Kevin Hassett is a really, really, really bad economist. He’s so bad that he’s basically Megan McArdle’s idea of someone who is good at math. This wouldn’t be a problem if he wasn’t also the chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. First Hassett made this really tone deaf remark in a TV interview:
How out of touch must @WhiteHouse Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett be to say this about government workers not receiving a paycheck today?
“In some sense, they're better off.”
Tell that to the parents who need to pay their bills, pay off loans, feed their families. #TrumpShutdown pic.twitter.com/wtEJrpkbVs
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 11, 2019
We now know that that was only the shot, here’s the chaser:
This was a pretty obvious thing to miss https://t.co/D85qbSWSKU pic.twitter.com/YqcMoDtKl7
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 16, 2019
Here’s the video if you want to see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears:
lol Top White House Economist Admits They Didn't Figure in the Impact of Government Contracts When Estimating the Damage the Shutdown Would Do To The Economy. pic.twitter.com/mD2L1UST9K
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 16, 2019
I’ve been hesitant to write about the shutdown, especially its effects on contractors, because I am one. But I think it is important that people realize that Hassett’s failure to be even remotely competent at his job by not accounting for the effects of contractors being out of work is actually worse than he’s now owned up to. Does anyone know, by any chance, what happens when a veteran owned or minority owned or Native American owned or Native Alaskan owned or some combination of those owned small business gets a contract award from a part of the government, say the Department of Defense, that is not shutdown right now? The answer is quite simple. In order for the contract award to be finalized so that actual people waiting for start dates and on boarding dates can be issued, the Small Business Administration has to verify that the small business is indeed a small business. This is routine paperwork. Unfortunately, the Small Business Administration is currently closed because of the shutdown. As a result that routine paperwork certifying that small businesses are, indeed, small businesses cannot be issued. This means that every contract award to a small business, whether owned by a veteran or a minority or a Native American or a Native Alaskan or by some combination, can’t be finalized. The people lined up to fill the positions in those contracts can’t start. And the ripples through the economy get larger.
This effects everything from new contracts for maintenance and janitorial services to food service to IT to a whole range of other technical specialties – many of them essential for national security. And it is important to remember that a lot of these companies and the people that work for them have been stretched thin over the past five years because of the combination of the Budget Control Act (doing business as the sequester), as well as the inability of the GOP majority Congress to pass a budget and regular appropriations from 2015 through 2018 or the GOP majority House to actually do its job in terms of appropriations from 2011 through 2014 because they were using the budget as leverage against President Obama. Every time the US has approached a shutdown or a rolling, short term Continuing Budget Resolution (CR) is passed, it effects whether people start new contract assignments. And because of the sequester, when this happens repeatedly, contract award money for specific positions can be, and often is, clawed back to fund other needs that aren’t provided by contractors. All of these budgetary failures, from those created by the GOP majorities in the House and the Senate from 2015 through 2018 and the House GOP majority’s budgetary brinksmanship from 2011 through 2014.
Another major issue is that the longer the Small Business Administration is closed and these contracts awarded to small businesses can’t be finalized, especially for essential functions, the more likely that the government agencies that need the work done will seek an exemption to policy and make a default no bid award to one of the non-small business companies that have prime contracts with that department, agency, and/or office. Not only does this mean that the contractors expecting to start these jobs will never do so, the small businesses that employ them will lose the award, but that the point of having laws and regulations that privilege small businesses in these awards will be thwarted.
The simple reality here is that nothing will happen to get Senate Majority Leader McConnell to actually function as he was the leader of one half of a co-equal branch of government until something catastrophic happens. Not even Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s excellent social media skills. As I wrote yesterday, McConnell is immune to the type of pressure that she and her colleagues tried to bring to bear today. Until or unless something really bad happens, civil servants and contractors are going to continue to either have to work without pay or are going to be on furlough. That money, as well as money that should have started flowing into the economy through new contract awards to small businesses, but can’t because the Small Business Administration is closed because of the shutdown, will continue to not circulate through the economy. And the failure of that money to be circulated, through mortgage and rent payments, through the purchase of groceries and clothes, through car payments, gas purchases, and paying for mass transit to get to work, for haircuts delayed, and for non-essentials like movies, the occasional dining out, or other social activities, will have a massive effect on both the macro and micro economies of the US. And those effects won’t be positive.
Open thread.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I think we’ve found something that jl and I can agree on.
Adam L Silverman
Anybody want to see Chris Cuomo’s head nearly explode?
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: All part of my duties here to bring the commentariat to common ground.
B.B.A.
Please, he must be known as Kevin “Dow 36,000” Hassett for all eternity, or at least until inflation makes his book title sound less stupid.
Mike J
Trump signed the back pay for feds bill today. The master businessman has now agreed to pay for something he is never, ever going to get.
Why pay back pay when you can pay the same amount for current pay and get those people to give you value for that money?
