Right Wing Laugh of the Day: SNL's audience is more like some kind of liberal Klan meeting

Baylor University lecturer imagines materialism isn't an ideology

And, by cracky, what we need is ideology, here:

Abraham Lincoln watched [democracy] dissolve in the early years of his presidency, but he understood that the real foundation of the U.S. was an ideological enterprise, not a material nuts-and-bolts one. For him, the Declaration of Independence was a more important founding document than the Constitution, even though that's what the inconclusive political fights leading up to the Civil War had all been about.

To these people just as to Lincoln, the Constitution is the problem.

Reminds me of no one so much as Obama. Definitely a Yankee that guy is.

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to go to Baylor.

Arbeit macht GDP: At root America's basic economic problems lie at every level in not working enough

There is no age tranche working up to its potential, especially not teenagers, but also not the college-aged, not the core 25 to 54 years, and now not even the over 55 crowd. The latter in fact has only been held up more or less by those over 65 ramping up their participation in the wake of The Great Recession.

It all starts with the phenomenon of "failure to launch" in the teenage years. Baby Boomers didn't simply have fewer children and work less. They had fewer children who also lacked a vigorous work ethic. And that now appears institutionalized in the children of the children as well. This has now rippled through the system, as can be seen in the increasingly later dates for peak average annual participation in the age tranche charts below (1979, 1987, 1997, 2012, and 2016-2017?). GDP will not improve without a cultural reestimation of work. And a return to work will not occur without a need to return, which can only mean one thing:

“from rice paddy to rice paddy in three generations.”

16 to 19

20 to 24

25 to 54

55 and over

65 and over (subset)

Hillary tries to mask the suspected back brace with a scarf

Now you see it . . .

Now you don't

So John McCain announces he opposes Trump's CIA nominee

All I can say is he'd better hurry up with the rest of the items on his bucket list.

I don't know what I'll do if I don't find out about the breakfast cereals he forbids before he dies.

Tanana River Alaska "Ice-outs" have been trending earlier, moving from the end of the first week of May on average to the last day of April

The money line of the day comes from Niall Ferguson

Here in The Boston Globe:

A state that requires dictatorship to be stable is not as strong as it looks — just as one based on individual liberty is not as weak as it looks.

Acceding to the invincibility of the left makes Richard Spencer the ultimate cuck

Hooah: 2nd Fleet, deactivated in 2011, to resume operations to protect East Coast and North Atlantic

Read all about it, here.

The article from WaPo is confused about the US Fleet. The 7th Fleet is Japan-based. The Italy-based Fleet is the 6th, not the 7th.

"Navy officials had previously recommended reactivating the fleet as part of broader force structure reviews following last year's deadly row of collisions among ships at the Japan-based 7th Fleet. In a separate statement, Richardson invoked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' national defense strategy as key guidance to reestablish the fleet, which will extend halfway across the Atlantic until it meets the area of responsibility for Italy-based 7th Fleet."

The Limbaugh Theorem again, in a headline: Republicans run like they're not in charge of anything

Rush will never admit that this is the same thing that Obama did, but it is.

It's especially true of Trump, who as president could run an operation to secure the southern border (without congressional support, approval or even funding) just like Eisenhower, but won't. Instead he pretends there's some nefarious impediment keeping him from doing his job, which he isn't going to have after 2020 if he doesn't get down to business.

Trump has no jobs achievement, let alone an historic one

The idea that Trump has an historic jobs achievement is based on the increasingly meaningless unemployment rate, which notoriously doesn't count many people who are not working. The idea that "essentially every American who wants a job could find one" is rubbish. For the anecdotal evidence, I suggest you ask any of the millions of unemployed and underemployed non-management people over the age of 50, most of whom got their walking papers in the Great Recession because they made too much money in the opinion of management. If you are looking for the hidden, nefarious, recalcitrant forces of deflation in the American economy, look there.   

The federal government actually tracks everyone who wants a job but still doesn't have one. They presently number 5.1 million, well above the average low for the data series in 2000 at 4.4 million. But even this number fails to capture the real scope of current labor slack.

If we had a real jobs recovery going on, we'd have employment at pre-Great Recession levels. We don't. Total employed as a percentage of the population in April 2018 is at not quite 60.4%. Before the recession it averaged 63.2% over the previous twelve years. That latter rate would yield 162.6 million working in April 2018 instead of the 155.3 million we actually have.

It's that simple. We have the people. What we're missing is 7.3 million of them working.

Them's the facts, no matter what the cheerleaders for Trump keep shouting.

Robin Williams unknowingly suffered from diffuse Lewy body dementia, the second most common form after Alzheimer’s

From the story here:

Three months later, the autopsy results came in. His brain had left its own suicide note.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for April 2018

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for April 2018

Max temp 74, Mean Max temp 79

Min temp 16, Mean Min temp 22

Av temp 40.1, Mean Av temp 46.5

Precip 2.85, Mean precip 3.30

Snowfall 6.0, Mean snowfall 2.4

Heating Degree Days 740, Mean HDD 553

Using HDD, the cold season to date has been just 1% warmer than the mean. Season to date HDD were 6339 vs. season to date mean of 6403.

Under Trump the FBI is still corrupt, won't investigate personal messages of pro-Hillary agents Lisa Page and her lover Peter Strzok

John Boltneck Kerry, private citizen, has been conducting foreign policy secretly with Iran

A commenter to the story here has it about right:

The liberal media was quick to label possible foreign contact by the Trump campaign as a Logan Act violation. Kerry pursuing his own foreign policy out of office ... no problem. Hypocrite, thy name is liberal democrat.

Maybe dropouts from the labor force were a cause of the Great Recession rather than a result

The high rate of dropping out of the labor force we've become accustomed to since the Great Recession actually predates it by a decade, suggesting that dropping out may be a cause of the Great Recession rather than a result of it. Continued slow growth of GDP since the Great Recession can also be explained by the absence of these inputs.

The crisis in growth of personal income since 2007 shows why it feels like a depression

The 13.9% growth of personal income between 2007 and 2017 is the worst since the Great Depression and is 60% off the average growth rate of 35%.

Somebody should elect somebody to do something about this!

Jeffrey Snider: Fix the suffering in the labor force or next time you might actually get socialism

Here:

The American labor force is suffering like it hasn’t since the 1930’s, but nobody seems willing to challenge Economists’ easily disproved claims.

Into that vacuum had swept Mr. Trump himself, but also Mr. Sanders. The mere election of the former didn’t immediately fix the problem; rather, things have gotten worse since the campaign ended (to be clear, it had nothing to do with Trump . . .). May Day is still only trending toward becoming an official holiday.

Bill Cosby's lasting contribution to America: Finally SOMEONE gets child rapist Roman Polanski booted from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

There was NO WAY the black guy was going to get expelled while the white guy got to remain.

Way to go Brownie!

Story here.

Failure of nerve: America has basically ceded control of the South China Sea to China since the 1950s

China has been playing a long game while America has dithered year after year with changeable, irresolute leadership. This is one important reason China laughs at America's political system. It knows it can get away with this stuff as long as it waits us out. Right now it is howling with laughter as everyone is consumed with Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels while it installs offensive missiles with impunity. We are a joke! And one day this joke may mean many dead Americans and the loss of freedom for countless others.   

From the story here:

While the installation of missile platforms are [sic] new to the Spratlys, China has already deployed similar systems in the nearby Paracel Islands. Satellite images of Woody Island, Beijing's military headquarters in the South China Sea, show deployments of Y-8 transport aircraft as well as J-10 and J-11 fighter jets. China first took possession of Woody Island in 1955 and has since outfitted it with ports, aircraft hangars, communication facilities, helipads and a runway. [Gregory] Poling notes that this particular outpost serves as a blueprint for China's future developments on Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands.