US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[benjipwns]

Awww, no Alan Grayson? 

Maybe they want to be patriots and actually get to the bottom of things instead of turning this affair into a three ring circus?

[Brehvolution]

I'd think he'd add a lot of clarity to the circus.

[Great Rumbler]

I'm not politically savvy enough to know whether that would have been a good idea or not, but at least they're committing to a choice and not trying to have it both ways.

[benjipwns]

The real danger for the Democrats is once their members see the damning evidence they might reject their willful blindness to the crimes and start a bipartisan drive for not just impeachment but criminal charges.

[Brehvolution]

 

[Phoenix Dark]

Megyn Kelly Gives Dinesh D'Souza The Friendliest Of Post-Guilty Plea Interviews

Just hours after pleading guilty in federal court Tuesday to violating campaign finance law, conservative author Dinesh D'Souza appeared on Megyn Kelly's Fox News show for an interview.

It was a friendly affair.

"And so now, this case is resolved, for today, and the Obama administration gets to call one of its top critics a convicted felon," Kelly said near the beginning of the segment, which led to her first question: "Is this what they wanted all along?"

"I don't know," D'Souza replied. "I was facing two charges, Megan. The first one was exceeding the campaign finance limits. The second one was causing the government, the election commission, to file a false report. And that second charge carried a maximum of five years in prison. So what happened is I pleaded guilty to the charge of exceeding the campaign finance limits, and the government agreed to drop the other charge."

In court on Tuesday, D'Souza had said that he "deeply" regretted using straw donors to contribute $20,000 to the campaign of Wendy Long, a Republican attorney and old friend of D'Souza's who in 2012 lost to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). As Kelly pointed out to D'Souza Tuesday night, there was "never really any doubt that you did it."

"You're defense in this case was not, 'I didn't do it,'" Kelly said. "It was, 'I didn't do it with any intent, I didn't do it with the right requisite state of mind, and it's selective prosecution by the government, who doesn't go after anybody for this kind of crime, except coincidentally one of the president's biggest critics. But the judge didn't allow you to bring that defense."

D'Souza agreed. He said it was "remarkable" to see the campaign finances cases that "do and don't get pressed." Finally, Kelly asked him: "why'd you do it?"

"My longtime friend, Wendy Long, I've known her for 30 years, and she was running for the Senate in New York," D'Souza said. "Her campaign was absolutely flailing, and I wanted to help her. And so I just chose the wrong and stupid way to do it. I shouldn't have done it. And I'm taking responsibility for it."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dinesh-dsouza-megyn-kelly-interview
 

Dude sounds legit shook. But then again I would be too if I was facing 5 years in jail.

[Joe Molotov]

Dude sounds legit shook. But then again I would be too if I was facing 5 years in jail.

[benjipwns]

Now see, I think I buy his argument. He wasn't in the right state of mind. Look at the evidence, his movies, but more importantly look at the fact he worked so hard to give $20,000 to a GOP candidate (1) for Senate in New York (2) who was down like 40 points (3).

[benjipwns]

47%? Another Pyrrhic victory for Mitt Romney.

[Dickie Dee]

Does this mean I shouldn't have trusted d'Souza on the Fliptree?

[benjipwns]

Looks like the homosexualist bullies are winning in their campaign of fear:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/169640/sex-marriage-support-reaches-new-high.aspx



Children being harmed the most:

[Brehvolution]

Dat gay agenda. 

[Joe Molotov]

Moral Minority 

[Human Snorenado]

Someone should try to locate Maggie Gallagher, cause I'm pretty sure she's killing herself right now.

[Great Rumbler]

Maggie Gallagher, a founder and former president of the National Organization for Marriage, a group dedicated to opposing marriage by gays and lesbians, conceded in a post on her blog that those resisting same-sex marriages "are in shock, they are awed by the powers now shutting down the debate and by our ineffectualness at responding to these developments."

[Phoenix Dark]

So how long until the Supreme Court puts marriage on that Summer Jam screen and legalizes it everywhere.


If we continue going state by state we'll have a situation similar to what happened with interracial marriage: everyone but some degenerate southern states jumping on board with reality.

[Oblivion]

Hopefully James O'Keefe becomes D'Souza's cell mate:

Filmmakers who were targets of an undercover sting operation by James O'Keefe have filed a criminal complaint with police and have asked the FBI to determine whether federal laws were broken when the journalist surreptitiously recorded phone calls and a lunch meeting, a spokesman for movie producers Josh and Rebecca Tickell said Wednesday.
RECOMMENDED

"I can confirm that this matter has been reported to federal and local law enforcement for investigation of whether certain state and federal laws were violated," said Jonathan Franks, a managing partner at Lucid Public Relations.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fbi-urged-investigate-james-okeefes-706353

You'd think this idiot would have learned his lesson when his last wiretapping effort didn't end according to plan.

[Great Rumbler]

Hopefully James O'Keefe becomes D'Souza's cell mate:

Filmmakers who were targets of an undercover sting operation by James O'Keefe have filed a criminal complaint with police and have asked the FBI to determine whether federal laws were broken when the journalist surreptitiously recorded phone calls and a lunch meeting, a spokesman for movie producers Josh and Rebecca Tickell said Wednesday.
RECOMMENDED

"I can confirm that this matter has been reported to federal and local law enforcement for investigation of whether certain state and federal laws were violated," said Jonathan Franks, a managing partner at Lucid Public Relations.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fbi-urged-investigate-james-okeefes-706353

You'd think this idiot would have learned his lesson when his last wiretapping effort didn't end according to plan.

When reached at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, O'Keefe responded: "I have never attempted to contact the Tickells. This is a complete fabrication on their part and a sad commentary on their willingness to make baseless and unfounded allegations in an attempt to deflect the story away from their own actions."

roflmao

[benjipwns]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/21/1301047/-Why-I-m-Running

[Great Rumbler]

[Phoenix Dark]

It's gotta suck knowing you'll never get to do a new scripted or controlled casual walk outside ever again, and that you can't drive yourself anywhere. I read that Malia is going to get her driver's license this year but Secret Service won't let Obama teach her. 

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, it's like...you wanna go for a twenty minute stroll around the park? Okay, but you gotta go with 30 other guys carrying machine pistols.

[Phoenix Dark]

President Barack Obama took an impromptu stroll Wednesday along the National Mall, and some bystanders freaked out at the prospect of meeting their commander in chief.

"It's good to be out," Obama quipped to reporters. "The bear is loose."

we need an :andrewsullivan smiley.

[Dickie Dee]

Is this the first sign that the GOP is finally ready to stand up to the NRA?

A Republican congressman from Louisiana this week blasted an environmental activist who submitted photos of leaking oil pipes that had been repaired with garbage bags and duct tape.

At a Tuesday hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs, Noah Matson, vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, said that existing one-paragraph regulations were inadequate for protecting the National Wildlife Refuge System.

To make his point, he presented a slideshow, including photos of oil pipes that had been covered with duct take and garbage bags at refuges in Louisiana.

Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister (R) accused Matson of throwing a “fit” just because “some guy took initiative.”

“You took a picture of someone who was innovative, and rather than leaving the fluid to drip on the ground, repaired it with duct tape and a garbage bag, and yet you seem to be very upset about that,” McAllister said. “We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

“We take a garbage bag and fix it and keep it from leaking and yet you’re still not happy, and come to Washington and testify before Congress and want to throw fits because some guy took initiative.”

Matson pointed out that he had photos that showed a garbage bag repair from a year earlier, and no one had ever come back to complete the repair.

“Anybody can come there, a storm can come, it can puncture the garbage bag, and there’s a spill,” Matson explained. “Done.”

“Could have, should have, would have. It didn’t,” McAllister shrugged. “I understand you’re wanting to protect wildlife, and look, I love the great outdoors, and I live in Louisiana, a sportsman’s paradise, and I love it too. But I’m not for giving ducks and deer weapons to shoot back at me.”

“But it just aggravates me that the body of Congress would be wasted with someone coming up and taking picture of something that shows that is is fixed,” he continued. “It may not be fixed the way you want it. It may not be used by these high-dollar couplings and aluminum-brass thread — whatever you want put on them. But it’s fixed. And it’s not leaking.”

“And that’s what you want to turn your testimony into is some pictures portraying the innovation of what America is.”

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actually this part is just as good

To make his point, he presented a slideshow, including photos of oil pipes that had been covered with duct take and garbage bags at refuges in Louisiana.

Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister (R) accused Matson of throwing a “fit” just because “some guy took initiative.”

...

“And that’s what you want to turn your testimony into is some pictures portraying the innovation of what America is.”

[close]

[Steve Contra]

Do a shit job and call it innovation, brehs

[Phoenix Dark]

Do a shit job and call it innovation, brehs

 

[Great Rumbler]

The Onion only wishes it could write something that good.

[Great Rumbler]

McGuyver out here repairing oil lines

[Steve Contra]

http://wonkette.com/549857/california-wildfire-victim-pretty-sure-he-was-targeted-by-wildfire-thanks-obama

The pieces are starting to come together.  I wonder what #benghazi evidence was in the burned house? #bringbackourcountry

[benjipwns]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/banks-mexican-drug-cartels-sec-merrill-schwab_n_5367841.html?utm_hp_ref=business

looks like our faith in bankers to do the right thing is justified

(Image removed from quote.)

Why shouldn't banks be allowed to transact with legitimate businessmen?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/banks-mexican-drug-cartels-sec-merrill-schwab_n_5367841.html?utm_hp_ref=business

looks like our faith in bankers to do the right thing is justified

(Image removed from quote.)

[Oblivion]

I think that if you were to ask any Republican in Washington which group of Americans stands to benefit most from the ideas and ideals of our party, they’d respond without hesitation that it’s the American middle class, and that any suggestion to the contrary is based on a cheap and dishonest caricature. And yet, I think it must also be admitted that in our rush to defend the American entrepreneur from the daily depredations of an administration that seems to view any profit-making enterprise with deep suspicion – that we have often lost sight of the fact that our average voter is not John Galt. It’s a good impulse, to be sure. But for most Americans, whose daily concerns revolve around aging parents, long commutes, shrinking budgets, and obscenely high tuition bills, these hymns to entrepreneurialism are, as a practical matter, largely irrelevant. And the audience for them is probably a lot smaller than we think.

So what's the solution in this new shift to focus on the middle class instead of the job creators? Why, more tax cuts for the jobs creators, of course!

[Great Rumbler]

The thing about tax cuts is that eventually you can't cut taxes anymore.

[benjipwns]

 

[benjipwns]

BENGHAZI BOMBSHELL
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/white-house-contacted-youtube-during-benghazi-attack-darrell-issa-says/

A still-classified State Department e-mail says that one of the first responses from the White House to the Benghazi attack was to contact YouTube to warn of the “ramifications” of allowing the posting of an anti-Islamic video, according to Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The memo suggests that even as the attack was still underway — and before the CIA began the process of compiling talking points on its analysis of what happened — the White House believed it was in retaliation for a controversial video.

The subject line of the e-mail, which was sent at 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time on the night of the attack, is “Update on Response to actions – Libya.” The e-mail was written hours before the attack was over.

Issa has asked the White House to declassify and release the document. In the meantime he has inserted a sentence from the e-mail in the Congressional Record.

“White House is reaching out to U-Tube [sic] to advice ramification of the posting of the Pastor Jon video,” the e-mail reads, according to Issa.

...

“The e-mail shows the White House had hurried to settle on a false narrative — one at odds with the conclusions reached by those on the ground — before Americans were even out of harm’s way or the intelligence community had made an impartial examination of available evidence,” Issa said.

Issa is calling on the White House to release an unclassified version of the document.
 
“While the information I have cited from this e-mail is clearly unclassified, the State Department has attempted to obstruct its disclosure by not providing Congress with an unclassified copy of this document,” Issa said.

[Phoenix Dark]

Since when is sticking to your story=lying lol

[Great Rumbler]

BENGHAZI BOMBSHELL

A bombshell that was widely reported just a few days after the attack.

But the fact that the Obama administration reached out to YouTube due to the attack is no revelation. In fact, on September 14, 2012, Karl's then-colleague Jake Tapper reported on ABC's World News, "one other development today, the National Security Council here at the White House has reached out to YouTube to find out if their posting of that anti-Muslim film violates the terms of use."

The same day, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was quoted by ABC News saying that "We reached out to YouTube to call the video to their attention and ask them to review whether it violates their terms of use."

[benjipwns]

But now we know that the administration knew that it was contacting YouTube.

What we still don't know is what did the President know, when did he know it and how did he know that he knew it?

[Raban]

you guys were talking about the economic collapse the last page and Jon Stewart has a 40 minute interview with Timothy Geithner (the former Secretary of the Treasury) where he basically rips him a new asshole several times and generally gives you a very good overview of both sides of the "should we/shouldn't we have bailed out the banks" argument. watch it here. and for chrissakes use adblock.

[benjipwns]

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/allen-west-doubts-tammy-duckworths-loyalty-country-angry-about-democratic-picks-benghazi-spe

Former congressman Allen West is angry about the Democratic picks for the latest House panel investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack. Speaking yesterday with Janet Mefferd, West criticized Elijah Cummings, Adam Smith, Adam Schiff, Linda Sanchez and Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic lawmakers picked to fill the party’s five slots on the 12-member GOP-led “special committee.”

West especially raised doubts about Duckworth, a veteran who lost both of her legs and the use of her right arm in the Iraq War, raising suspicions about her loyalty to the country.

“Tammy Duckworth, you know I just don’t know where her loyalties lie, for her to have been a veteran and a wounded warrior for the United States Army, she should know that this is not the right thing and hopefully she will remember the oath of office that she took as an Army officer and not the allegiance I guess she believes she has to the liberal progressives of the Democrat [sic] party,” West said.

[Great Rumbler]

blublublu obummer is lawless

[Great Rumbler]

I don't even:

http://thebaffler.com/blog/2014/05/mouthbreathing_machiavellis

As might be expected of a “DIY ideology . . . designed by geeks for other geeks,” his political treatises are heavily informed by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and George Lucas.

“If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia,” Yarvin said in his talk. He conceded that, given the current political divisions, it might be better to have two dictators, one for Red Staters and one for Blue Staters. The trick would be to “make sure they work together.” (Sure. Easy!)

“There’s really no other solution,” Yarvin concluded. The crowd applauded.

Moldbug is the widely acknowledged lodestar of the movement, but he’s not the only leading figure. Another is Nick Land, a British former academic now living in Shanghai, where he writes admiringly of Chinese eugenics and the impending global reign of “autistic nerds, who alone are capable of participating effectively in the advanced technological processes that characterize the emerging economy.”

As I soldiered through the Moldbug canon, my reactions numbed. Here he is expressing sympathy for poor, persecuted Senator Joe McCarthy. Big surprise. Here he claims “America is a communist country.” Sure, whatever. Here he doubts that Barack Obama ever attended Columbia University. You don’t say? After a while, Yarvin’s blog feels like the pseudo-intellectual equivalent of a Gwar concert, one sick stunt after another, calculated to shock. To express revulsion and disapproval is to grant the attention he so transparently craves.

[Joe Molotov]

As best I can tell, their ideal society best resembles Blade Runner, but without all those Asian people cluttering up the streets.

 :deadpos

[Oblivion]

Man, I so hope this guy runs for president:

When you rob someone of their incentive to go out there and improve themselves, you are not doing them any favors. When you take somebody and pat them on the head and say, ‘There, there, you poor little thing. … Let me give you housing subsidies, let me give you free health care because you can’t do that.’ What would be much more empowering is to use our intellect and our resources to give those people a way up and out.”

