Flawed Reasoning and Failures in Cognition, the wrap-up

 - Part 3 of 3

Over the past couple of days we established the negative outcomes resulting from confirmation bias and the resulting flawed reasoning. We further defined some of the fine subdivisions of confirmation bias. Today define a few more of those subdivisions and wrap up our discussion.

Bandwagon Effect might also be called the “mob effect” or “mob behavior”. While we are often unaware of it, humans have a strong tendency to go with the flow. When the masses start to pick a winner or a favorite, that's when our individualized brains start to shut down and enter into a kind of "groupthink" or hive-mind mentality. But it doesn't have to be a large crowd or the whims of an entire nation; it can include small groups, like a family or even a small group of office co-workers. The bandwagon effect is what often causes behaviors, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals — regardless of the evidence or motives in support. This is why opinion polls are often maligned, as they can steer the perspectives of individuals accordingly. Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform, as famously demonstrated by the Asch Conformity Experiments.

Projection Bias makes it difficult for us to “walk a mile in their shoes”, to project outside the bounds of our own consciousness and preferences. We are trapped inside our own minds and for this reason we mistakenly assume that most people think just as we do… often with little or no justification. This cognitive shortcoming often leads to the related effect of false consensus bias where we tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. This can also create the effect where the members of a radical or fringe group assume that more people on the outside agree with them than is the case. Or the exaggerated confidence one has when predicting the winner of an election or sports match.

The Current Moment Bias is the “things will forever be as they are now” bias. Humans find difficulty in imagining our future selves and resist altering current behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later. This is a bias that is of particular concern to economists (i.e. our unwillingness to not overspend and save money) and health practitioners. A 1998 study showed that, when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit. But when the food choice was for the current day, 70% went for the chocolate.

Anchoring Effect, also known as the Relativity Trap, is the tendency to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. It's called the anchoring effect because we tend to fixate on a value or number that in turn gets compared to everything else. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself. This is why some restaurant menus feature very expensive entrees, while also including more (apparently) reasonably priced ones. It's also why, when given a choice, the larger number of us will pick the middle option… not too expensive, and not too cheap.

Rebooting

Spend a bit of time, if you will, in some self-analysis. Looking at these definitions and comparing them to your own perspectives, how often do you find yourself guilty of feeding personal biases? Look at your friends. How many of these have political or religious beliefs mirroring your own?

The most passionate will recognize flaws in cognition only in those whom they oppose… and will never admit that they too might be viewing the world through glasses tinted by bias. The truth is that all humans are subject to the bias traps and the sooner we recognize the flaws within ourselves within… the quicker we will be able to adapt.

Adapt we must. We find ourselves in already very polarized positions and suffering from the political divides in which such polarization inevitably results. Both the far left and the far right can be observed lumping any position more centrist into the far opposing camp. Thus we hear the acronyms “RINO” and “DINO” casually bandied about.

The truth is that both extremes have abandoned reason and neither can recognize the danger in such posturing. The reasonable must self-diagnose these failures and debug our systems. There must be enough reasonable voices to outvote and overwhelm passionate partisanism. There is truth to be found in every perspective and good can come even from some of the more extreme views, but both extremes must also learn that the final adaptation will be in the drift back to the center. 

REV: 20130831-0500

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H/T to George Dvorsky

Flawed Reasoning and Failures in Cognition, continued

 - Part 2 of 3

Yesterday we established confirmation bias as being at the root of our failure to reason logically when debating political and religious divisions. Today we will discuss textbook definitions for some of the subdivisions within the umbrella we call confirmation basis.

In-group Bias is a somewhat nonspecific bias of genetic origin. It is rooted deep in our animalistic or tribalistic tendencies, manifesting as the fear and hatred of people “not like us.” Research has shown this bias may be affected by the neurotransmitter oxytocin. University of Amsterdam psychologist Carsten De Dreu describes oxytocin as helping us forge bonds with the people of our in-group while having the opposite function for those on the outside. It promotes suspicion, fear and even hatred of the out-group.

This particular bias is evident in both political subdivisions and religious theology, causing individuals to discard those not within the subdivision or sect while elevating inbred and possibly deficient individuals to positions of leadership. Where it hurts us is that it leads to an overestimation of the value of our fellow tribesmen while diminishing that of people we don't really know, often resulting in a terrible waste of talent.

