Category: Quick Hits

I'm late to the game on this one – a bizarrely not-terrible NRO piece about Appalachia called the "Big White Ghetto", which any visitor to eastern Kentucky or West Virginia can confirm it most certainly is. It's a good, predictable "Yep, poverty is pretty awful" piece that does a good job of exploring why these areas are so screwed; namely, skilled workers leave because there are no jobs and no jobs will come because there are no skilled workers.

Imagining the average National Review reader walking through this piece is entertaining, as though what rural Kentucky really needs is Mitt Romney and Sean Hannity to show up and tell everyone to hurry up and start a small business. Isn't that always the answer to everything?
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Well, that and tax cuts. And even Republicans realize that there aren't enough tax incentives in the world to get someone to create a bunch of jobs in a remote, dilapidated coal town. The small business fetish – It's at once a panacea for what is wrong with America and a symbol of all that is great about it – is funny when placed in this context.

If you wanted to open a small business in the town described in that article, what would it be?
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Are you going to open a restaurant or coffee shop? Clothing boutique? Artisan manufacturing? No, you're not going to do any of that in a town where half the population is living on 0/month in government assistance.
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You're going to open one of the businesses you see in poor, run-down neighborhoods everywhere: bar/liquor store, pawn shop, convenience store, or payday lender. The only way you could make any money off of a small business in this place would be to do something that exploits the hopelessness, ignorance, and desperation of the people who haven't had the ability or good sense to leave.

Talk about vicious cycles; in the perfect conservative dream world, all of these people pull themselves up by the bootstraps and, since there are no jobs to be had even for the skilled and motivated, start their own businesses. And the only ones who succeed will be those who sell something that perpetuates the world of poverty, substance abuse, petty crime, and hopelessness in which they live. It's unlikely to be a coincidence that the residents just voted to legalize alcohol sales in the formerly "dry" county. Talk about growth industries.

Obama's sixth State of the Union could be described charitably as "workmanlike"; he went out there and powered through it. There's not much left in his presidency in terms of originality or enthusiasm. This was strictly a Get It Done speech with the modest goal of trying to avoid making the last quarter of his presidency a total waste. That the speech was an exercise in going through the motions did not prevent the usual wingnut suspects from reacting as though Obama read directly from Das Kapital before closing by asking a little girl if she believes in God and then blowing her head off when she said yes. Slate has a decent collection of some of the worst tweets from the right – media figures and elected officials only – on Tuesday night, a collection that is sure to grow over the next 12 hours.

As for the follow-up from yesterday's post, it's very difficult to tell which of the three Republican/Tea Party responses was worse.
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The official response from Cathy McMorris-Rodgers appeared to be focused solely on answering the question, "Who the fuck is Cathy McMorris-Rogers?" It's a fair question. And once again, as with Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio, the response itself was undermined by bizarre staging and lighting. Why was she sitting on a couch?

Why was it so dark? Why did it look vaguely like a snuff film? It can't be that hard to figure this out – it's impossible to deliver a good address in an empty room. Give the response in a format identical to a press conference.

Stand at a podium and read the speech to a small audience composed mostly of journalists. The GOP will never figure this out, though, since they are terrible at everything.

The other ongoing problem with the Republican responses is that they are written and delivered as though everyone in America is about 8 years old. Even if I agreed with her positions, I don't think I could have tolerated being spoken at in the way. The point gets made all the time, but if you compare a speech like this to a political address from the 1950s or 1960s, the difference in tone is stark. Political figures used to speak to the nation as though it was made up of adults. Now they not only treat us like children, but not particularly bright children at that.

As for vuffingtonpost.com/2014/01/28/mike-lee-response-_n_4681658.html?utm_hp_ref=politics">the Mike Lee response, he challenged the Tea Party to actually be for something as opposed to merely opposing everything, which is entirely too reasonable a point for the Tea Party to be pleased with his performance. They'll probably turn their attention to finding a primary challenge for Lee. Because god knows that being "for" anything is completely alien to their political worldview.

Your daily reminder that our laws make sense and the criminal justice system is not a jumbled mess: the headline "Man in Jail for Marijuana is Allowed to Leave Once a Month (sic) to Smoke Marijuana." True, one invites extra scrutiny from law enforcement by choosing the public persona of "NJ Weed Man" (check out his sweet t-shirt!) but I can't help but feel that this is a bit…

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silly. Counterproductive, even.