No doubt, Mother Carson deserves tremendous credit, but – in the words of a political sound bite from the last presidential election – she didn’t do it alone. Carson, in his book, tells how his grades improved tremendously when a government program provided him with free eyeglasses because he could barely see. Not only that, in “Gifted Hands” we read this nugget: “By the time I reached ninth grade, mother had made such strides that she received nothing but food stamps. She couldn’t have provided for us and kept up the house without that subsidy.”

It’s hard not to see Carson’s own upbringing coming into view here. He grew up in meager surroundings in Detroit and Boston, in a family that made use of public assistance programs like food stamps. The culture was different then, Carson insists. “I think there was a time when people were not proud of taking handouts,” he said. “There were more people who did have that drive and determination. You do what you have to do."

[Great Rumbler]

Kick the ladder away after you make it, brehs.

[Oblivion]

It's not mooching if it's done by a Republican.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

It's not mooching if it's done by a Republican white person.

fixed

[Phoenix Dark]

It's not mooching if it's done by a Republican white person.

fixed

Feltner sits in a plastic chair outside his ramshackle mobile home, surrounded by rusty cars and car parts. He has no television.

People around here, he says, are "just surviving, barely. I know, because I'm one of them."

A victim of two heart attacks, he lives off disability checks, and $105 a month in government food stamps.

Feltner voted for a previous Democratic president, Bill Clinton, but now says: "I will vote for anybody against Obama.

"I don't care who runs against him, I'll vote for him. I don't care if it's a Democrat, a Republican, an Indian, a Pakistani, even a Frenchman!"

http://news.yahoo.com/poor-kentucky-no-stomach-obama-153854246.html

[Joe Molotov]

Even Canadian-Socialist Ted Cruz?

[Phoenix Dark]

That's why blog posts>books. At least you get to "update" your original post, which in this case would be deletion followed by "whoops my bad bros, I fucked up"

[Joe Molotov]

Welp, glad that's been debunked so we can keep giving money to rich people, brehs.

[Mandark]

That's why blog posts>books. At least you get to "update" your original post, which in this case would be deletion followed by "whoops my bad bros, I fucked up" "this only strengthens the core of my argument"

[benjipwns]

Looks like me and Mandark suspecting a possible Reinhart-Rogoff might be right (Image removed from quote.)

Looks more like you're wrong:

gammarepeater | May 23 7:06pm | Permalink
I just bought the book in Kindle last week...fml

Jimmy Gatts | May 23 7:15pm | Permalink
I can only think of the Koch Brothers who would reduce Piketty to a "hero of the left"

Paul Jorion | May 23 7:35pm | Permalink
Surprise! Surprise! The FT has found out that contrary to Piketty's assertions - although uncontested for the past fifteen years - the rich are actually poor and the poor actually rich. The evidence we're told will be soon out!

Fairly Accurate | May 23 9:17pm | Permalink
Piketty's response links to work that seems to show that wealth inequality in the US is actually worse than he said in his book. Your article doesn't address that point at all, which is odd as it seems to undermine your whole thesis. Or am I reading things the wrong way?

F.W. Abagnale | May 23 9:39pm | Permalink
There will always be critics to any work that is published, particular if its findings are as controversial, fundamental and important as Piketty's. The man has devoted the best part of his life to his academic work, and his thesis is undermined not only by the specific numbers, but also by years of experience and qualitative research. Any methodology can be criticized in a number of ways and will be harshly criticized by readers who disagree with a thesis not necessarily on methodological, but on substantive or ideological grounds - Piketty's thesis is unpopular among an elite which benefitted from economic growth at the expense of three quarters of the European population. Of course he will be criticized, and of course there will be skeptics such as Mr. Giles who find mistakes in his methodology. However, it is crucial not to dismiss his thesis altogether, but to have a constructive debate first about the validity of his conclusions, and then about the implications of these conclusions. Other researchers may correct the data and complement Piketty's findings - until they convincingly do so, however, dismissing his findings would be a mistake in itself.

schaetzl | May 23 9:49pm | Permalink
Allow me to pick the starting and end points of any data series and I can show the that down is up or up is down. Simple statistics. And does anyone really believe that there has been no increase in inequality during the past ten or twenty years. Of course not. Piketty has started with the first credible data available and ended just prior to publication. Thats the way science is done with integrity. Chris Giles and the FT should be embarrassed.

londoned | May 23 11:12pm | Permalink
Pretty thin article making some pretty substantial claims without any evidence. Not like the FT at all. If you are going to headline in this way you had better have some pretty substantial counter data. Piketty throughout goes to great pains to show his assumptions, his data and links back to his work sheets. He does not claim to have said the last word on the subject and you don't need Piketty's data to see that this is fairly nonsensical: "The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty’s original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few."

If you think that simply publish your alternative statistics and have a proper discussion. Until then save your simplistic headlines.

Cuvtixo | May 23 11:21pm | Permalink
@Iondoned Do you think maybe the writer Chris Giles has a political agenda? I'm sure that those who do have the most incentive to write articles criticizing Piketty's book, whether on reasonable, legitimate grounds or not. FT is sadly not immune to editorializing disguised as reporting, although they are better than most. (in particular better than American news media)

WesteringHo | May 23 11:26pm | Permalink
Agreed londoned - these are serious consequential allegations. The FT had better lay out in detail which tables and calculations are alleged to be wrong and what portion of the total data does this impact. As it stands little real information is given

Michael Dee | May 24 12:39am | Permalink
Oh dear God, have all the FT editors gone missing in a plane crash, are they recovering from an inebriated weekend, have the inmates taken over the asylum, has the National Enquirer taken over the FT? This article is beyond the pale for sketchy unsupported reporting. And then to so blatantly show partisan political bias in labeling the book in effect a fraudulent political bible of the left. This article should be a case study in editing 101 of what not to let out into the pink sheet. When someone puts up an effort such as Capital they are due some respectful reporting by an esteemed daily journal such as the FT. A very serious charge has been leveled by Mr Chris Giles and I suggest he show more back up for his claimed thesis. And let's also hear from his editor.

Pbarnett | May 24 12:48am | Permalink
Picketty's response letter is far more substantive, honest and useful than the FT article itself with lacks any real detail and does smack of sensationalism rather than robust journalism. I am sure we will not have hear the last of this from either side and I look forward to reading what now transpires. It certainly makes me interested in reading the book now too.

Michael Dee | May 24 3:39am | Permalink
@Funnymoney

I have read the article and found it unconvincing to unravel the thesis presented in Capital. The Fat Fingers transcription accusation represents a small change in 1920's data which hardly is material. The UK data is interesting and the author should respond specifically to this. However let me go a bit deeper as to the editing issue here. When issue are found I expect two things to happen; first I would like to hear more about how and who the fact checking was done by. Were outside parties involved? Was this Mr Giles at home at night after dinner? Were think tanks or academics involved? This is essential as we know that special interests routinely sponsor research to sow doubt in analysis which threatens special interests. Climate change, tracking etc are recent examples. So Mr Giles and his editors owe readers a more complete explanation. Second, was the author of Capital provided the full rebuttal with time to respond? Readers should expect that authors of works such as Capita who are to be commended for providing all their data to the market to have been given adequate time to respond in fact and in detail. Finally I will say this is a serious work and not some pop-economics and thus the FT and other journals read by serious people should be better edited and processed. Why no third party analysis of Mr Giles claims. I'm sure Mr Krugman and others would have been worthy of peer review of the charges leveled. I continue to consider the fT's editing of this story to be sloppy...could it be because Mr Giles was in fact the editor?

Dr A | May 24 10:48am | Permalink
If we take a step back, rather than try fall in the trap of trying to to pick winners and losers; who is right and who is wrong, who is truthful and who has manipulated data to his own ends, we need to be aware of a few things:
- There is no objective truth in statistics. All, including Mr Giles, statistical analysis, is subject to the assumptions and methods it chooses. This became very clear in the aftermath of the failure of the possibly biggest concentration of statistical analysis resources the world has ever seen...the financial sector during the buildup to 2008. In retrospect it is obvious that the assumptions and inherent desires to prove something is where objectivity is lost. Which leads to the second problem
- The "nice party" effect. How can it be that scientific research is increasing significantly on any new "hot" topic while at the same time scientists are ignoring other, less glamorous or contradicting areas of study? Is not the very choice of what and how to study the reason behind the reason why there is so much "supporting evidence" for any thesis or idea that is "hot"? When, again, looking at the financial industry as an example, the ratio of papers supposedly objectively examining but in reality cheering for new and hot phenomena is overwhelming. Remember all the scientific gurus providing academic evidence for the internet revolution, the Goldilocks economy, the victory of the capitalistic system over all others etc. etc.
- The career enhancement headline effect. When a new guru, like Professor Piketty, is on the rise, what better way to get to a place in the lime light than to challenge that guru. To build own independent research is so much more work and the outcome is so much more uncertain than to cry out that the emperor is naked. Besides, who is going to challenge the challenger?
Conclusion?
Professor Piketty has tapped into a rich vein of discontent of many people whose intuitive feel for how their world is developing coincides with his scientific "proof". Because it is only a feeling and not built on real scientific research, it cannot be the base for any serious discussion. But be aware! all the scientists and journalists are doing in this debate as in so many others, is to try to grab a place in the sun! And that goes in equal measure for both Professor Piketty and mr Giles!

DEBUNK DEBUNKED

[Phoenix Dark]

What if Piketty is really James O'Keefe and this is all an elaborate hoax to prove liberals are [insert conclusion]?

[Mandark]

I'm predicting an extended squabble about this, which is probably gonna get technical to the point where I won't have an informed opinion.  We like to think of data collection as a sort of immaculate conception of information, but it's a really involved process, moreso if it's not a category that's already tracked monthly/quarterly by a big federal agency.

I remember the kerfuffle over "medical bankruptcies" during the bankruptcy reform bill's passage, where Elizabeth Warren and others argued that most people go bankrupt because they're hit by unexpected medical costs.  This got "debunked" from the right, showing that they used a very broad definition to say medical expenses "caused" people's financial problems, but then replaced it with a "real" figure that was largely the result of tilting the assumptions the other way (stuff like not counting prescription drugs as a medical expense).

Galbraith's critical piece in Dissent called out Piketty for overselling the value of tax records as the only good source, but he said that Piketty's results were in line with what he'd seen from payroll data.  I don't have a reason to particularly trust Pikkety, but the phrase "simplified and cleaned up the data" doesn't immediately fill me with confidence either.

[Mandark]

Also a reminder: The data entry fuckup in Reinhart-Rogoff wasn't really what made it problematic.  But it was funny to throw that back at people who had been treating the 90% threshold as the missing Commandment.

[benjipwns]

but the phrase "simplified and cleaned up the data" doesn't immediately fill me with confidence either.

They deleted columns until it fit on one sheet in landscape.

[Oblivion]

Also a reminder: The data entry fuckup in Reinhart-Rogoff wasn't really what made it problematic.  But it was funny to throw that back at people who had been treating the 90% threshold as the missing Commandment.

What was it?

[Mandark]

It was concluding a really strong relationship between two variables based on a relatively small dataset that didn't take into account historical context.  Basically that every time a country allows its publicly held debt to reach over 90% of its GDP, the sky falls down.  But that hasn't happened many times, so it's obviously more useful to look at each as a case study, rather than just throw them into a scatterplot and draw a line through it.

[Rufus]

As far as I remember they also ignored countries that disproved their hypothesis for what I'm sure were good reasons.