Observational Selection Bias is when we suddenly start noticing things we didn't notice that much before, and then incorrectly assume that the frequency has increased. An example might be pregnant women suddenly noticing a lot of other pregnant women, or new car buyers suddenly noticing the same car everywhere they look. The likelihood is that there really isn’t any increase in the frequency, but instead the thing has become elevated in our mind and in turn we notice it more often. Trouble is that most people don't recognize this as a selectional bias. Most actually believe these items or events are happening with increased frequency, causing a distinctly disconcerting feeling. Another attribute of this bias is that it contributes to a feeling that this couldn’t be coincidence.

Status-Quo Bias promotes the human tendency to be apprehensive of change and often leads to choices that guarantee things will remain the same or change as little as possible. This has obvious ramifications in everything from politics to economics. Take for instance the difficulties of the 60s experienced by those pushing for racial equality, and the subsequent resistance still evident 50 years later. More recently there are the LGBT issue and continued support for marijuana prohibition.

We like to stick to our routines, our political parties, and even our favorite restaurants. When given the choice between the unknown Bob’s Diner and the familiar Burger King, status quo bias prompts a fearful resistance to the unknown and often prompts the choice of the latter.

The perniciousness of this bias is the unwarranted assumption that another choice will be inferior or make things worse. We know that the Burger King will serve something familiar, even if perhaps not of the highest quality or with the best flavor. Although Bob’s Diner might have far better food, the risk is more than many will take. The status-quo bias can be summed with the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"… an adage that fuels conservative tendencies. And in fact, some commentators say this is why the U.S. hasn't been able to enact universal health care, despite the fact that so many support the idea of reform.

Negativity Bias is the belief that all news is bad news. People tend to pay more attention to bad news… and it's not just because we are morbid. Steven Pinker, in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, argues that crime, violence, war, and other injustices are steadily declining. Recent national crime statistics tend to verify this, yet most people would argue that things are getting worse. An example is the constant drumbeat that the U.S. economy has steadily gotten worse under the current administration, when all reliable data proves this to be untrue.

Social scientists tell us that we perceive negative news as being more important or profound. We also tend to give more credibility to bad news, perhaps because we are suspicious of proclamations to the contrary. In our prehistoric past the heeding bad news may have been more adaptive, but today we run the risk of allowing this bias to inhibit growth. Dwelling on negativity at the expense of genuinely good news tends to cause people to believe that the world is a worse place than it actually is.

Some who voted for the current President are experiencing Post-Purchase Rationalization bias. This occurs following what starts out looking like a good deal, but later seems a bad bargain. The same occurs when we see something in a store and just can’t live without it. We take it home and later find the gee gaw not as valuable as we first thought, causing us to start doubting our decision. We might regret the purchase because of the expense or because it did not perform as expected… but then the bias kicks in and we convince ourselves that it was a smart move regardless of the deficiencies.

This is the mental mechanism that causes us to feel better after we make poor decisions. It provides us with a way to subconsciously justifying our decisions. Psychologists call this the Dissonance Model of Post-Decision Product Evaluation, and describe it as stemming from commitment principle and need to avoid the state of cognitive dissonance.

Neglecting Probability bias stems from irrational fear of low probability threats. An example would be the fear of flying. Almost nobody is afraid of riding in a car, but a measurable demographic refuse to fly out of fear of crashing. Many others suffer elevated stress levels while flying. This in spite of the fact that automobile accidents account for at least 67 times more deaths than air crashes.  Some estimations show the odds to be considerably greater even than this.

Now compare this with the current, rampant fear of terrorist incidents. In the U.S. you are far more likely to die of cancer than by terrorist attack, yet the anti-terrorism budget expends on average a half million dollars per documented victim of terrorism on an annual basis, while the budget for cancer prevention lays out only about $10,000 per victim.

The phenomena represents the human brain’s failure to grasp proper sense of peril and risk. It leads to the overestimation of risk for rare events while underestimating the risks involved with the more familiar yet far more dangerous. This country is currently suffering from an almost hysterical fear of terrorism, even though the odds of choking on your food or becoming accidentally poisoned are far greater. If society wishes to effectively counter the actual dangers we face, we must first put them in perspective.

Gambler's Fallacy or Positive Expectation Bias is perhaps more like a bug in our software than a bias. We inexplicably put tremendous weight in previous experience and let this influence our expectations. Think about flipping a quarter. If one flips heads four or five times in a row we are inclined to believe (and to bet on) the likelihood that the next flip will be tails. As Spock might say, this is illogical. The odds remain the same regardless of previous outcomes. The outcome of each coin flip is statistically independent of previous results, meaning the probability remains 50-50.

The positive expectation is that luck must eventually change and that because of all the previous bad luck it must mean that it is our turn to win. Successful gamblers know this not to be a valid assumption and do not rely on luck. These people have the ability to tabulate previous events, maintain the current odds in their heads and only bet when those odds are favorable. They also have an ability to “read” people, and can be pretty accurate in judging a bluff. This is not luck… it is science.

Further discussion and the conclusion of this thesis will continue tomorrow.

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Flawed Reasoning and Failures in Cognition, part 1

 – Part 1 of 3

The most powerful computer of which we are aware is our own human brain. The ratio may have recently changed with the introduction in Japan of the K computer, but previously it was determined that our brains have the capability of 10¹⁶ processes per second. Powerful our brains may be, but humans are handicapped by a variety of quirks, bugs and self-imposed limitations.

The five-buck calculator sold alongside candy treats and novelties at the discount store checkout has the ability to process math to an exponentially higher degree than the average human brain, and we suffer from a deeply flawed operating system that mishandles memory and is highly susceptible to malware. Our mental data filters and filing systems are screwed up more so than even Microsoft’s “Bob”. We are prone to cognitive biases that frequently produce grossly erroneous assumptions and result in truly questionable decisions. Worst of all is our seeming inability to self-diagnose and correct these errors.

So why is that dime store calculator perhaps superior to our brain, at least in functionality? Unlike the processors in our mechanical counterparts, the human brain is lazy. This laziness is hurting us, resulting in deep political and social divisions. Mental biases make conclusion jumping and stereotyping the norm rather than the exception. As a collective we often engage in highly self-destructive behavior that we justify by repeatedly leaping to false assumptions. Our mental behavior fails the rationality test. We should work on that.

Perhaps a starting point for any correction would be to better understand the areas of the human psyche where aberrant traits reside, followed by subjecting our faulty circuits to critical examination. While most of us lack the education and training to make hardwired changes, we can at least look at the behavior and try to avoid the pitfalls.

We could start by defining and demonstrating the difference between cognitive bias and logical fallacy. Both are easy pitfalls that result in a misunderstanding of the world, but these two are very different from each other. Logical fallacy may be defined as errors in logical argumentation. Although some argumentative fallacy is premeditated, most logical errors result from cognitive laziness. The logical fallacies are well described in textbooks and taught in debate class starting in our high school years. Anyone with even a basic secondary school education is aware of the trap, but for some reason the ability to avoid them appears mostly beyond the capacity of modern man.

Social media is quite revealing when it comes to the demonstration of failures in human logic. Perhaps the most common transgression is the use of ad hominem. Simply put this is when we attack the person rather than the philosophy; the messenger rather than the message. Although certainly not exclusive to political discussion, that element of human endeavor is rife with personal attacks.

There is no better evidence of this than the opposition to President Obama. A rather significant segment of the opposition behaves as if anything this president manages to accomplish takes a back seat to the “fact” that he is a foreigner, or a communist, a Muslim, or socialist… or any number of faux scandals.  The amount of energy, time and money expended on fruitless efforts to prove that Mr. Obama wasn’t born a U.S. citizen has been tremendous and extremely wasteful, both in terms of dollars and in the deep social divisions. The opposition appears not to care about the price and continues to recycle disproven memes on a regular basis.

This line of political attack incorporates both logical fallacy and cognitive bias, with one feeding off of the other. The political right wing is predisposed to dislike the Democratic Party because of deep rooted bias, and vice versa for the left. Directed at the current administration there are all those fear-inducing boogyman words mentioned above; socialist, communist, Muslim and foreigner, but perhaps the real culprit is the cognitive bias. For the demographic that does not like the President, no amount of contrary evidence will alter that bias.

Contrasting logical fallacy with cognitive bias we find something that is more innate and subconscious. The cognitive bias is a genuine deficiency or limitation in our thinking… a flaw in judgment born of errors in memory, social attribution, and mental calculation. Psychologists and social researchers have described our cognitive biases as helping us process information more efficiently, especially in potentially dangerous situations. Perhaps, but they can also lead us into making disastrous mistakes.

While we may be prone to these errors in judgment, we at least can make ourselves aware of the flaw. As you read the following definitions try to relate them to areas of your personal, political and social life. I’ll take a little time to describe my understanding of some of the more general biases and relate them to personal experience.

Confirmation Bias

Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner coined the term “cognitive dissonance”, which is to unconsciously or subconsciously access our mental filing system… selectively searching only for perspectives that feed preexisting views while at the same time ignoring or dismissing any bit of information, regardless of validity, which fails to agree with those views. It is this dissonance that is at the root of the bias.

Confirmation bias promotes an attraction to people who agree with us while allowing us to justify the “un-friending” of those who disagree. It makes us lean toward reading, watching and listening to news and visiting websites with content confirming what we already believe. That this favored source may be omitting contrary data or even fabricating false data is something we will acknowledge only when cornered. Until then we will defend the source and employ the “evidence” in our attacks.

Confirmation bias pushes us to be selective in choosing friends, tending to associate mostly with people who hold similar views and tastes. We find individuals, groups, and news sources that make us feel uncomfortable or insecure about our views to be off-putting.

Taken to the extreme these individuals will refuse to listen to a contrary opinion even when graphically demonstrated, but will make positive yet baseless statements based upon incorrect information absorbed from the agreeable sources. An excellent example would be recent objections voiced against the CSCOPE curriculum tools used in many Texas public schools… both public and private. Texas Senator Dan Patrick (R) (who is running for lieutenant governor in the 2014 elections) has made it his mission to ban the curriculum. Sen. Patrick heard from some of his supporters, religious right-wing activists, that the CSCOPE lesson plans are “Marxist, anti-American and pro-Islamic.” That information is distorted and untruthful as can be seen by accessing the lesson plans (they are in the public domain), but this made no difference, as Sen. Patrick.

Sen. Patrick has his mind made and is not interested in veracity. His only interest is supporting his bias. The proof of this has finally surfaces. After months of stating with authority that the CSCOPE lesson plans are evil and “of the devil”, Sen. Patrick now admits he has never read the lesson plans. This has not changed his mind and Sen. Patrick remains single-mindedly focused on his misguided mission.

The problem with such dramatic bias is that we limit our ability to locate and process new information, often to our own detriment. Humans suffering from this disability are prone to believing that their worldview is correct and tend to accuse others of failure to understand the real truth. Religious apologists and anti-vaccine activists are also representative of this bias.

 There are many subdivisions of confirmation bias. I’ll detail a few of those over the next few days:

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The tea bag rebellion yet to come

From a compilation of views on Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar’s loss to Tea Party favorite, former state Treasurer Richard Mourdock…

"If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington.

He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate.

In effect, what he has promised in this campaign is reflexive votes for a rejectionist orthodoxy and rigid opposition to the actions and proposals of the other party. His answer to the inevitable roadblocks he will encounter in Congress is merely to campaign for more Republicans who embrace the same partisan outlook. He has pledged his support to groups whose prime mission is to cleanse the Republican party of those who stray from orthodoxy as they see it.

This is not conducive to problem solving and governance. And he will find that unless he modifies his approach, he will achieve little as a legislator. Worse, he will help delay solutions that are totally beyond the capacity of partisan majorities to achieve."

Mourdock will have a tough row to hoe. Indiana Democrats are hopeful of gaining that seat by running the fiscally conservative Rep. Joe Donnelly, and they have a very good chance of achieving that goal. Mourdock is rather badly disliked by all but the rabid Palinites of the state. While this element seems to represent a majority of Indiana Republicans, there are large numbers of potential moderate GOP defectors.

Mourdock, in his best myopic zeal, spent $2 million of taxpayer money on a failed lawsuit opposing the Chrysler restructuring plan. Had he prevailed in that lawsuit 124,000 Hoosiers would have lost their jobs. Mourdock voiced opposition to the entire auto industry rescue, which Lugar supported. Without that rescue a total of 140,000 Hoosier jobs could have been lost, not to mention the collateral damage to that state’s economy.

My opinion? Lugar would make a pretty good Blue Dog Democrat.

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Is there a war on job growth?

Welcome to the modern Republican Party.

From the moment Barack Hussein Obama was declared the winner of the 2008 Presidential elections, the GOP has been on the move. Who could forget Mitch McConnell’s reaction to Obama’s success and the petulant assertion that the Republican’s “top priority” over the next four years was about making Obama a “one term President.”