PeakVT
Economists Who Are Really Bad At Their Jobs For $200: Who Is Kevin Hassett?
Odd. It’s almost like there is something is incentivizing him to be bad at his job. Or, somehow, the market for conservative economists does not demand competence.
Sometimes I wish I had a job like that. But then I’d probably spend all my income on soap trying to wash myself clean.
The Dangerman
Life is far too short to spend a millisecond trying to understand that asshole’s argument, but I assume it refers to the fact that furloughed people will get back pay, so it’s a paid vacation for the individual…
…of course, that argument has a corollary, which is people will get paid for work not done, so, on the macro side of things, the country is. in some sense, worse off.
Asshole.
Omnes Omnibus
In which I outsource this to Cardi B: Here.
rikyrah
Hassett is an evil azz demon??
feebog
It will either be a preventable disaster or TSA and air traffic controllers saying enough and shutting down air traffic across the country. I sure hope it is the latter.
joel hanes
Promoted again from previous moribund thread :
Doug R asks the musical question
When are we going to target McConnell?
Ady Barkan, the terminally ill guy who organized the successful $3M+ gofundme for Susan Collins’s next Democratic challener,
is eyeing doing the same for ol’ Yertle.
https://actionnetwork.org/forms/should-we-go-after-mitch-mcconnell/
hells littlest angel
He assumes that people want to get paid for not working because that’s what he wants — you know, wingnut welfare.
Adam L Silverman
@joel hanes: The person with the best chance is likely Amy McGrath, who just lost her bid to flip a congressional seat in KY.
?BillinGlendaleCA
As Kay says almost every morning, another low quality Trump hire, they are ALL low quality hires.
Pogonip
So, Adam, what’s your best educated guess as to how and when the shutdown will end?
Adam L Silverman
@feebog: Either of those is a possibility. As is a massive outbreak of a food borne illness because the FDA is in shut down. Or some other public health outbreak that isn’t handled correctly because the NIH and CDC are in shut down. Or a major national disaster like an oil spill that can’t be properly responded to because while the Coast Guard is on duty and not being paid, NOAA and FEMA and EPA and other responding agencies are all in shutdown.
Steve in the ATL
California weather event:
1. Is this going to mess up wine production? Because that would be bad.
2. Wouldn’t this be a great time for a Tahoe or Mammoth meet up? Wax those skis, Juicers!
Adam L Silverman
@Pogonip: I don’t know. I do know that my brother is furloughed and I lost a full time equivalent contract assignment because the contract awarded to the veteran owned small business I work for can’t be certified by the Small Business Administration.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: They’re probably at a high enough elevation that it’s snowing there, these storms are warm so the snow level is about 7,000′.
plato
@Adam L Silverman:
If only the majority got this…
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: They usually send Rudy out to pre-emptively muddy the waters in preparation for big news on the Russian front. I wonder what’s coming next.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: that’s what I heard from my highly confidential sources which may or may not be Gizmodo.com. A foot of snow in Tahoe, 15 inches in Mammoth. Let’s hit the slopes!
Mathguy
I’m becoming more and more numb to the jaw-dropping stupidity of people occupying the White House. I have to keep telling myself that their stay is finite and to not let it become normal.
Steve in the ATL
@Adam L Silverman: fuckers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: Last time I put on skis was 1984.
ETA: Google Maps had a warning of blizzard conditions when I moved the map up to Mammoth and Tahoe.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA: then you’ll be delighted to know that ski technology has improved a great deal since then. You can snap some great pics while you’re on the mountain!
danielx
@Adam L Silverman:
Or a terrible air crash because not enough controllers are on duty and the ones that are there are collapsing in exhaustion.
Adam L Silverman
Ann Coulter doesn’t work for the US government. She is not a political employee working for the President. She cannot claim executive privilege because she’s not the President or the White House Counsel. She is likely, however, now that she’s run her vile mouth, to be subpoenaed by the new Democratic majority House of Representatives to explain herself under oath.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: Hmmm, I’d more likely end up like Sonny Bono, but there’d be video!
Ohio Mom
Several times a day I have to talk myself off the ledge of thinking they really are working to destroy the administrative state, they want us to be a failed state, all the better to scoop up every last penny for themselves, that it’s not little jokts around the edges, this is the beginning of full scale shock doctrine disaster capitalism and the end of democracy as we’ve known it.
I’ll crawl back through the open window, into the building now.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
You could have just said, “Ann Coulter is not a very good lawyer.”
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I don’t know.
Jerzy
If only there was someone with experience and *some* gravitas – hopefully at the cabinet level – who both has their ears and could explain the shutdown’s effects on labor to both Drumpf AND Mitch McConnell….
(Rather, if she wasn’t too busy flying around grifting a fortune for her family’s company, and Mitch’s comfortable retirement.)
eemom
@joel hanes:
Dare I hope you are alluding to this?
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom: jolts, not jokts
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: @Steve in the ATL:’s got you babe!
What?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
chris
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s remarkable. I hope she runs for something.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Womp womp!
sdhays
@Cheryl Rofer: According to this, Rudy thinks Mueller’s report on obstruction of justice is about to drop: “RUDY HATES THE JOB”: TRUMP’S MULTI-FRONT WAR IS TAKING ITS TOLL.
As it says, Rudy doesn’t know diddly, but that could still explain why he’s out there embarrassing himself again.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: That’s quite rude given you don’t even know my brother.//
The Midnight Lurker
My father was an economist. Head of a department at a University. I had to read Wealth of Nations and Das Kapital as Professor Lurker wasn’t going to let his son embarrass him should he take ECO 101 from a friend.
Even so, I am not an economist. Not really versed in it enough (despite my father) to have any great insight, nor offer any practical solutions. I leave that shit to smart guys like my father (RIP) and Dr. Silverman.
I am versed well enough to say in no uncertain terms that the only thing you could get Adam Smith and Karl Marx to agree upon is that Kevin Hassett is a fucking moron.
plato
Theresa May is inept.
Theresa May is incompetent.
Theresa May is stupidly stubborn.
Theresa May is horrible in negotiating.
We are keeping her.
/the cons
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But she is, either into the box wine again, delusional, or both:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sdhays:
Or it could just be the booze.
sdhays
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Too much or too little? Where has he been the last month or so?
Barbara
My neighbor just got called back to the IRS where he will be working without pay. All I can say is that having lived through previous shutdowns, the shutdown stories are going to swamp the wall stories pretty soon. It just starts to give off more and more newsworthy consequences, while the cause stays static. However, while things could be different this time, prior shutdowns have not resulted in negative electoral consequences for Republicans.
Adam L Silverman
@The Midnight Lurker: Also that Peter Navarro, Larry Kudlow, Stephen Moore, Art Laffer, Jude Waninksi, Paul Ryan, and Jack Kemp are also fucking morons.
FelonyGovt
Years ago I was the lawyer for a small minority-owned defense contractor. They had constant government funding issues but continued working so as not to disadvantage the Government. The company’s owner mortgaged his own house to pay his workers and keep the work going. It took years after the contract ended for him to get paid in full. So I certainly understand the impact this shutdown is having on contractors.
B.B.A.
@plato: I keep thinking of that episode of Seinfeld, where George can’t admit he lied about having a house in the Hamptons, and has to keep driving all the way there lest his obvious lie be exposed.
Eventually George reaches the end of the road and has to admit there’s no house there. But the road to Brexit doesn’t have an end. Neither does the shutdown.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sdhays:
Have been a mass consumer of booze(last drink, 8 years, 4 months ago), I’m going with blacked out.
cwmoss
@joel hanes: Target him with what? I’d vote for a Sharps.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Option 3: Both, and the wine was washing something down. I saw an interview in which Conway referred to Coulter as one of her best friends (Rebekkah Mercer was the other). It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Coulter has been in the White House, more than once. Harvey freakin’ Levin (head of TMZ, for those lucky enough not to know, and I guess I should explain TMZ is an internet gossip site that I believe gave us the Kardashians) spent an hour in the Oval Office.
Adam L Silverman
@plato: They are keeping her because as bad as she is, and as bad as members of her party like Gove and Johnson are, no one, in any way, shape, or form, trusts Jeremy Corbyn. They don’t trust him in regard to Brexit and the EU. They don’t trust him in regard to Russia. They just don’t trust him. Had Corbyn not been the Labour Party leader, Labour would have won that no confidence vote today and be on their way to forming a coalition government with the SNP and Liberal Democrats. But Corbyn is the Labour Party leader. So Theresa May and the Tories will continue to run Britain.
Adam L Silverman
@sdhays: The dark web…
Kelly
@Jerzy:
They both could have retired comfortably a long time ago. They are getting a rush off of this.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Pick one:
A. Because they can read polls.
B. Because they’re not idiots.
C. Because they know the wall is a stupid idea.
D. All of the above.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: We will be lucky to get out of this without someone’s kid dying or someone killing themselves in desperation.
The Midnight Lurker
@Adam L Silverman: Just mentioning Laffer could make the ol’ man’s head explode.
sukabi
AOCs first floor speech…it’s a good one
Not sure if it was before or after the Great Snipe Hunt or not.
Adam L Silverman
@cwmoss: No snuff fantasies in the comments please.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Levin has been running a David Pecker style catch and capture program in support of the President since he declared his candidacy in 2015.
lgerard
The :Fake News” edition of the Washington Post had some pretty funny stuff. Like Mad magazine, the little blurbs on the margins were the best part.
Redshift
I was reading today that to avoid a backlash from people not getting their tax refunds, they’re declaring 60% of IRS employees to be “essential” and making them work without pay.
Does anyone know if there are any limits to the essential/non-essential decision? Or is the small number of “essential” employees another one of those norms that we never thought needed l to be enforced with laws or regulations?
The Midnight Lurker
@Adam L Silverman: RE: Laffer. When ever someone would ask my father about the ‘Laffer Curve’, Dad would growl, “He wrote it on a fuckin’ cocktail napkin! What else you need to know!?”
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: I want to make clear that I know why she went looking for McConnell. And that I appreciate the effort. But given who McConnell is, he is the one Republican in Congress that this type of pressure won’t work on.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@randy khan: I’ll go with ‘D’.
sdhays
@Jerzy: McConnell and the ASSet aren’t confused about the effects of the shutdown. They literally don’t care. They are perfectly happy to burn this country to the ground if it’s to their benefit.
kdbart
I am one of those Fed employees who has not worked since 12/21 and while I can survive missing a paycheck or two, so many of my fellow employees are not in the same position. Not to mention the contractors who provide our cleaning services or the people who run the snack shops in our building. They will never get back the wages or revenue loss during this period.
The Midnight Lurker
@sdhays:
I’m afraid you are exactly right.
Fair Economist
I took AOC’s stunt as being aimed at informing voters how bad Republican Senators more than influencing McConnell so I am just fine with it.
Sebastian
@joel hanes:
You are killing me Joel. I gave so much last election it started hurting but seeing this I just have to. Fuck the turtle
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: There is. From Norm Ornstein:
The rules are based on an Office of Legal Counsel policy memo issued during the Carter administration.
waratah
Adam has the president made a statement on the soldiers that killed in Syria?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Adam L Silverman
@The Midnight Lurker: Yep. Laffer also doesn’t seem to understand how curves work either.
Redshift
@PeakVT:
Yeah, it’s what Krugman calls the hack gap, and applies to many, many areas of “expertise.” This kind of intellectual rot is the inevitable product of an ecosystem of wingnut welfare fake scholarly institutions, where the only requirement to remain employed is having the right opinions, not being able to reason or to write in a way that will convince anyone who isn’t motivated to agree with you.
Steve in the ATL
@Adam L Silverman: that is awesome!
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: but it’s not about pressuring mcconnell, it’s about shining a kleig light on that motherfucker and his role in the shutdown and his holding the senate hostage for drumpf.
clay
@Barbara: How long can they force people to work without pay? Surely there must be some limit….?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: Did… did Chuck Schumer just make a funny?
Schatz is my nominee for the next responder to whatever trump burps up in the guise of an SOTU. Since he’s one of the rare Dems in DC not running for president
sdhays
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve often found it difficult to separate the whiny hysterical anti-Corbyn criticism from “New Labour” who failed spectacularly to win winnable elections while running as Con-lite from more objective criticism, but I found Corbyn’s claim that a Labour Government could negotiate a better Brexit to be just about as stupid as anything Ed Milliband ever said, as well as being either ridiculously delusional or simply a bald-faced lie.
At this point, it should be clear that Brexit is a fraud. If you want to play for all the marbles, be bold and say it.
[email protected]
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Same thing with the Tories and Brexit. Conservatives have had things their way for so long they don’t know what to do when it doesn’t.
Adam L Silverman
@waratah: I have not seen one.
I will try to do something on that tomorrow as part of a larger post dealing with the multiple – I’ve counted five so far – US policies on Syria that have now been enumerated by the President, Bolton, Pompeo, and/or DOD.
sukabi
@waratah: he won’t, FOX went with a , and I’m not kidding, segment on Benghazi.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: You could illuminate him so brightly he could be seen from the International Space Station and it wouldn’t make a difference. McConnell is impervious to that type of pressure because he just doesn’t care about optics. And because he knows if he keeps a low profile, that the political reporters will lose interest and move on to something more exciting.
trollhattan
@Steve in the ATL:
Vineyards are dormant now and dry-land farmers rejoice at the rain replenishing the groundwater. They’re all good except for vineyards in the path of landslides in fire areas.
Anybody not already at a ski resort isn’t geeing there, and winds are too high to run the lifts. But the day after the storm passes will be the best skiing of the season. Timing!
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: ha! Old white guys wanna drop some language!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This also too made me laugh
Adam L Silverman
@clay: Yep, there’s a Federal court ruling indicating they can’t go past one pay period, which was issued in 2014 as a result of the 2013 shutdown. They’ve already violated the ruling. Unfortunately a different Federal court judge ruled this week that essential Federal employees must report to work despite not being paid.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: pretty sure it’s intent is aimed at increasing public awareness in a way the media or social media will run with.
Mike in NC
We are not worthy of this degenerate kakistocristry.
sdhays
Rhetorical question, but why does our shitty media insist upon saying that the shutdown is over “border security” when it’s actually over grift money for “wall” that only ~29% of Americans think is important?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He did. He then took a seltzer bottle and spritzed Dick Durbin in the face.
JWR
@sdhays:
Not to mention that they know the media aren’t looking for any real answers. See eg., this evenings PBS Newshour:
She also said this:
B.B.A.
@sukabi: Back in 2016 I figured Hillary would get impeached over Benghazi. And then when the Senate acquitted her on party lines, Congress would shut down the government over Benghazi. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Our descendants in spaceships will be shouting BENGHAZI.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: I’m so old that I remember when Obama was criticized for not having a ‘Doctrine’ on Syria.
sdhays
@JWR: Ugh, she is so annoying. The Snooze Hour at its worst.
jl
Hassett is a bad economist. The Dow 36,000 book by Hassett and Glassman is almost as bad as The Bell Curve. Incoherent arguments, misapplied and inappropriate statistical analysis and concepts, misunderstood measures, confused or nonexistent causal models, so no theory about what real world mechanisms would produce the correlations seen in the statistics. The book has, in that bad sense, it all.
I think Josh Marshall wrote an important post today about Pelosi’s move to stop a Trump State of the Union Address and the shutdown. Marshall’s bottom line is that these shutdowns are crises and attacks on democracy, and that aspect of them has been underplayed. The shutdown is a serious subversion of responsible democratic governance. All of the shutdowns have been that, but this one is worse and more dangerous because there is, as far as we can see now, no mechanism to stop it. I think if the shutdown continues, and Trump’s behavior on it continues, it should be construed as an impeachable offense. The shutdown itself is a crisis. That our system tolerates these shutdowns with increasing frequency is a kind of very slow moving constitutional crisis.
And I’ve noticed some comments on twitter, and repeated I think on this very blog, that Trump administration might actually do some good, if the democracy survives it: killed off what have become two noxious media spectacles, that miserable WH press comedy dinner, and the live presentation of the state of the union address. Let the presidents send a damned letter, like they did the first 100 years of the country.
Politics Aside, Pelosi Made the Right Decision on SOTU
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/politics-aside-pelosi-made-the-right-decision-on-sotu
Plato
@Adam L Silverman:
Adam L Silverman
@sdhays: I have serious issues with the direction of Labour established by Blair. I lived in Scotland when John Smith died, which allowed for Blair’s ascendancy was a tragic outcome to a sad event.
Adam L Silverman
@sdhays: A skillful Labour leader who was considered to be competent and trustworthy could actually build a coalition government out of remain supporters in Labour, in the Tories, and with the SNP, and the Lib Dems. All they have to do is forcefully remind everyone that the Brexit referendum is actually non-binding on Parliament.
trollhattan
@sdhays:
They are attracted to the one shiny thing in the same way as is our president.* It’s a good question and the answer is literally that simple.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Again, I’ve now acknowledged that several times. And, again, it will make no difference because McConnell is impervious to any pressure that results from that kind of social media and news media exposure. What she and her colleagues did gets an A for effort and an A for creativity, but this tactic will not work against this target.
Adam L Silverman
@sdhays: The same reason that they can’t bring themselves to admit, that even smart and sharp reporters and commenters can’t seem to get their head around, how McConnell runs his caucus. For instance, the belief that 11 GOP senators broke ranks with him. Given the top down control we know McConnell exerts over his caucus, it is far more likely that he gave up to 12 of his senators permission to side with the Democrats in order to shape the reporting and coverage – both that some Republican senators were being tough on Russia and to continue to maintain the illusion that the GOP caucus in the Senate is not being run like a parliamentary party – because he knew that doing so meant that Schumer’s sanctions against Deripaska bill would still fall short of the votes needed for cloture.
Cowboy Diva
@Redshift: At one time employees were excepted from a shutdown (aka essential) only for issues related to life/health/safety. Nowadays, apparently employees are considered essential when the gov’t needs to prevent inconvenience to the people with money, and then only if the employees can’t be compensated by an illegal misappropriation of previously-allocated fees for service.
jl
@JWR: “Senate Republicans were lunching today. And it almost felt like there’s a giant dartboard where suddenly they are trying to throw ideas to get through this, even as it’s really up to the president and House Democrats. ”
That is just objectively false. McConnell’s own words refute that. McConnell has said he is deferring to Trump, will only put something to a vote that he knows Trump will sign. The very idea is absurd of course, because Congress, including the Senate, did just that late last year, and Trump promptly reneged on the deal and didn’t sign. McConnell has consciously chosen to surrender any active role for the Senate.
So PBS talking heads emit patently false BS and actively cover for McConnell’s abdication of his constitutional duties and powers. PBS and NPR far too often pump out falsehoods like that which leaves people less informed by watching them than they were previously. And that is why I dislike their political and economic coverage intensely On economics, I tell my friends, and the sane parts of my family to ignore it Get info someplace else. You learn nothing from old school TV coverage. Turn it off.
[email protected]
@Adam L Silverman:
Not possible within the political structure and current political environment of the UK. May has survived an internal Tory Party battle and today’s vote of no confidence when DUP, as they said they would do, voted for her after voting against her Brexit Deal. She’s the PM unless she resigns – and she won’t – if the Tories lose the 2022 general election.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Actually the strategy that the President is abandoning is, with only a couple of minor tweaks, the strategy developed by Obama to deal with ISIS in Syria. And it was working very, very well. Up until today we had only two US KIAs since we started operating in Syria. And we had a lot of success, both tactically and strategically.
Duane
@sdhays: There are plenty that root for injury during this shutdown. Makes me wonder if Hassert is really that oblivious to economic reality. Might be a lame-ass attempt to gloss over all the ills these idiots have inflicted.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I read Marshall’s post earlier today and he is on target with his analysis.
And thank you for that brief analysis of Hassett’s book. I didn’t want to go down a rabbit hole with it in the post.
Adam L Silverman
@[email protected]: If the pro-remain Tories can’t be split, as you’re indicating, then it is not possible. More’s the pity.
Kelly
@jl:
Dow 36,000 was the cover story for the Sept 1999 issue of Atlantic Monthly. Which I believed was a serious, intellectual magazine back then.
TommoRolassi
@PeakVT: Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: I’m aware of that, but the talking heads still criticized Obama for not having a ‘Doctrine’.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The talking heads criticized his choice of lettuce. I think this reveals far more about the talking heads than it does Obama.
AThornton
@Adam L Silverman:
Speaking of the 2022 elections, the odds of the United Kingdom still being “United” is 6/5 and pick ’em. The Scottish Nationalist Party has been waiting their chance to have another crack at it. With the ever increasing probability of a No Deal Brexit and the resulting political and economic ensuing therefrom coupled with the fact Scotland voted overwhelming to Remain chance for another Independence Referendum is also increasing. Given enough chaos I’ll WAG the SNP would win.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Adam L Silverman: With respect to McConnell’s actions with this shutdown, I think it’s better to look at this political conflict as a three sided conflict. First the Democratic house, which is seen by the two primary people in the conflict as the one side who can lose to save face for everyone (the fact that the house and the Democratic party have no reason to do this, as we have seen with Trump’s confusion at getting ANY blue dogs to play) is a source of mystery to the two major combatants in this fight.
My theory currently is that the primary combatants, at this point, are Trump and McConnell. Trump has painted himself in a corner, and wants McConnell to bail him out. Of course (being Trump) this would immediately pivot into a play to blame McConnell and non-insane (low bar) Republicans as being RINO/Deep-state-traitors. McConnell, being no fool, realizes this, and isn’t willing to play. Plus there is the outside (very outside) chance that enough real pain could crack the Republican base away from Trump and give McConnell the political space to cut a deal with the Democratic leadership leading to rapid impeachment and a much more compliant president Pence.
I doubt that McConnell’s dream will happen, since I believe that the political pain to his caucus in the senate will outrun both his political control of the Senate, AND the level of delusion in Trump’s base, but I wouldn’t put much money on that bet anyway,
Frankensteinbeck
McConnell is not invulnerable, and McConnell does not always get what he wants. Don’t fall for it. McConnell does not have absolute control over his caucus. He barely managed to pass a giant tax cut bill, and did fail to repeal Obamacare. There are literally no two things his caucus wanted more, and the former is the least controversial thing possible to them. He has a long history of passing budgets when the crunch happens. He is a flaming asshole, a gigantic racist, and generally one of the meanest shits alive whose IQ is over 100, but he has levers. We just don’t know what they are. His caucus definitely has levers, and they get scared by stuff like this. Right now, my best guess is he’s letting Nancy tame Trump, because he is sick of Trump’s bullshit.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think this may be the first time in his life that he has had to deal with a woman he didn’t have complete power over. He’s done all the stuff he usually does. He even walked out on her rather than discuss anything! Why isn’t this working???
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: now who’s being a Debbie Downer?
Informing the public is a necessary part of the equation. So is changing the way media covers DC. If playing a game of Where the fuck is the Senate Majority Leader and why is he holding the senate hostage won’t move McConnell, but it does change the media narrative to INCLUDE McConnell’s role and prompts discussions on how the congress is supposed to function and WHO is keeping it from functioning, that’s actually helpful.
JWR
@jl: “You learn nothing from old school TV coverage. Turn it off.”
Oh, I get that. But I still watch PBS, and my own local CBS affiliate, just to see how wrong they can be.
ETA. And just like that, the aforementioned CBS talking head just did the ol’ “both sides” b*llshite, which is how I know what to write them about.
Plato
Adam L Silverman
@AThornton: When I did that long post on Brexit right after the referendum passed, I think I made a comment that I fully expected that Queen Elizabeth would be the last queen of the United Kingdom. That because of Brexit the union would break up.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
They are all the lowest quality hires. As in zero quality hires.
Fucking jackoffs think that the world will be better without government. Like that has ever worked with more than 1 person per square mile. In the whole of time. Even shitty government is better than none. Don’t believe me, how was GWB’s 8 yrs? Pretty fucking shitty, right? Did it come close to this shit, and that’s with the biggest recession on record? With no end in sight because the president has the maturity of a 4 yr old.
Ladyraxterinok
@Plato: Some time ago saw horrific movie about the terrifying number of rapes of women and children in the Congo. One rapist was asked why he did it. His answer? Because I can!!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: I think you just insulted 4 year old’s.
Vhh
@Adam L Silverman: I expect a airline near miss or (shudder) crash will be the trigger.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman: I’m not entirely comforted by that. I could see Sessions having stacked the OLC with hacks who will issue an update, a la the torture memos.
Adam L Silverman
@Vhh: It will, unfortunately, be something bad. How bad, I don’t know. The other issue that I’ve not heard anyone address, but that I’m concerned about, is that a Federal employee or contractor who are forced to work as emergency essential and not being paid or one that’s furloughed and who have hit his personal wall, decides to make a statement. Whether that statement is inwardly destructive or outwardly, will remain to be seen. But given how America is and how Americans are, I could see a financially struggling, personally stressed essential or furloughed employee targeting an elected or appointed official.
Redshift
@Duane: I’d be willing to bet he is that oblivious. Lots of rich people have an incredibly warped idea of how the rest of us live. A middle-class working life would seem like utter squalor to them, so they invent a fantasy version where we make a tenth as much as them, not a thousandth or less.
I’m always reminded of a news story years ago about a debate in the Texas legislature about cutting programs for the poor. One legislator said “well, they’ll just have a little less to leave to their children.”
That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Redshift: Well, there’s also the union for the IRS employees.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: All I can do is answer the questions as factually as possible.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I did but fortunately most of them don’t know how to read and write yet and besides they are in bed now. They can run faster than me though so there is that.
sukabi
O’Donnell on AOC’s Where’s Mitch
Redshift
@sdhays:
Because the right-wing noise machine dictated that all Republicans spend that last month saying “border security” and pretending anyone who was against Wall was against that, and apparently our idiot media are still powerless against that crap, which is a very bad sign going forward. I guess we should count ourselves lucky they aren’t saying the shutdown is over border security vs. open borders…
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I think what people are trying to tell you is that McConnell was NOT the target. The media was. The Democrats were trying to pressure the media into admitting that the Senate and therefore the shutdown is, in fact, controlled by the Republicans despite what Trump and the Republicans keep saying.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman: Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the information. And I’m actually glad it’s something as strong as an OLC memo rather than an unrelated norm.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: The media that is going to do that, has been doing that. And the only reason to get the media to focus on someone with negative coverage is to change that person’s behavior. McConnell is not susceptible to that type of pressure.
Burnspbesq
@The Midnight Lurker:
Well, hold up a sec. in theory, if you believe in the diminishing marginal utility of wealth, then the Laffer Curve is logically inevitable. The issue is that we’ve never observed the behavior it describes, so we don’t know at what marginal tax rate it happens. The historical evidence from Eisenhower-era rates suggests that it’s somewhere between 91% and 100%, i.e., rates never before seen and unlikely to ever be seen. It’s certainly not at 70%, contrary to that bullshit analysis put out by the Tax Foundation the other day.
I wonder if Ocasio-Cortez has read Piketty and Saez.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
Seeing as how their world revolves around the stick up their butts you really can’t expect them to have a lot of empathy.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Again: it was an attempt to change THE MEDIA’S behavior and the way THE MEDIA is currently reporting the story.
No one really wanted to find Mitch. In fact, it works better if they never find Mitch, because then the Democrats get all of the camera time to talk about how terrible the Republicans are.
The media was the target, not Mitch. Mitch was the shiny object to get the media to turn their attention to what the Democrats had to say.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Burnspbesq:
‘if’ is doing alot of work there.
Original Lee
Original Spouse was told today that they can only spend 10 percent of the money allocated to joint projects with other agencies that haven’t had their FY2019 budgets approved yet. Even if they’ve figured out a way to continue the work without their furloughed colleagues. Approximately half of the projects his piece of the agency works on are interagency projects with unfunded agencies. He has to spend Chthulu knows how long re-reallocating resources and re-rescheduling project timelines so they can continue working on *something* without cutting hours or firing contractors.
Featherd
Enjoyed the Cardi B vid as much as anyone, but wearied by the fact that even she fell for the “Obama shut down the government, too!” bullshit. It was Ted Cruz egging on the House Republicans on, refusing to fund the government unless Obama gutted Obamacare. Sigh.
JWR
@Mnemosyne: With all respect to Adam, I’m with you. (And BTW, I want sky in my pie, thank you very much. ;-) )
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Also, I know what you’re saying and not saying about McConnell, but I’m a private citizen using a pseudonym, so I’ll repeat what I’m convinced of but have no proof of: McConnell’s hold on his caucus is that they all accepted donations and material assistance from the Russians from 2010 to 2016 and beyond.
All.
Of.
Them.
They can’t break with him, because they’re all guilty, and the first one to break will be turned into the scapegoat for the rest. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, they must all hang together, or else they will, most assuredly, hang separately.
That’s why Mitt Romney blurted out in 2012 that Russia was our greatest enemy. He knew what the Republicans were doing and where their funding and other assistance was coming from, but he was too cowardly and ambitious to blow the whistle.
sukabi
@Mnemosyne: ??
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: And now Mitt is the junior Senator from Utah.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yup. They bribed him to stay silent, and he accepted the bribe. Because, like all the rest of them, he’s convinced that he’ll be the one who won’t get caught.
Fair Economist
@Burnspbesq: Ocasio-Cortez majored in something related to economics in college; I forget what but she is probably aware of leftist academic economists.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Mnemosyne: McConnell ‘s first senate election featured commercials with the same principle. In them, McConnell walked around with dogs pretending to search for senator Walter Huddleston and was unable to find him, implying that he was an absent do-nothing Senator. Seems like AOC is using McConnell ‘s tactics against him.
mozzerb
@Adam L Silverman: It didn’t matter who the Labour leader was as long as the Unionists voted with the Conservatives. The SNP and Lib Dems voted with Labour.
Corbyn is poor at his job, but if it comes down to it I’d rather have an incompetent leftish government than even an incompetent hard right one. At least the policies they’re trying to implement won’t be horrible, so even if they’re ineffective it will be a slight improvement.
Robert Sneddon
@Adam L Silverman:
Corbyn already did. What triggered his call for a vote of no-confidence was the crashing defeat of the vote on the Tory Party’s Withdrawal Agreement when Labour, SNP, Lib Dems and many Tory MPs (mostly Leave, some Remain) voted against the Government. He was also the Labour leader that converted a solid Conservative majority into a minority in the 2015 General Election, requiring May to cozy up to the odious DUP to keep her grasp on power. He’s won resounding re-election to the post of Party leader twice against the finest NuLab Blairites the PPP could dredge up. He’s doing something right but the drumbeat of blundering, incompetent, dangerous (did you know he’s actually a Socialist? the horror!) from the right-wing press reminds me a bit of what happened in the US in the 2016 elections (but her emails!)
I think your belief that some fraction of the Party-before-Country Tories can swoop in and save the day is a trifle “Army Group Steiner” at this point in time.
Alien Radio
@Robert Sneddon: this. He’s been playing rope a dope. He now has a subsection of Tory MPs on record effectively saying with their votes, We have no confidence in Theresa May to lead the party, We Don’t support her deal but we won’t allow any one else to try. not all of those Tory MPs are No Dealers. which means that they effectively supported may in yesterday’s no confidence vote out of spite. It’s not a good look. No deal does not have a majority. Corbyn’s currently pushing May to take No Deal off the table. If No deal is off the Table that leaves No Brexit, He can push for a left brexit as a negotiating tactic, there’s no real majority for that either, and I suspect he knows it, but there’s a lot of labour voters that would appeal to. If he then later presents a choice between a Left Brexit and No Brexit, The Tories will vote for No Brexit, because a Left Brexit would still allow freedom of movement and The nativists would throw a fit about it.
G
This site can’t request donations to get a few SBA employees to verify those businesses?
Or arrange for those businesses to give a kickback to the SBA employees?
The state of NY can’t shutdown Trump properties?
The state of NY can’t freeze Guilianis pension?
So many more possibilities. Get creative. You’re at war.
joel hanes
@eemom:
I think it’s a lot older phrase than Flintstones; maybe from the big-band era, the golden days of radio, perhaps from Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge — I think it was assumed to be a familiar reference to the adult part of the Flintstones audience
googling is so far not enlightening
Kenneth Kohl
@Adam L Silverman: re Adam’s comment #28:
Look, I’m an old fart that probably doesn’t understand how this stuff works, but if “if .. private conversations you’re not allowed to know about..” is part of her shtick, why position yourself over a trapdoor?
EthylEster
@jl wrote:
is to squeeze as much money out of readers as he can.
He is constantly coming up with new features that are behind a paywall.
EthylEster
@Redshift wrote:
This is similar to my asshole Republican brother-in-law, who is a wealthy retired doc and son of a wealthy doc. Once he actually told me that if my parents had just saved more or invested better, they wouldn’t have needed SS benefits.
My high-school educated parents worked their entire lives and never invested in anything because there was never any money left over to invest after paying bills. We lived modestly in Tampa and went on 4 vacations during my entire childhood. Two were trips to St Pete beach for a week. But this jerk was certain they were profligate moochers. How I loathe him.