Screaming Contest

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Jim Henson Teaches How to Make Puppets

My hero.

Roger Ebert Returning to Television

This made me tear up a little.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Cee-Lo covers Band of Horses

"No One's Gonna Love You" from Cee-Lo's upcoming album.

Election Malfunction, or The Economy is Doing Better, Stupid.

"It's the Economy, Stupid", a phrase popularized during President Clinton's '92 election campaign, has become a political trope, thought of almost like an immutable law.  And this election season it looks like it's playing out, just not with any discernible sense.

From a CNN Poll on the state of the economy: (emphasis added)

According to the survey, more Americans hold the Republicans responsible than the Democrats, with 44 percent blaming the GOP and 35 percent picking the Democrats.

"And when George W. Bush's name is added to the mix, the number who blame the Republicans rises to 53 percent, with just a third saying that Barack Obama and his party are at fault. That indicates why the Democrats are likely to mention Bush's name every chance they get between now and election day," Holland said.

But according to numbers released Friday, just four in 10 Americans say they approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing on the economy. The 40 percent who give Obama a thumbs up is a new low for the president on the economy in CNN polling.

The majority is not wrong on who is to blame. However, the majority also doesn't approve of how Obama is handling the economy.

Well let's see how he's handled it so far.

From huffingtonpost (again, emphasis added):

" Economist Robert Shapiro looked at Bureau of Labor Statistics data and concluded:

From December 2007 to July 2009 - the last year of the Bush second term and the first six months of the Obama presidency, before his policies could affect the economy - private sector employment crashed from 115,574,000 jobs to 107,778,000 jobs. Employment continued to fall, however, for the next six months, reaching a low of 107,107,000 jobs in December of 2009. So, out of 8,467,000 private sector jobs lost in this dismal cycle, 7,796,000 of those jobs or 92 percent were lost on the Republicans' watch or under the sway of their policies. Some 671,000 additional jobs were lost as the stimulus and other moves by the administration kicked in, but 630,000 jobs then came back in the following six months. The tally, to date: Mr. Obama can be held accountable for the net loss of 41,000 jobs (671,000 - 630,000), while the Republicans should be held responsible for the net losses of 7,796,000 jobs.

That means that Obama's policies (largely the ARRA Stimulus) changed a job loss rate of 7,796K in about a year and a half to a job loss rate of 41K in about the same period of time.  I.e. 99% of jobs lost happened entirely before Obama's policies took effect.
Here's a handy chart from ezraklein:

So overall we have stopped the job losses. What we haven't seen are net job gains. But the big question is, how reasonable is it to expect net job gains this quickly after the crash?  I would suggest that it's not reasonable at all.

So there we go, the majority of the electorate, expect the Democrats to do something that is unreasonable, and will not count the herculean successes already achieved by the administration as good enough to meet their approval...


Or as Sam Seder tweeted it:

 "Now we know -- it takes 8 years of GOP control to totally fuck up our economy and only 18 months to blame Dems for it." 


The economy isn't fully recovered, but it's a lot healthier under Democratic control than it was under the Republicans. But I guess most people don't understand that the economy is doing better, stupid.

Amazing Infographic Sunday

From collegescholarships.org



Infographic by College Scholarships.org

Kevin Jackson Meets Reality. Will They Get Along?

UPDATE:

Mr. Jackson has since put his Facebook on hold, with some claims about reaching a "limit" of some sort. My assumption is he was upset about his audience getting exposed to the truth. As always, I welcome any comment from Mr. Jackson himself.

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    Here we go! I recently had a facebook conversation with Kevin Jackson, black conservative, who, through his website, book, and multiple appearances on Conservative media, is making lots of money off revising history. He is trying to do it for the purpose of playing, I'm sorry to say, the race card to try to encourage black voters to vote GOP, and white voters to continue voting GOP. While I don't normally post facebook conversations, I think this is fair considering Mr. Jackson's vested interest in repeating lies and half-truths.

    One of his favorite tactics (though honestly this was not the first time I've heard it) is to claim that LBJ fought against civil rights when Eisenhower requested a civil rights bill, so that Democrats could get the victory later and "win over" black voters. Thereby tarnishing the GOP's reputation, blah, blah blah... you get the idea.

    Now just a little setup here, this discussion occurred organically. I'm not his friend on facebook, and I haven't been seeking to harass him. But we do have a friend in common, and they re-shared a political cartoon that I found racially insensitive against African Americans (I know, there might be some irony here). At first I had thought my friend posted it, and I simply voiced my disgust, but as things went on I learned it was originally posted by none other than Mr. Jackson, who I was, at prior, only marginally familiar with. I basically started making the argument that liberals, not conservatives were more responsible for all expansions in rights and entitlements. Conservatives like to point out the 'entitlement' parts these days, but not the rights. In fact it appears Mr. Jackson makes his living not only trumpeting the GOP as the true civil rights heroes, but also downplaying the Democratic Parties successes. Anyway, this guy Johnny let me "know" that LBJ fought against civil rights. And that set me off, obviously. So then Kevin chimes in with the GOP pride points, and man, I really let him have it. I've included the relevant portions, see what you think:

Now if Kevin can disprove the thrust of my argument I agree to take down this post or leave it up with a full apology, his choice. Full text is below if you have trouble reading the screenshots.

Johnny: Justin, liberals fought against the civil rights law. LBJ, who was the head of the Senate would not accept the civil rights legislation sent forth by Pres Esinhower. Get your facts straight. LBJ then passed almost the identical legislation as president nearly 8 yrs later.


Me: I'm not sure if using the guy who signed the Civil Rights Act of 64 into law as an example of liberals fighting against civil rights "proves" your point that liberals fought against the civil rights law very effectively. And hey, maybe LBJ was a jerk, heck, even Lincoln was pro slavery before he was against it. But that wasn't close to my point.

Face the facts, conservatism (social and fiscal) has never been the driving force behind any movement to expand rights or entitlements. Women's suffrage, civil rights, health care rights, LGBT rights, labor rights, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, Social Security, and now Muslim American's 1st Amendment rights, these have all been pushed for from the left, and those who took those positions were demonized as communists and socialists by conservatives.
I'm not claiming that liberals are all perfect, or that conservatives are all bad, most conservatives are very good upstanding people, but you cannot claim in anyway that conservatives as a whole didn't fight tooth and nail against every single one of the things I listed including civil rights.

From wikipedia:

"Conservatism (Latin: conservare, "to preserve") is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and opposes rapid change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were."

"Progressivism is a political attitude favoring or advocating changes or reform. Progressivism is often viewed in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies."

Wake up to the reality. Progressives have been behind all the social change movements.
Conservatives should know this, Glenn beck talks about it enough.
And if he wasn't trying so hard to co-opt the civil rights movement for conservatives (talk about fueling racial strife and bigotry) MLK Jr would be right up on his blackboard.
http://bit.ly/cSZQSB

As far as vile racists go, start looking into white supremacy groups.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2003/summer/into-the-mainstream?page=0%2C1

Let's stop trying to rewrite history, stop this divisive talk and focus on the real race problems: fear, hate, and discrimination. You can't whitewash the past , but we can move forward together.

End Rant

Me: And as a point of fact:

"As Majority Leader, Johnson was responsible for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights legislation passed by the Senate since Reconstruction.

The goal of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was to ensure that all African Americans could exercise their right to vote. By 1957, only about 20% of African Americans had registered to vote. The Democratic Senate leader, Lyndon Baines Johnson, realized that the bill and its journey through Congress could tear apart his party, which was at the time made up of anti-civil rights and pro-civil rights members. Johnson sent the bill to the judiciary committee led by Senator James Eastland, an anti-civil rights senator from Mississippi. Eastland changed and altered the bill almost beyond recognition after the very public outburst by Senator Richard Russell from Georgia who claimed that it was an example of the Federal government wanting to impose its laws on states. Johnson sought recognition from the civil rights advocates for passing the bill while also receiving recognition from the mostly southern anti-civil rights Democrats for "killing the bill."

So, in essence if he had insisted on Eisenhower's original proposal, not only would it have destroyed his party (self-interest), it probably would have prevented the passage of any civil rights bill at all at that time (public interest).

If you want to excoriate the anti-civil rights Southern Dems, by all means we can badmouth them together. But if you want to badmouth Johnson for his political tact in making sure some progress was made rather than none, your arguments are pretty weak.

Why do conservatives feel they have to rewrite history? 
End Rant part II

Kevin Jackson: @Justin - The 1957 Civil Rights Act was done at the request of Eisenhower. And the 1964 Act was created by Republican Everett Dirksen

Me: @Kevin,

Correct. Due credit. However, Eisenhower's proposal was not politically feasible at the time. A parallel, politically, would be the health reform bill. Had they attempted to pass single payer or hadn't dropped the public option or it would have split the majority and would have failed. I feel that this comparison is particularly valid because they are both progressive causes. (though of course civil rights are much more important.)
Now you may claim that the political circumstances were different and enough Republicans would have supported it to bridge the gap, the burden on proof is on you. That's two houses of congress for you to guarantee votes for. And keep in mind, that was the civil rights bill that Thurmond filibustered for 24 hours. Can you be certain that all those votes would have stood? That's pure speculation. And if he'd tried that'd be gambling the Civil Rights Act of 57!?!? If Eisenhower thought it was possible after the 24 hour filibuster, do you think he would have signed it or sent it back?
He did what a smart man would do, he accepted all the progress he could get out of the system. And the fact he was able to, was because LBJ was politically savvy enough to make that happen.

Then six 6 years later when it was politically feasible (in no small part to small part to the death of Pres Kennedy and LBJ's Senate eliminate the seniority system in appointment to committees) LBJ ran for reelection, losing the deep south over his support for civil rights. He used political guile and the bully pulpit to bring about equality under the law. He carried on a tradition that included the work of Eisenhower and Kennedy, on an issue that should be bipartisan.
And you're doing your part to make it partisan by claiming victimhood for the GOP. Oh, right the GOP is just a scapegoat for racial intolerance. It's not their years of using the Southern Strategy as they continue to do today. That's what happened after they took their losses and absorbed the southern anti-civil rights Dems. Like Strom for example.

Johnson is respected by historians as one of the most capable house majority leaders in our nation's history. He did what any good one would do. He counted the votes, whipped what he could and and got both pieces of legislation passed (oh wait I forgot about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 he helped pass despite the 43hr filibustering from southern Dems). He was a cold and calculating politician, a jerk to know, and a champion of the passage of Civil Rights laws. To say otherwise is an extremely partisan padding of the true events.
They let you publish a book with these kinds of "facts" in it? Wow. The conservative market is full of people willing to buy poorly researched material, apparently. If I have any facts wrong in your esteem let me know. Otherwise I suggest you stop peddling this crap. Its unethical if you know it's untrue.
But I suppose it's profitable and popular to revise history these days against Democrats/liberals. Or maybe Colbert was right. Maybe reality just has a liberal bias.

Peace to you and your family,
---Justin

P.S. Eisenhower is one of my favorite presidents! Hey I managed to end on common ground!

PS22 Chorus "LISZTOMANIA" Phoenix

One awesome teacher.
Via Sarah Priddy: