Political Irony

© Ruben Bolling

Why is it that even though the economy grows more under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents, businesses seem to favor Republicans? If you look at the years 1948 to 2007, with Republican presidents, the gross national product grew by an average of 1.64% per capita, while under Democratic presidents, the GNP grew by 2.78% per capita. That’s a difference of 1.14%. Over eight years, that means that the average person will be earning 9.33% more, which is WAY more money that you would get from any possible tax cut.

Not only that, but income inequality grew substantially during Republican administrations — the rich got richer while the poor got poorer — but under Democratic administrations income inequality actually went down slightly. And on top of that, historically the national debt has grown substantially more under Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.

UPDATE: If you had invested $100,000 in the stock market (using an index fund based on the Dow) the day Obama was sworn in to office, it would be worth $180,000 today. If you had invested $100,000 in the stock market the day Dubya took office, it would have been worth $65,000 the day he left office.

The dust hasn’t even settled after the election, which saw significant gains for Republicans, but already at least one of them is calling for yet another war. Senator Lindsay Graham sees going to war with Iran “not to just neutralize their nuclear program, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard, in other words neuter that regime.”

Not content with one more physical war, Graham also seemed to be calling for a trade war with China, criticizing them for their “cheating” currency manipulation. Meanwhile, NY City mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized Congresscritters who want to blame everything on China:

If you look at the U.S., you look at who we’re electing to Congress, to the Senate—they can’t read. I’ll bet you a bunch of these people don’t have passports. We’re about to start a trade war with China if we’re not careful here, only because nobody knows where China is. Nobody knows what China is.

I think in America, we’ve got to stop blaming the Chinese and blaming everybody else and take a look at ourselves … There’s a country on the other side of the world that is taking their taxpayers’ dollars, and trying to sell subsidized things so we can buy them cheaper, and have better products, and we’re going to criticize that?

Meanwhile, the Chinese government is investing $15 billion to create an electric vehicle industry there, to move China off of oil. They are also furiously building airports and high speed rail, and just placed an order for 128 DNA sequencers to create the largest institute in the world for doing stem cell and genetics research. What are we doing with our money? We spend 10 times as much money as China on our military. Oh, and there’s all the interest we have to pay China for the money they have lent us to finance our national debt so we can give tax breaks to billionaires.

Well, actually, no.

Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely without pay from his job on MSNBC for donating money to political candidates.

Well, actually no, again. Although I’ve seen plenty of headlines saying this.

If truth be told, MSNBC does not prohibit employees from donating to political candidates, but it does require them to obtain prior approval from NBC News executives before doing so. This is the first time Olbermann has violated this rule. Actually, it is the first time he has ever donated money to any political campaign, ever.

So, where is the outrage? Didn’t the Supreme Court rule that money is protected speech? Isn’t MSNBC stomping on Olbermann’s first amendment rights?

Well, actually no, but that didn’t stop people from saying the same thing about Juan Williams when he was fired from NPR for repeatedly violating the terms of his contract with them. Even supporters of NPR said the firing was poorly handled. Where are the same comments about MSNBC and Olbermann? After all, MSNBC didn’t even give Olbermann a warning.

Seriously! Fox News is Fair and Balanced. They told me so themselves. Shouldn’t they offer a job to Keith Olbermann? Just like they did to Juan Williams? Isn’t that fair?

Isn’t that balanced?

In fact, not only does Fox News allow its journalists to contribute money to political causes, they have allowed Republican candidates to do fundraising on their programs. Heck, they even gave over a million dollars to Republicans themselves!

When NPR fired Williams, conservatives kept pointing out that George Soros had just donated money to NPR. If Fox News doesn’t offer Keith Olbermann a job, shouldn’t we keep pointing out that the second largest owner of Fox News is a Saudi prince, terrorist-sympathizer who has bragged about getting Fox News to change stories for him?

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow on the suspension of Keith Olbermann:

UPDATE 2: In 2006, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough donated $4,200 to a Republican candidate without permission. MSNBC ignored it, because Scarborough “hosts an opinion program and is not a news reporter”. Even though Olbermann also hosts an opinion program, MSNBC seems to hold him to a different standard, or is it because Olbermann donated to the wrong party?

In England, using a law that has not been used in 99 years, an election court has ruled that a member of parliament knowingly made false statements about an opponent in the election held last May. If upheld, he could be removed from his seat and prevented from running for office for three years. The opponent, who brought the rare lawsuit, said

This is a historic victory, the first time in 99 years. I fought this because I believed it was really important for democracy. The idea that if you lie about your opponent and you know you have lied about your opponent then simply you have no part to play in democracy. I am proud of the judicious system which has helped me so much in this situation. I think this is going to be a crucial decision which will help clean up politics. Politics has to be better than this. Making up lies about your opponent has no part in politics.

Opponent of the ruling claim that it will have a chilling effect on political speech.

Personally, I’d love to see a similar law in the US, and see it vigorously enforced.