You Can Call Someone a Dupe if You Have Evidence. Eugene Robinson is a Dupe.

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It must be nice to be Eugene Robinson—not everyone gets paid to be wrong on a daily basis. By the smile on his face, you almost have to believe he has no clue just how dreadfully detached from economic reality his conclusions are. Take for instance his most recent column, in which he states that both sides are not at fault when it comes to the debt impasse (no need to guess who he blames for the ordeal):

This is patently false. The truth is that Democrats have made clear they are open to a compromise deal on budget cuts and revenue increases. Republicans have made clear they are not…

Progressives understand that Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable on their current trajectories; in the long term, both must have their revenue and costs brought into balance. Pelosi’s position is that each program should be addressed with an eye toward sustainability — not as a part of a last-minute deal for a hike in the debt ceiling that covers us for two or three years…

Meanwhile, though, the clock ticks toward Aug. 2 and the possibility of a catastrophic default becomes more real.

A quick look at history, provided by U.S. Census Bureau, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Congressional Budget Office shows that it doesn’t matter who’s been at the wheel in Washington, DC for decades—federal spending has continued to skyrocket. Both Democrats and Republicans have been driving us towards the cliff Thelma and Louise style, only one Party slows down briefly from time-to-time to think about the impending disaster (before turning the wheel over to Thelma again).

When Eugene Robinson goes to the eye doctor, all he sees are R's on his chart. Really angry, recalcitrant looking R's.

Eugene notes that “in the long term” our entitlement programs need to be addressed so that costs can be “brought into balance.” Wrong again, Eugene. Revenue rates are generally close to their historical average, while spending as a percentage of GDP has  accelerated at a faster clip than talking heads at an opportunity to roll around in partisan cat nip. They need to be addressed now.

Eugene Robinson does not believe in the Laffer Curve. He believes in Eugene Robinson. When that fails there's the Partisan Parabola of Economic Ignorance.

In Robinson’s world, there is no difference between a “revenue cut” and a “tax cut.” To Eugene, it’s impossible to have increased revenue through lower taxation and a limited government. The vast majority of his arguments are tethered to a false premise instead of solid economic ground, which is why tax-paying Americans watch them float off into space. Case in point: “The clock is ticking toward Aug. 2 and the possibility of a catastrophic default.” Got that? Unless we mimic the financial malfeasance of Europe we’ll wind up like Europe.

Eugene’s right: don’t blame both sides. Blame guys like him on August 2nd, who spend their time using scare tactics on the public instead of teaching them Basic Economics.

Paul Ryan’s Wine Passes Sniff Test. Susan Feinberg’s Behavior Smells Like Rotting Monkfish à la Soubise.

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In the grand scheme of things, the Paul Ryan wine fiasco means nothing. For those unfamiliar with the story, Ryan and a few economists were dining in an upscale restaurant. His guests ordered a $350 bottle of wine. And then they ordered another. Susan Feinberg of Rutgers University, also an economist, was celebrating her birthday. She became so (weirdly) incensed at the choice of beverages that she had to give Ryan “a piece of her mind.”

She approached the table and asked Ryan “how he could live with himself” sipping expensive wine while advocating for cuts to programs for seniors and the poor. Some verbal jousting between Feinberg and the other two men ensued. One of the two men said he had ordered the wine, was drinking it and paying for it. In hearing how much the wine cost, Ryan said only: “Is that how much it was?”

The clash became especially heated when Feinberg asked the men if they were lobbyists.

“F— her,” one of them replied and stood up in a menacing way, according to Feinberg’s account. Feinberg said her husband then “puffed out his chest” in response before the manager and a waiter came over and Feinberg decided she had said her piece and it was time to leave.

It’s bad enough living in D.C. with people asking you for change when you get off at every Metro. Now a Congressman can’t even go out to eat with a few economists without a liberal professor going Code Pink Crazy on him? Paul Ryan should have been the one confronting Rutgers’ Susan Feinberg, asking how she could clog her pie hole with Steak Tartare Atilla and Duck Confit Façon Tarbais while liberals are out there trying to convince the American people Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid don’t need the kind of fundamental changes he’s advocating for. How can Susan Feinberg “live with herself” when Keynesian economics has a track record of abysmal failure? Liberalism’s deepest footprints leave nothing but crime and misery and hopelessness where Feinbergian good intentions once once stood.

Paul Ryan’s friends happen to like a good glass of wine with their meal. In Susan Feinberg’s mind, perhaps it would have been better if the Congressman was home taking pictures of his crotch and posting them on Twitter Weiner-style since it’s free! (although, how do you calculate the cost of moral decay by Anthony Weiner advocates like Janeane Garofalo?)

Next time I see Susan Feinberg in a restaurant perhaps I’ll confront her over unconstitutional health care mandates. Maybe her husband will “puff out” his chest and I’ll recoil in fear (because who knows how much testosterone surges through the veins of liberals dining at Bistro Bis. It has to be off the charts).

In short: Susan Feinberg’s self-righteous pomp is a joke. When’s the last time she confronted a Congressional tax cheat? Never. Put in elitist DC Beltway terms an ivory tower foodie can understand: The smell of Selles-sur-Chere gone wrong wafts downward from the moral pedestal she stands on. It’s time to step off and back away.

Now excuse me while I turn my attention to a serious politician.

Update: Allahpundit over at hotair covers Susan Feinberg’s sudden silence. I wonder why…


Cuban Zombie Flick More Accurate than Michael Moore Movies.

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Michael Moore isn’t going to be happy with his Cuban filmmaker counterparts. The self-made millionaire who laments capitalism and the astute observer of freedom who said that it seems Cuba has “a doctor on every block” now might end up having to watch as a Cuban zombie flick sheds more light on life in Fidel’s “paradise” than Sicko ever did. The building that collapses at the end of the Juan of the Dead trailer even looks like the “showcase hospital” Moore was taken to during his tour of the country!

How sad is it that American kids will probably have to watch this Cuban horror movie parody to get a better education on the real Cuba than by attending classes in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, or Chicago? Perhaps the editor at Topless Robot put it best:

Unlike regular zombie flicks or even Shaun [of the Dead], Juan and his pals don’t seem to be afraid of zombies at all — it appears that given all the other [crap] that happens in Cuba on regular basis, zombies end up pretty unremarkable as a crisis. In fact, it looks like Juan immediately seizes the invasion of the living dead as a business opportunity. That’s pretty outstanding. Here’s hoping it makes it to U.S. theaters, or at least a domestic DVD release.

As The Heritage Foundation and Marco Rubio have already noted, Cuba has no problem creating zombies in the form of sex trade victims. Why should Cuban government thugs care about scarred children shuffling around when it’s part of a 2 billion dollar tourism industry for Fidel and Raul? Perhaps a more accurate assessment of Moore’s “there seems to be doctor on every block” claim can be attributed to staff treating the STD’s and psychological damage to young girls thrust into human trafficking. That is, unless Fidel Castro says otherwise:

There are no women forced to sell themselves to a man, to a foreigner, to a tourist…Those who do so do it on their own, voluntarily and without any need for it. We can say that they are highly educated hookers and quite healthy.

In the Juan of the Dead trailer, the government blames the zombie outbreak on “dissident groups paid for by the U.S. government.” Anyone who’s listened to Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Keith Olbermann, Janeane Garofalo and the rest of the left knows they would be the first to take the state run media’s account and run with it. When the real zombie apocalypse hits the one silver lining will be the entertainment provided by our nation’s useful idiot survivors.

If Juan of the Dead is a success the sequel should be Venezuela. Why? Because like Cuba, they’re also into sex trafficking. 40,000 – 50,000 child prostitutes in the socialist wonderland and counting. It’s a ready-made allegory for life under Sean Penn’s ideological hero.

Congratulations to the director of Juan of the Dead, Alejandro Brugues; your work of fiction is more accurate than a Michael Moore documentary and you weren’t even trying. If you get stateside distribution, I’m there.

Obesity Epidemic? Try Stupidity Epidemic, America.

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Newsfat (I mean "newsflash"): If you swap spit with a fat person, you won't grow love handles. If you eat fried foods with them before going to bed every night, you will. Shocker.

America doesn’t have an “obesity epidemic.” You don’t “catch a fat” when you’re in enclosed spaces with your overweight coworker. Fat rolls aren’t picked up by people who don’t cover their stomach when they sneeze. If we’re going to play that game, let’s be honest: America has a “stupidity epidemic.” And on that topic Slate has a story that’s worth unpacking:

Racial and ethnic minority adults continue to make up the largest share of the epidemic. Among the national population, obesity rates were the highest for African-Americans and Latinos.

In addition, Americans who made less money and had less education were more likely to be obese. Adults making less than $15,000 per year, for instance, had a 33 percent obesity rate, compared with a 21.5 percent rate for those making at least $50,000 per year.

Anyone who’s occasionally listened to rap knows that guys like Kanye West believe the government concocted the AIDS virus to kill poor minorities, and the CIA unleashed cocaine  on inner cities to do the same.

Before you ask me to get a job today, can I at least get a raise on a minimum wage?/
And I know the government administered AIDS/
So I guess we just pray like the minister say/
Allah o Akbar and throw em some hot cars…

Question: When will rappers start throwing out lyrical daggers at the fast food industry? It will be interesting to hear theories about how George Bush and the GOP created the Quarter Pounder with Cheese to ensure a never-ended cycle of poverty and diabetes. But I digress…

The point is—fast food is cheap. We should thank our lucky stars we live in a country where rich white liberals lament the tasty, tasty burgers and crispy golden fries the less-affluent have to deal (or was that deal meal?) with.  But that’s besides the point. There are plenty of healthy alternatives. Black beans and other legumes are extremely good for you. There are many frozen and canned vegetables that are not that expensive. Meat can be pricey, but there are cost-effective options for anyone who’s willing to put in a little effort looking. This underscores the more important point: a little education and initiative go a long way. The Nanny State, however, saps initiative and drive from the citizenry. Over time, the communities  that abdicate character-building responsibilities to the federal government become human gerbil farms performing tasks for fat pellets.

We’ve become a nation that sits in front of the television for hours on end. We eat sugary snacks and carb-loaded crap while doing so. We spend hours watching vapid California girls make Japanese-inspired fools out of themselves. We actually find it entertaining to tune in to talking heads screaming at each other every night instead of going outside to play catch or ride a bike with our kids. We’ve convinced ourselves that we have to spend countless hours looking at our Blackberries or iPhones for the latest email, instead of going on a long walk with our significant other.

Cold hard truth: There is no obesity epidemic; there is a national State of Denial. We’re in denial about federal deficits. We’re in denial about entitlement programs. We’re in denial about our horrid education system. We’re in denial about how important it is for America—the freest country the world has ever known—to remain strong and vibrant on the global stage. Are you the sensitive type who thinks an American superpower creates enemies? Wait until we’re a has-been afterthought of a nation and let me know how that works for global peace and stability.

On issue after issue, we’re a country that has become the fat, lazy, bloated guy who looks in the mirror and still sees himself as a leaner, meaner version of his younger self.

One of the precursors to diabetes is acanthosis nigricans, a discoloring of the skin (usually around the sides and the back of the neck). As a nation, we have acanthosis. We’ve enjoyed the empty calories of government-goodies for a long time, and the clock is ticking before our vital signs fail. It’s obvious to our friends and neighbors, but too many of them sit silently because it’s the polite thing to do. Unfortunately, it’s also the deadly thing to do. Worse yet, the people who are supposed to serve as public-policy doctors with a prescription for healthy living aren’t doing such a bang-up job.

Keep telling yourself you have an “epidemic”, America. When you go into diabetic shock there will be no Greece or Europe or China to give you your insulin. Instead of your common dirge, might I suggest something by Radiohead at the national funeral? How to Disappear Completely seems eerily apropos.

Liberals Target “Discriminatory” Homeschooling Success.

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The Department of Education is "troubled" by the success of home schooling families. Their standards are higher than national standards, which can only mean one thing: they must be controlled. As a nation, we need to be equally mediocre.

In what is bound to be the talk of the town in the coming months, prominent liberals have decided to target homeschooling. Long viewed by conservatives as an alternative to failing schools, a new philosophy has taken shape on the left: homeschooling is discriminatory. The logic goes as follows:

  • Homeschoolers tend to come from intact families. Low income areas have higher rates of divorce and single-parent homes.
  • Homeschooling families cite religion as an important part of their life, and report regular church attendance at higher rates than families that attend public schools.
  • The homeschooling community could generally be painted on a national portrait with one color—white.

What does all of this have to do with Education reform? Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education Association weighs in:

School choice, homeschooling, and a number of other conservative “solutions” to education reform have proven track records of success. But at what price? The improved test scores overwhelmingly benefit a white crowd. We did away with “separate but equal” years ago, but the homeschooling community doesn’t seem to have received the memo. We’re all in this together—or at least we should be—and that includes the growing pains involved with improving public education.  There’s a dark underbelly to all those improved tests scores and college degrees touted by homeschooling advocates. Let’s just word it this way: they get an A for effort when it comes to hidden racial agendas.

The United States’ Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, would not go as far, only willing to go on record as “troubled” and “concerned” about reports of homeschooling success. Likewise, he indicated that a “special task force” would be put together to look into the “disturbing” trend among the American population to advocate for a return to federalism when it comes to education reform.

Perhaps Illinois Senator Dick Durbin put it best for proud liberals everywhere:

These homeschoolers oppose national standards. Why? Because they want to hold their children to higher standards than everyone else. Long story short—unacceptable. Washington should determine that sort of thing, even if it means we’re all equally mediocre. The last thing this country needs is a class of self-motivated scholars thinking they’re better than the rest of us.

It’s unclear if the Obama administration will take up liberalism’s newest battle cry, but if it does one thing is certain: they’ll lead from behind.

Editor’s Note: This post brought to you by The Administrative State, with special thanks given to the United States Department of Satire.

Greenpeace: Fear the Volkswagen Death Star

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Do you remember the Volkswagen commercial with the cute kid in the Darth Vader costume? It turns out, he really is evil—according to Greenpeace. In a new ad by the liberal activist group, Kid Darth is confronted by Junior Jedi, a Child Chewie, your favorite Star Wars droids, and Kid Lando (with a mustache) due to Volkswagen’s adherence to the Dark Side (i.e., common sense). According to the admittedly slick spin off:  “VW is threatening our planet by opposing cuts to CO2 emissions.”

Just as liberals consistently fail to define “the poor” or “the rich” when it comes to public policy debates, liberal environmentalists fail to define what they mean by “threatening our planet.” To most of us, CO2 (otherwise known as plant food), doesn’t seem like the catalyst for an Alderaan-type apocalypse for Mother Earth. The conservative realizes that the Volkswagen employee likes to drink clean water and breath clean air just as much as the Greenpeace activist. The conservative dislikes lung cancer just as much as the next guy. Oppose Greenpeace’s standard for what constitutes an environmentally friendly automobile? You’re the equivalent of a Coruscant drug dealer. As the “Rebel Manifesto” states:

Volkswagen has a history of lobbying against the strong European standards that we need to kick our oil addiction. As the biggest car company in Europe, with the biggest responsibility, VW must change and support strong standards from now on.

Humans don’t have an oil addiction; Greenpeace has technophobia, particularly anything that runs on an internal combustion engine. Bees build beehives and we build cities, but the liberal environmentalist fails to acknowledge our machines are, indeed, natural. The Star Wars analogy falls apart when viewers realize that liberals want us all to become clones to their progressive worldview…or die. Remember when British environmentalists thought it would be funny if kids who weren’t in favor of cutting CO2 emissions could be detonated with the push of a button? Yet somehow it’s Volkswagen that we’re supposed to believe would be behind the construction of a Death Star? Call me skeptical.

Jedi (or undercover Sith Lords) who continue to poke around the Greenpeace website are then treated to Volkswagen’s not-so-secret Secret Plans:

If Volkswagen made the most fuel-efficient cars it produces as standard, rather than offering efficiency technology as an expensive add-on, it would be able to reduce its feet emissions and oil consumption dramatically. If it rolled out its best technology across the fleet it would be transformational, not just to its own performance but to the European vehicle fleet as a whole.

It’s good to know that liberal environmentalists who don’t have eyes on Volkswagen’s internals know how to run a car company better than a men who have made cars their life’s work. Just as liberals call for minimum wage hikes (as if prices are arbitrarily decided upon numbers and sold to us with a Jedi mind trick), Greenpeace believes Volkswagen can snap its fingers and roll out “its best technology across the fleet.”

Perhaps a better analogy would lie with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Liberals believe we live in a “Make it so” world. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. When it comes to public policy vision, they’re as blind as Han Solo coming out of Carbonite hibernation.

College Democrats of America Video: Share it With the Cluessless, Smarmy Kid in Your Life.

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The College Democrats of America held a casting call for clueless kids who wear smart glasses, and came up gangbusters.

In October, Campus Progress was telling young liberals to embrace their inner loser. They did this by trotting out a bunch of hairy, naked, and couch-potato doughy kids to talk about how great it would be to stay eligible for their parents’ health care plans until age 26, among other entitlement-mentality psychobabble.

This June, the College Democrats of America tried a similar video, although they decided to put some clothes on. Instead of hairy, doughy college students displaying the “Freshman 15” for the world to see, they opted for the smarmy looking young men who can say things like, “I’m a Democrat because I believe hope is the stuff of dreams,” with a straight face.

That’s interesting, because conservatives believe entitlement obligations that can castrate a nation are the things of nightmares. What’s also interesting is the liberal young woman who says, “I believe more women should be involved in politics, and the Democrat Party is our tool to do so,” because it’s also the primary tool used…for aborting them.

My main problem with this video isn’t so much the quixotic kids, because that’s expected of them. It’s not with the swagger of a 21 year old student who thinks he knows the ins and outs of free trade agreements because he took an Intro to Latin America class with a Hispanic Ward Churchill. It’s really with the bad music playing in the background. I always thought liberals were about what’s new and hot and trendy. How about Mumford and Sons: The Cave? It would suit you perfectly; just ask Plato.

Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell vs. The Male Models.

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Behind door number one we have a man in a dress. Behind door number two we have former Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell looking like he could kill you with just a hard glare. Which door would you like walk through if it determined our national identity?

Men’s Fashion Week for Summer 2012 just wrapped up in Paris, which means I now get to write about it. Although, truthfully, I really should just post a slew of pictures, all of which would be humorous if they weren’t so sad. I’ve touched on the subject before, but every time I see a bunch of artsy males get together in skimpy outfits fit for an Adam Lambert choreographed dance number, I can’t help but think of Marcus Luttrell of Seal Team 10.

The man on the left is either a male model who gets paid to prance around as a human bush, or he's auditioning to become concealment for a Navy Seal.

The fact is, I’m torn. It’s a marvel that Western Civilization has granted us the kind of peace and prosperity that allows grown men to walk around (and get paid!) in bush costumes masquerading as fashion and art. I also don’t want to outright dismiss “the bushmen” because, on some level, maybe they are portraying something of artistic value, even if I just “don’t get it.” But when I juxtapose pictures of former Navy Seal Marcus Luttrel with the male models of Paris, I can’t help but get a little depressed. It’s as if the ideal has been turned upside down. Instead of duty, honor, valor, and strength, the modern man is encouraged to become a hairless (leafy green?), passive man-boy who plays up any inner femininity that he might have. Instead of the selfless service of the seasoned soldier, it’s the vain, narcissistic, pouting man-children of Jersey Shore that get air time and viral videos. Perhaps that’s why I want so desperately for Captain America to rule the summer box office. See you on opening night—unless you’re disguised as a bush.

Ben Bernanke Thinks He’s Ashton Kutcher. He’s Really a Japanese Zombie.

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The New York Times and Ben Bernanke both want you to know that the reason why the economy is growing at an anemic 2% rate is because of—wait for it—the earthquake in Japan! What about all those predictions of 4% growth, you ask? What about the Keynesian explosion about job-awesomeness we were promised with hundreds of billions of stimulus? If you believe in the Butterfly Effect (or the Ashton Kutcher movie by the same name that no one saw because Ashton Kutcher was in it), perhaps a little insect sat on a fault line on the coast of Honshu, Japan, caused an earthquake, there were supply disruptions, and now we’re alluding to the possibility of a double-dip recession! The Times explains:

Few economists are predicting an out-and-out return to recession, but the risk has increased, with the health of the American economy depending in part on what is really “transitory.”

During the first press conference in the central bank’s history two months ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke used the word to describe factors — including supply chain disruptions after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and rising oil prices — that were restraining economic growth in the first half of the year (emphasis added).

Earlier this week, Mr. Bernanke confessed that “some of these headwinds may be stronger and more persistent than we thought,” adding, “we don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting.”

You “don’t have a precise read,” Ben? I think you do. And so do other economists:

[T]he unexpected shocks from Japan and the Middle East in the first half of the year go only partway toward explaining the deceleration. Many worries remain: housing prices have continued to fall, hiring is weak, wages are flat, growth in emerging economies like China and India is slowing and the debt crisis in Europe could have ripple effects.

Our troubles are certainly linked to Japan, only not in the way that Mr. Bernanke wants to admit. It isn’t the Japanese earthquake that caused our problems, but the Japanese solution to financial problems (i.e., liberalism) I wrote about in October:

In short, most of Japan’s prolonged economic woes stem from…the kind of “stimulus” programs liberals (and bizarrely, some Republicans) embrace no matter how unremarkable—and often counter productive—the track record at home or abroad.

Japan has turned into a nation of liberal zombies. Amazingly, guys like Joe Biden and Harry Reid keep proving that once you’re bitten by Keynesian undead it’s incredibly difficult to come back to reality.

If only more people watched F.A. Hayek in the Fight of Century instead of Ben Bernanke playing Ashton Kutcher, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

The government’s long been in bed
with those Wall Street execs and the firms that they’ve bled.
Capitalism is about profit and loss.
You bail out the losers there is no end to the cost.
The lesson I’ve learned is how little we know.
The world is complex, not some circular flow.
The economy is not a class you master in college,
to think otherwise is the pretense of knowledge.

People aren’t chess men you move on a board
at your whim, their dreams and desires ignored.
With political incentives, discretion’s a joke.
Those dials are twisting; just mirrors and smoke.
We need stable rules and real market prices
so prosperity emerges and cuts short the crisis.
Give us a chance so we can discover
the most valuable ways to serve one another.

Next: Left to Use Gay Rights Logic On Fiscal Crisis.

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Jason Alexander believes New York’s gay marriage law was a great step for “humanity.” Next up for liberals: applying gay rights logic to the laws of supply and demand.

Hollywood was certainly happy with New York State’s passing of a gay marriage bill. In fact, liberals everywhere were so psyched by the development that some have already surmised that the same logic can be carried over into the budgetary realm, where the law of supply and demand and its conservative disciples have thwarted “progress” for centuries! Faced with skyrocketing national debt and no way to pay for it, New York’s gay marriage victory has instilled hope that the world will finally “advance mankind” when it comes to knuckle-dragging creditors (as Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander might put it).

Wiping tears from her eyes in Greenwich Village, a young Bongo Studies Major at New York University puts it best:

I’ve never been attracted to men. I’ve never had a desire to be with one. Now society has progressed to the point where a majority of New Yorkers understand. The conventional wisdom and the Laws of Nature strongly suggest that a union between men and women should have a special institution set aside for them—but that’s not true. Likewise, certain mathematical properties suggest that algebraic equations only work if strict adherence to the rules of dead white men are followed. Well, I’ve never had a desire to live within my means. I’ve never had a desire to balance my budget. And millions of others around the globe haven’t either! Perhaps those old dead men…were wrong. Did you ever think of that?

Paul Ryan may have a budget plan, but it appears as though his hard data may be up against a new foe: “progress.” For years conservatives have based public policy on the idea that prices mean something, that they’re not just arbitrarily decided upon by “greedy” businessmen (playing poker with liberals like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in a smoke-and-cocaine-filled hooker closet). Now, if the left gains traction, the right will have to convince millions of Americans that unprecedented debt isn’t something to be embraced. What’s an easier sell: fiscal conservatism or Repudiation Pride parades? Long story short: free market conservatives have their work cut out for them.

Editor’s Note: This post was written in a Safe House for Satire.