Although a complete understanding of what's going on here requires an explanation of NOMINATE scores and the underlying methodology, this single chart serves as both American Politics in a Nutshell and American Politics at a Glance:

I used to work with the fellow most responsible for developing these measures of ideology, and he is as far to the right as anyone in academia. That is only relevant here inasmuch as it undercuts the glib response that this is just more Ivory Tower Liberal nonsense trying to make the poor GOP look bad.

Both parties have moved away from the center since 1970, but…

it's fairly clear in these data that one party has done a bit more moving than the other.

Public figures who decide to take on or otherwise interact with the people of the internet are almost always walking into a shitshow of their own making. The internet is impersonal and at least pseudo-anonymous; how could soliciting questions from the anonymous hordes not end badly? This is particularly true if you are a public figure who could best be described as a corporate shill, as internet commenters tend to be blunt. So when charter school pimp / professional hack Michelle Rhee decided to do a little Q & A…

Here's a small collection of some of the best questions as well as the attempts of others to warn her. You can see the whole exchange with the #AskMichelle tag on Twitter. It's not only brutal but almost universally so. The negative comments exceed the legitimate questions or praise by about 20 to 1.

Oh, and in totally unrelated news it turns out that yet another "charter school" was a scam set up to cash in on government handouts, this time in Milwaukee. Shocking, really. That Walker fellow seems like he'd run such a tight ship when it comes to privatizing public assets. An unfortunate oversight, I'm sure.

Sorry for back-to-back short posts, but aren't you basically ceding the argument that your party is composed of elitists and sociopaths when you have to send out a memo instructing Republican members of Congress on how to sound like they have compassion for the unemployed? There was a neat book written a while back about people who have to learn how to act like they have emotions. Maybe the House GOP should read it for book club.
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There will come a point in every conversation in which you challenge someone on the inherent biases in any purportedly merit-based system at which its defenders will point out that the winners in said system are very talented and work very hard.

The motivation for the winners in any system or institution to believe this is strong, as to believe otherwise is to admit that one's own success is a function of luck or other non-meritocratic factors.
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Perhaps it is correct that the winners in life win because they are talented, smart, and hard working.
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In my brief life experience, though, I've always found it odd that the people who have influential connections always end up being the most talented, smartest, and hardest working people.

Life has a lot of coincidences.

Hello readers.

Another year is in the books, and yet again I find myself in the position of saying, "Well that sucked. Hopefully the next one will be better!" At least the very least I'm happy with what I've done on Gin and Tacos this year; over the next week I will be handing out the 2013 Lieberman Award and maybe doing a Best Of / Favorite Posts thing as well.

I make an effort to limit this kind of request or reminder, because nobody wants to read a hundred pleas per year for the kinds of things a dude with a website is supposed to request. I appreciate your patience with the following paragraphs.

1. If you haven't already, follow G&T on the ol' Facebox. There's more to it than a bunch of links to posts. It's a little heavier on humor and lighter on politics compared to this site. And I'm supposed to, like, try to boost traffic and build a base of readers and all that shit. So do it.

Gin and Tacos | Promote Your Page Too

2. Speaking of, even though traffic has increased consistently over the years the site remains and will remain free of advertisements. If you have to ask why, you must be new. Sticking to that principle has a downside that becomes apparent in late December when the annual hosting bill arrives. So here is where I give you a number of options.

You can do nothing and continue to enjoy the site for free. This is called "free riding", and it's an entirely rational behavior. I have done (for eleven years!!) and will continue to do this every day whether I make a million bucks, nothing at all, or I have to pay out of pocket for the privilege.

You can use this tip jar / donation link to contribute an amount of your choosing to defray the costs of this site. If you happen to be saddled with extra cash and feel like donating fifty bucks, I will be extremely grateful. However, if donating fifty cents (or zero cents) is more in line with your current budget, my gratitude will be no less. Your tips and contributions are (obviously) voluntary but greatly appreciated. In short, give something if you want to, or don't. Either way I'm glad you're here and I appreciate you.

3. If you're so inclined, there are things to buy rather than just handing over cash as a donation. The "Buy Stuff" link on your right has a couple kinds of stickers. There are also a few remaining SOUNDS OF REAL AMERICA prints (here's the first batch, and then we added two more) and a single Buzzfeed dadaism print. Those are all based on running jokes on the G&T Facebook page; perhaps in the upcoming year I will make additional forays into the exciting world of trying to browbeat readers into buying things.

4. Thank you all for making the site more interesting than it would be otherwise with your comments and contributions. Even though I've progressed from zero to one to fifty-plus comments per post, I still read every single one. If you can take the time to say something, I can make the time to listen.

Maybe this one really will be better.

One of my favorite hey-did-you-see-this stories of 2013 happened in mid-July when AC Nielsen data showed that the median Fox News viewer is so old that we don't even know how old he is. Since the company stops tracking age at 65 – it can be assumed safely, I guess, that anything marketed to a 70 year old would also be marketed to an 80 year old – and "above 65" is now statistically the majority of Fox's audience.

It is not hard to reach this conclusion without the benefit of hard data. Just watch Fox News for an hour or two and keep track of the advertisements. Hip implants. "Mobility scooters". Prescription drugs for arthritis. The companies ponying up for these ads know goddamn well who is watching before they write the check.

Despite the tremendous "passion" for which Fox News viewers are known in the media and marketing industries, it goes without saying that any business relying heavily on people who are going to die pretty soon need to think ahead. The network has attempted to "get younger" by bringing in on-air talent under 50 and promoting programming that isn't aimed at elderly white men (e.g. the Dadaist masterpiece Fox & Friends) it isn't translating into younger viewers.

But for six of the last eight years, Fox News has had a median age of 65-plus and the number of viewers in the 25-54 year old group has been falling consistently, down five years in a row in prime time, from an average of 557,000 viewers five years ago to 379,000 this year. That has occurred even though Fox’s overall audience in prime time is up this year, to 2.02 million from 1.89 million three years ago.

The network also has been faced with a recent string of nightly wins in that 25-54 audience by CNN, which had been hopelessly behind in recent years.

We needn't point out that losing to CNN is a bad sign.

I've always thought of Fox News as a means of occupying the elderly; its older viewers turn it on early in the morning and leave it on in the background all day. It is to the over 65 demographic what the Disney Channel is to kids – a product designed (flawlessly) to keep them out of the way of people who have things to do. Is that stereotyping the elderly? Sure. Some people in that age group hate Fox and are very productive. But if we're talking about means and medians and modes, we're talking about a viewer who's retired or close to it and in need of a distraction.

Most companies that market to the elderly survive because the ranks are always being replenished. That consumer who needs a hip implant might be dead in a few years but eventually you and I will become that consumer in the future. It is going to be interesting over the next decade to see if this holds true for a media network selling an intangible product. The over 65 population will peak soon and then decline rapidly barring an unexpected influx of ancient immigrants. It will be fascinating to see if future generations of elderly Americans flock to Fox in a way that they clearly are not doing as younger and middle-aged people. Has Fox created a product so specifically tailored not merely to the elderly but to a single, specific cohort of the elderly that it will die when its current viewers do?

Everything about the network is geared toward the Greatest Generation with the underlying premise that America was awesome in the Fifties and our current society has abandoned the values of that era. What is Fox going to do when its elderly viewers don't remember the Fifties? Or weren't alive yet? Or think fondly of American culture in the Sixties of their childhood? Or spent their college years in the Seventies higher than kites?

As financially successful as it is at present, Fox News obviously isn't in danger of disappearing anytime soon. It is unclear, however, what it will be offering its main demographic in twenty years. If it tries giving them what the network airs right now, it's difficult to see that selling as well with future generations. Once the elderly demographic is composed mostly of people who grew up not in idyllic Fifties America but in kinda-shitty Seventies America, a yearning for the Good Ol' Days isn't going to be an easy sell.

One of the more puzzling aspects of our economic betters' obsession with tax policy is the reality that, in practice, they're not paying much in taxes.
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The rates are largely irrelevant.
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They matter to some extent to you and I, but to the moneyed class it is the equivalent of the "recommended servings" on a bag of chips. Much as how everything is single serving if you're sad enough, the effective tax rate is always under 10% if you're rich enough.
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This is the reason that America can have simultaneously the highest corporate tax rate in the world and multibillion dollar corporations that pay a couple hundred bucks in taxes during a profitable year. It also explains how Mitt Romney can pay something like 15% on his annual income that runs into eight figures. There are dozens of obvious loopholes in the system and creative lawyers, accountants, and financial planners are coming up with new ones every day.
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Check out this Bloomberg article detailing a neat trick, pioneered by the Waltons, that Sheldon "I'm so rich I can piss $150 million away on Newt Gingrich" Adelson is using to skirt hundreds of millions in taxes.

Look at the graphic and explain to me in what way this is different than money laundering. I'll wait.