Author Archives: LorrineBucher

Ryan, McCarthy Both Deny Nasty Remark About Trump, But It Turns Out There’s a Recording

by LorrineBucher Posted on May 17, 2017

Mother Jones

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Last year, after a meeting with the Ukranian prime minister, the #2 Republican in the House turned to Paul Ryan and said, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” That’s from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and it’s apparently what he thought back in June after Trump had won the Republican nomination. Ryan quickly shushed him, but the Washington Post found out about it today:

When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that Donald Trump or any of our members were being paid by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and leadership team have repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s interference in our election, and the House continues to investigate that activity.”

Good on Adam Entous of the Post for getting a response from both men before they knew he had a recording. It’s good for the public to understand how shamelessly and effortlessly they’ll flatly lie about anything they think they can get away with.

Anyway, the new story is that this was just a big joke.1 That’s also the latest excuse making the rounds for Trump asking James Comey to kill the Russia investigation.2 There sure are a lot of jokers in the Republican Party these days.

UPDATE: The transcript is here. McCarthy says, “There’s…there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump…laughter…swear to God.” Then there’s more laughter. So yeah, it sounds like it was just a joke, though probably in a “funny cuz it’s true” sort of sense.

1Actually, I can buy this. McCarthy’s comment really does sound like dark humor. Still, even if he didn’t mean it literally, it shows just what he thought about Trump and the Russians. In humor, veritas.

2This is pretty ridiculous in the case of Trump, since as near as I can tell he has no sense of humor and never laughs about anything. That’s probably because he’s too busy obsessing about how badly everyone treats him.

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Ryan, McCarthy Both Deny Nasty Remark About Trump, But It Turns Out There’s a Recording

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Early Polls Suggest Hillary Clinton Did Pretty Well in Tuesday’s Debate

by LorrineBucher Posted on October 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Now it’s time to take a look at the Democratic side of the presidential race. Obviously nobody cares about Webb, O’Malley, or Chafee, so let’s zero in on Clinton and Sanders. Who won Tuesday’s debate? Andrew Prokop summarizes the early polls in the chart on the right.

Now, these results are fairly consistent with Bernie supporters thinking Bernie won and Hillary supporters thinking Hillary won—plus a few extra for Hillary. We’ll have to wait for the big national polls to see if the debate actually changed support levels much for either of them. At a rough glance, though, it looks as if most of the folks who prefer Joe Biden in the polls ended up choosing Hillary when the choice was limited to just her and Bernie.

This makes sense ideologically, since Biden and Clinton occupy pretty similar niches, and it makes sense from a name recognition standpoint too. But I’d point out one other thing that we political junkies might miss: Bernie Sanders can sometimes come across on TV as loud and angry. We’re all so used to his speaking style that it doesn’t affect us much, but for people tuning in for the first time, it might have been fairly off-putting. I don’t know if likely Democratic voters feel the same way, but they might. Just a thought.

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Early Polls Suggest Hillary Clinton Did Pretty Well in Tuesday’s Debate

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Organic Farmers Make a Lot More Money Than Conventional Farmers

by LorrineBucher Posted on June 6, 2015

Link – 

Organic Farmers Make a Lot More Money Than Conventional Farmers

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NYPD Slowdown Not Likely to Tell Us Much About Broken Windows

by LorrineBucher Posted on December 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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As long as we’re talking about crime today, the New York Times reports that the NYPD’s slowdown in citing people for minor violations doesn’t appear to be doing any harm:

In the week since two Brooklyn officers were killed by a man who singled them out for their police uniforms, the number of summonses for minor criminal offenses, as well as those for parking and traffic violations, has decreased by more than 90 percent versus the same week a year earlier, and felony arrests were nearly 40 percent lower, according to Police Department statistics.

….Yet reports of major crimes citywide continued their downward trajectory, falling to 1,813 from 2,127 for the week, a nearly 15 percent drop, according to Police Department statistics.

Mike the Mad Biologist thinks this might be a useful natural experiment:

Here’s the thing: this might not be like the sanitation workers strike. Then, it was obvious what the consequences were—mounds of rotting garbage. But what happens if, after a couple weeks of slowdown, there’s no uptick in violent or property (i.e., breaking and entry) crime? That would undermine the current policing philosophy of the NYPD (and many other cities)….If violent crime doesn’t increase, then arresting people for minor violations doesn’t seem like a good strategy.

Helluva experiment. Let’s see what the outcome will be.

Unfortunately, I doubt that this will tell us anything at all. The timeframe is too short and there are too many other things going on at the same time. Crime statistics have a ton of noise in them, and it’s hard to draw any conclusions even from a full year of change. You need years of data, preferably in lots of different places. A few weeks of data in one place is basically just a null.

So….yes, it’s potentially an interesting experiment. In real life, though, it’s not. It’s just a howl of protest from the police that will tell us little about anything other than the state of relations between City Hall and the NYPD.

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NYPD Slowdown Not Likely to Tell Us Much About Broken Windows

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