Tag Archives: valley

There Is a "Truck Line" Tearing America Apart

by PollyGraf09 Posted on September 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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A few minutes ago, President Obama’s former “car czar” Steven Rattner tweeted the map below. Marcy Wheeler tweaks him for calling Hondas and Toyotas “imports” even though most of them are made in the US. I’d tweak him for saying the map shows the best-selling “cars” in each state, since it also includes trucks. Trucks aren’t cars.

But that’s enough tweaking. I’m willing to cut people a lot of slack on Twitter. Here’s what I’m curious about. You’ve no doubt heard of the famous “soda line” in America: in New England and the West, most of us call fizzy sweetened drinks soda. In the South, it’s coke. Up north, from Washington to the Ohio Valley, it’s pop.

Apparently we also have a truck line in America. In the Midwest and mountain states, people buy Ford F-series trucks. In the Great Lakes region, the Chevy Silverado reigns supreme. Out West, we seem to prefer Dodge Rams.

What’s up with that? Is this just a weird coincidence? Or is there some genuine historical reason that different trucks are popular in different regions?

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There Is a "Truck Line" Tearing America Apart

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Sovereign Citizens Leapfrog Islamic Extremists as America’s Top Terrorist Threat

by YaniraAWOQ Posted on August 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Who do actual law enforcement officers see as the biggest terrorist threats in America? Surprise! It’s not Islamic radicals:

Approximately 39 percent of respondents agreed and 28 percent strongly agreed that Islamic extremists were a serious terrorist threat. In comparison, 52 percent of respondents agreed and 34 percent strongly agreed that sovereign citizens were a serious terrorist threat.

….There was significant concern about the resurgence of the radical far right following the election of President Obama, but it appears as though law enforcement is, at present, less concerned about these groups.

That’s odd. The authors of this report apparently don’t consider the sovereign citizens part of the radical right. But their roots are in the Posse Comitatus movement, and they identify strongly with both the white supremacist Christian Identity movement and the anti-tax movement. That’s always sounded like the right-wing on steroids to me.

I’m not trying to foist responsibility for these crazies on the Republican Party, any more than I’d say Democrats are responsible for animal rights extremists. Still, their complaints seem like preposterous caricatures of right-wing thought, in the same way that animal rights extremism bears a distant but recognizable ancestry to lefty principles.

In any case, this comes via Zack Beauchamp, who explains the sovereign citizens movement in more detail for the uninitiated.

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Sovereign Citizens Leapfrog Islamic Extremists as America’s Top Terrorist Threat

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The Conservative Tax Borg Has Finally Absorbed Donald Trump

by DwightWight Posted on August 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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The New York Times reports that Republican leaders are alarmed at one particular aspect of Donald Trump’s popularity:

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on American companies that put their factories in other countries. He has threatened to increase taxes on the compensation of hedge fund managers. And he has vowed to change laws that allow American companies to benefit from cheaper tax rates by using mergers to base their operations outside the United States.

Alarmed that those ideas might catch on with some of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals — as his immigration policies have — the Club for Growth, an anti-tax think tank, is pulling together a team of economists to scrutinize his proposals and calculate the economic impact if he is elected.

First things first: Trump and the Club for Growth have been feuding ever since Trump entered the race. The Club says it’s because Trump had previously supported universal health care and a one-time tax on individuals worth more than $10 million. Trump says it’s because the Club tried to shake him down for a $1 million donation and he refused to give it to them. The truth is—oh, who cares what the truth is? It’s just another Trump feud.

Anyway, Trump repudiated his wealth tax idea a long time ago, but he has supported (a) a progressive income tax, (b) closing loopholes for hedge fund managers, (c) tariffs on companies that move factories to Mexico, and (d) corporate inversions. But wait! In his interview with Sarah Palin, Trump inched closer to Republican orthodoxy on taxes:

We have to simplify our tax code. You have hedge fund guys that are paying virtually no tax and they’re making a fortune….Now you can go to a fair tax or a flat tax, but the easiest way and the quickest way, at least on a temporary basis, is simplification of the code: get rid of deductions, reduce taxes.

OK. So Trump definitely wants to eliminate the carried-interest loophole that allows hedge fund managers to pay very little in federal income tax. But he’s no longer opposed to a flat tax. It’s just that on a “temporary” basis he wants to broaden the base and reduce rates. This is as orthodox as it gets.

As for the tariffs on companies that move to Mexico, that’s just bluster not to be taken seriously. And reining in corporate inversions is a pretty bipartisan goal. It would presumably be part of a corporate tax overhaul that would end up being revenue neutral.

On taxes, then, Trump has all but caved in. The only serious part of his schtick that’s no longer garden-variety Republican dogma is his desire to close the carried-interest loophole. And even this is small potatoes: it would raise one or two billion dollars per year, which could easily be offset by a tiny tax cut somewhere else. There’s really nothing left for even Grover Norquist to dislike.

So no worries! Trump is becoming fully absorbed by the Republican borg on taxes. Aside from the Mexico stuff, which is just campaign trail bombast, there’s nothing left that would raise net taxes or offend conservative sensibilities in any way. Whew.

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The Conservative Tax Borg Has Finally Absorbed Donald Trump

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This Week’s Great Showdown: Denali vs. McKinley

by c7u433n Posted on August 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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So the big news this weekend was President Obama’s decision to change the name of Mt. McKinley back to Denali. As near as I can tell, the only people who truly care about this are:

Alaskans
Ohioans
Mountain climbers
Trivia buffs

Of these, Alaskans are pro-Denali; Ohioans are proudly pro-McKinley; mountain climbers have been calling it Denali for years already; and trivia buffs are almost certainly pro-Denali since they love it whenever something changes that allows them to pedantically correct other people.

So far—to my pleasant surprise, I admit—there’s been very little complaining about how Obama is—again!—bending to the forces of political correctness and identity politics by kowtowing to the icy cold branch of the native American community. But the week is young and the easily outraged are probably still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. Give them time.

For the time being, though, the pro-McKinley side has only the Ohioans, who have been battling Alaskans over this for decades. Ohioans are mighty defenders of William McKinley, proud son of Niles, Ohio. So proud, in fact, that one of their own renamed Denali to Mt. McKinley in 1896 merely because McKinley had just been nominated for president. Alaskans probably had no idea this was even happening, and in any case they weren’t yet a state and could do little about it. They finally tried to officially reverse this power grab in the 70s, but sneaky Ohioans took advantage of a loophole to prevent the US Board on Geographic Names from acting. That ended yesterday when Obama decided to rename America’s highest peak himself.

The obvious solution to all this is to rename Ohio’s tallest mountain. Unfortunately, Ohio is flat and has no mountains at all. Its highest point is Campbell Hill, topping out at a pedestrian 1,550 feet. They could rename it McKinley Hill—unless, of course, that would outrage the descendants of Charles D. Campbell—but that’s quite a comedown from the majesty of Denali, as the pictures on the right show.

What to do? Nothing much, I suppose, except for Ohio’s congressional delegation to rant and rave about Obama’s unilateral power grab etc. That’s fine. Hometown pride demands no less. Even at that, though, I have to give props to Rep. Bob Gibbs for this masterpiece of outrage:

I hope my colleagues will join with me in stopping this constitutional overreach. President Obama has decided to ignore an act of Congress in unilaterally renaming Mt. McKinley in order to promote his job-killing war on energy.

Constitutional overreach? Sure, whatever. That’s garden variety stuff by now. But how does removing the name of America’s 25th president advance Obama’s job-killing war on energy? Inquiring minds want to know.

As for the political implications, all you need to know is this: Alaska has three electoral votes. Ohio has 18 and is routinely a critical swing state. You may draw your own conclusions from this.

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This Week’s Great Showdown: Denali vs. McKinley

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Hair Update: Short Wins By a Landslide

by Daniela75Q Posted on August 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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So what does the commentariat think on the hair front? Here’s a smattering of comments from folks who like my new, shorter hair:

DM: Makes you look quietly studly and stoic.

JS: The short look, with the T-shirt, is hot. You’ll just have to get used to the idea that you’re going to turn female heads when you walk into a restaurant.

EVC: Even without the tattoos, you look so much more hip and bad-ass. It’s a good look.

CLD: It’s like Johnny Depp in Black Mass, it’s the new look.

SG: Clean, cool, contemporary. And it makes you look ten years younger.

RS: As a personal finance professor, I like that you can have your wife cut it with at home electric hair clipper package; it’s easy at that length!

LD: It’s more interesting, less like an insurance salesman from the ’50’s.

And here’s a smattering of comment from the one person who likes my old, longer hair:

JD: Your old hair is so cute. And you might as well enjoy it while you can, because, face it, the day will come when it will all go away anyway. Dad did not have much hair at your age.

Well….but Dad didn’t have much hair by the time he was 30, either. I plan to take after my maternal grandfather, who kept his hair into his 90s. In any case, the new hair wins by about 487 to 1. But let’s face it: the vote was rigged from the start. Nobody was going to vote for that old hair. Besides, if I were sporting a polka-dot mohawk you guys would all vote for it. Don’t lie. You know you would.

So that’s that. Short hair wins. However, it turns out that none of your votes counted anyway. Marian voted for the new hair, and she outvoted all of you. Funny how that works.

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Hair Update: Short Wins By a Landslide

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The Internet Is Making Us Sicker

by ShaunLadprsnu Posted on August 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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The placebo effect, as we all know, is the mechanism by which we sometimes feel better even when we’re given meds that later turn out to be sugar pills. The mere expectation that we will get better somehow helps us actually get better. The most eye-popping example of the placebo effect is probably this one here.

But there’s also a dark side to this. I don’t know if it has an official name, so let’s call it the anti-placebo effect.1 Basically, it means that your mind can invent miserable side effects from taking medication merely because you know that certain side effects are possible. Take cholesterol-lowering statins, for example:

At the Mayo Clinic here, Dr. Stephen L. Kopecky, who directs a program for statin-intolerant patients, says he is well aware that middle-age and older adults who typically need statins may blame the drugs for aches, pains and memory losses that have other causes. He also knows his patients peruse the Internet, which is replete with horror stories about the dangers of statins.

Yet he, like other doctors, also thinks some statin intolerance is real despite what clinical trials have shown. The problem: In the vast majority of cases, there is no objective test to tell real from imagined statin intolerance.

So there you have it: the internet is making us sicker. Does it make up for this by also making us healthier? I have my doubts. It is a spawn of evil.

And no, you still can’t take mine away. However, this is one of the reasons why I’ve avoided reading about multiple myeloma on the internet. I figure it’s unlikely to help, and might very well hurt.

1Turns out it’s called the nocebo effect. How about that?

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The Internet Is Making Us Sicker

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Soon We Will All Be Little More Than Organic FedEx Packages

by RosaLadner63 Posted on August 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Saturday the New York Times ran this headline: “Christie Proposes Tracking Immigrants Like FedEx Packages.” We are, of course, supposed to be scandalized by this. After all, if “anchor babies” is dehumanizing to immigrants, surely treating them like FedEx packages is nothing short of brutalizing. The article goes on to explain:

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Saturday that if he were elected president he would combat illegal immigration by creating a system to track foreign visitors the way FedEx tracks packages. Mr. Christie, who is far back in the pack of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, said at a campaign event in New Hampshire that he would ask the chief executive of FedEx, Frederick W. Smith, to devise the tracking system.

Uh huh. This is, of course, part of the Trump-inspired “can you top this” game of being tough on illegal immigration. That’s a bit of a yawn, though, since we went through the same thing during the 2012 primaries. What’s more interesting is that Christie’s schtick is Trump-inspired in an entirely different way: pretending that business people can be slotted effortlessly into government positions where they’ll kick some free-market ass and get our government moving again. Trump started this by claiming that he’d send Carl Icahn over to China because he’s a “killer” and would quickly put the Chinese in their place. Now Christie is following suit.

So what’s next?

Hillary Clinton says she’ll hire Bill Gates to run Obamacare.
Ted Cruz says he’ll get the Koch Brothers to whip the EPA into shape.
Ben Carson says he’ll ask Warren Buffett to run the IRS.
Scott Walker says that Jeff Bezos is the man to fix the GSA.
Bernie Sanders says he’ll pick Oprah Winfrey as his education czar.
Jeb Bush says he’ll bring in Sergei Brin to run the CIA.
John Kasich says he’ll nominate Mitt Romney to get the VA on track.

Who else would be able to fix up an inept government agency in a few months? Or maybe it should be the other way around: Are there any government agencies that couldn’t be reformed in short order by the right kind of steely-eyed business leader?

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Soon We Will All Be Little More Than Organic FedEx Packages

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Inflation Is Low? Let’s Tighten Monetary Policy Anyway.

by NewtonVallejos Posted on August 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer comments on inflation and monetary policy:

The Federal Reserve’s No. 2 official said there is “good reason” to think sluggish U.S. inflation will firm and move back toward the U.S. central bank’s 2% annual target, touching on a significant assessment facing the Fed ahead of its September policy meeting.

….When the time comes to raise rates, Mr. Fischer said, “we will most likely need to proceed cautiously” and with inflation low, “we can probably remove accommodation at a gradual pace. Yet, because monetary policy influences real activity with a substantial lag, we should not wait until inflation is back to 2% to begin tightening.”

A lot of people think the big problem with Fischer’s statement is the first bolded sentence. There’s been “good reason” to think inflation will increase for a long time. And yet it hasn’t. Why are we supposed to believe that this year’s good reason is any better than previous ones?

That’s fair enough. But I think the real problem is in the second bolded sentence: Fischer is intent on tightening monetary policy well before inflation shows any sign of hitting 2 percent. This illustrates a serious asymmetry in the Fed’s decisionmaking. If inflation goes below the 2 percent target, they’re willing to wait things out. But if it shows even the slightest sign of maybe, someday going a few basis points above the 2 percent target, then it’s time to tighten. The net result of this is that inflation won’t average 2 percent. It will swing between 1 and 2 percent, maybe averaging 1.5 percent or so.

That’s a bad thing, and it’s especially bad if, like me, you think our inflation target should be more like 3-4 percent anyway. But that’s the way it is.

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Inflation Is Low? Let’s Tighten Monetary Policy Anyway.

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Quote of the Day: "Love, Fidelity, Devotion, Sacrifice and Family"

by Sung70Pxftqvrcj Posted on August 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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This is becoming a favorite prologue to wedding vows across the nation:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.

That’s from Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. At the time, Antonin Scalia mocked Kennedy’s writing for its “straining-to-be-memorable passages,” and it turns out he was more right than he knew. Both gay and straight couples around the country have begun incorporating it into their wedding ceremonies:

The night the high court’s ruling was announced, Sandy Queen of Weddings by Sandy called Craig Lamberton and David Ermisch, whose wedding she was performing in Rockville, Md., the next morning. She suggested including Kennedy’s opinion in their ceremony.

The couple immediately agreed. “We thought it was perfect,” said Lamberton, an administrative officer at USAID. He and Ermisch, a cartographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have been together 15 years.

….She isn’t the only one. “Honestly, in the 14 years I’ve been ordained, there has not been a passage that struck a chord as quickly as Justice Kennedy’s statement,” said the Rev. Pamela Brehm of Berks County, Pa. “Perhaps there may never be another quite so touching.”

Who knows? This may just be a passing thing. But if it’s not, Anthony Kennedy could end up as the most famous Supreme Court justice of the early 21st century, quoted in hundreds of marriage ceremonies every day. Kinda nice.

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Quote of the Day: "Love, Fidelity, Devotion, Sacrifice and Family"

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Friday Cat Blogging – 28 August 2015

by biletedeavionrezervari Posted on August 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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This is how we roll around here in August: stretched out to maximum length for maximum cooling power. Plus it might lure someone over to give Hilbert a tummy rub. Pretty often it does, in fact.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 28 August 2015

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