old Police Blotter: Joe Gone to Prison Edition

I can't find anything to tie Joe Francis to the Republican Party, although he shares many of the G.O.P.'s views on women.  So I'll make this a "Libertarian Old Police Blotter."

Anyway, here's the good news:

Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild fame has been accused of hitting girls in the past. But this time the charges stuck.

The L.A. City Attorney's office triumphantly stated that Francis was convicted by a jury today of "three counts of false imprisonment, one count of dissuading a witness from reporting, and one count of assault causing great bodily injury":

Prosecutors say the 40-year-old enticed three women into his limo outside Hollywood's Supperclub. Two of the women thought they were simply being driven to a parked car nearby. But no, the City Attorney's office says:

 Instead Francis took them to his place and got into a physical altercation with two of the women as he tried to separate them from their companion.

If there's any justice, Joe will spend the next five years in prison. Congratulations to the prosecutors for their outstanding work.

As One Hack Falls, One Hundred Hacks Rise Up to Take His Place

Coverage of Howard Kurtz's sacking by The Daily Beast pays tribute to Kurtz by being just as hacktacular as Kurtz himself. A choice nugget:

The question of Kurtz’s future, in terms of both reputation and relevance, now turns to CNN.

It took two people to write that.

It's all there in the PoliticHo article -- worthless anonymous quotes which insult but don't inform, "seems" and "it is unclear"s as hedges for ass-pulled speculation, Twitter reprints.  It's almost as if Kurtz wrote it himself.

Dylan Byers is either laboring under the misimpression that his crap is superior to Kurtz's, or he knows his crap is just as bad and that his employer doesn't care.

Howard Kurtz's Conflicts of Interest Reduced By Nine Percent

So what does a right-wing hack do after failing downward from a Washington Post Co. property and a virtual joke (NewsBeast)?

He can follow his fellow hack, Mickey Kaus, and write bitter anti-immigrant screeds at the Daily Choler. 

Don't worry, folks.  Howie has several other jobs he can do poorly.  I mean, what are the odds that CNN will wise up?

The Washington Post reports the story by defining irony down:

People familiar with both sides — media people ironically speaking anonymously about other media people — agree that there was mutual antagonism and tension for several months.

And then there's Maude:

Kurtz has expressed dissatisfaction with deep cutbacks and in his bureau site’s increased emphasis on liberal commentary, including the addition of two former Obama administration officials as columnists.

Yet not a peep out of him about the hiring of Megan McArdle or "The Royalist."

But I repeat myself. 

Fright or Flight

Eric Alterman makes a persuasive case for the worthlessness of Maureen Dowd.

Maureen Dowd herself makes the same case every time she is published:

"BARBARA BUSH is a word that rhymes with fright."

Blight?
Parasite?
Anti-semite?

My vote: Shite.

If You See Something, Say Something

You've probably seen reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was so radicalized and bloodthirsty that he disrupted a worship service by shouting because the imam was praising a religious pacifist:

Here's one account:

About three years ago, I saw Krauthammer flip out in synagogue on Yom Kippur. The rabbi had offered some timid endorsement of peace — peace essentially on Israel’s terms — but peace anyway. Krauthammer went nuts. He actually started bellowing at the rabbi, from his wheel chair in the aisle. People tried to “shush” him. It was, after all, the holiest day of the year. But Krauthammer kept howling until the rabbi apologized. The man is as arrogant as he is thuggish. Who screams at the rabbi at services? For advocating peace?

Elsewhere, the man had frequently cheered the slaughter of innocents through bombing.

The mosque kicked Tsarnaev out of its congregation.   

An Art Lover Inquires

How much do you think it would cost to commission a Jon McNaughton painting of Ben Carson battling Kermit Gosnell in the skies over Jerusalem, and call it "Undercard of The Armageddon"?

Plato and Bacon

The Man of Virtue sings of Bowdoin and the NAS:

[In his Forward to What Does Bowdoin Teach?, Bill] Bennett begins by asserting that “Plato… remarked that the two most important questions in society are ‘Who teaches the children?’ and ’What do they teach them?’” Unfortunately, Plato “remarks” no such thing, at least in any of the works known to me (I invite readers to correct me if I’m wrong). I suppose that the phrase could be a reasonable, if rather simplistic summary of Plato’s thought about education. But the actual source appears to be a Michelle Malkin column. The phrase also appears, without a specific citation, on a number of cut-and-paste quote sites. Misquotation happens all the time, of course. But it’s a bad start for a defense of traditional education–particularly one that claims that Bowdoin students aren’t learning enough about Greek philosophy.

Here's something else Plato didn't say:

The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.

And Plato wasn't talking about Butterbean Bennett when he didn't say it, though if the quote fits, wear it.

Anyway, had Plato answered the questions he didn't ask, his preferred answers would not have been "homeschoolers" and "wingnuttery."  If one wanted to stoop to conquer, one could argue that Plato was Melissa Harris-Perry back in the day.

In the same two-page Forward, at page 10, Butterbean also uses a fake Lincoln quote.

Many institutions frown on this sort of thing.

But we shouldn't be too hard on Big Bill.  When you pay someone minimum wage to bloviate under your name, you're bound to get inferior work product.

(link via Dr. Berube)

Shattered Ass

Ta-Nehisi Coates has an excellent post-mortem on the excremental Michael Kelly, 
who wasn't so much a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq but a pitbull, rabidly slavering his militaristic fantasies on anyone with spitting distance.

His apologists will claim he was only wrong in hindsight, but that's not true.  As the excepts quoted by Coates illustrate, Kelly wasn't reporting facts, he was seeking to make things true by wishing them to be true (and doing so in a truly obnoxious manner).  

Kelly was wretched.  He was vile.  He was contemptible.

And he was one of a rare breed to whom the phrase "hoist with his own petard" applies literally.