Three years have gone by since McConnell uttered those words and the "Party of No" has held true to the course. GOP actions (and inaction) had until recently stalled the economic recovery. A successful campaign of distortion turned everything bad in the world into Obama’s fault.

The 2010 mid-term elections resulted in a new GOP controlled House and a greatly diminished Senate majority for the Democrats, severely compromising the ability of Congress to move any progressive legislation. The drag on economic recovery would continue.

Truth has always been a bit of a stranger in American politics, but the modern GOP has taken this truism to even greater horizons. The misinformation and dirty tricks machine was successful prior to the mid-term elections.

The oft-repeated mantra was that the bad economy was an entirely Obama creation. Questions were raised about the President’s right to hold office, his patriotism, even his religious faith. GOP resistance was framed as a patriotic mission denying an evil President the pleasure of destroying America.

Following the mid-terms, flaunting their new Congressional prowess, GOPers continued to block efforts to rebuild the economy. But these efforts have ceased working, mainly because some of the programs and policies put in pace prior to the mid-terms were actually resulting in modest job creation. In spite of the best Republican efforts the economy was improving. A GOP change in tactics became necessary.

The new complaint eminating from the GOP is the administration’s “economy busting” “crony capitalism,” and “job killing” green energy agenda. After some great successes in casting the now bankrupt Solyndra as epitomic of President Obama’s energy policies, Republicans now are lambasting what they have dubbed “Obamacars.”

Congressional Republicans and FOX News talking heads targeted the Chevy Volt, made by an auto maker saved from bankruptcy by Obama administration policies. The claim was that the vehicle is a fire hazard and economic boondogle.

Unhappy with these characterizations, the electric car industry is fighting back. Bob Lutz, a UC Berkeley business school graduate who championed the Volt when he was vice chairman at GM, wrote in his blog…

“…the loony right has its jaws sunk into the Volt with all the stupid determination of a terrier who has locked his teeth into the mailman’s butt. And with the same result: painful, but without any useful purpose.”

The same “loony right” has also targeted Tesla Motors, claiming that grants issued to the upstart electric car manufacturer amount to crony capitalism. Tesla received a $465 million Department of Energy loan but has since dropped pursuit of any further federal loans. They are instead raising private cash. The car maker plans in July to start deliveries of its $50,000 S car, claiming it is on its way to the mass car market.

Ricardo Reyes, a spokesman for Tesla, very gently told the GOP exactly what they are full off...

“We applied during the Bush administration, and we were approved under the Obama administration, so as far as we’re concerned, we at least had a bipartisan relationship for the loan...

We got one of first loans and we used it to build the car that is now going into production in a U.S.-based facility…

I’d like to think we’re pretty much a case study on what the loan program was designed to do.”

It is unfortunate that much of this tactic has been successful... and that jobs have been lost because of it. The GOP managed to taint the renewable energy loan program in spite of the fact that this particular program was started by the Bush administration as an effort to wean America off of imported oil. Now, due to character assassination by the right wing, the formerly bipartisan effort is in jeopardy.

GOP tricksters have pulled the wool over an under-informed electorate, but the efforts likely will not kill the electric car. This Republican led campaign of misinformation has General Motors pissed, and theyre doing something about it. GM Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson has complained about the political atmosphere that surrounds the Volt.

“Sometimes I feel bad for President Obama,” he said this month after an appearance at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. “This car was designed and committed to well before he was president, and it’s called the ‘Obamacar.’ It’s not the Obama car. I’m proud and I’m pleased that he thinks highly of it, but it’s all on us. It’s not a political issue.”

The automaker accused Republicans and the right-wing media of hyping claims that the car caught fire during testing.  1,300 jobs were lost at the Volt plant due to GOPer posturing and mischaracterizations, even though there has never been a fire except in one in a controlled testing environment. A battered test vehicle burned hours after a crash test, blamed on test workers neglecting to properly secure the wrecked vehicle.

On March 1 GM opened an unprecedented campaign to re-introduce the Volt in California, the biggest U.S. auto market. Sales are expected to be brisk and the company hopes to re-start manufacturing once inventory levels drop. In spite of the GOP, people will be going back to work.

For the GOP it has never been about job creation, the economy, helping the environment, creating stability in the financial markets, making sure Wall Street never again melts down, jobs, budgets, controlling the debt, or paying off our deficits – that was just smoke and mirrors.

For Republicans it is all about ensuring Obama is a one term President... economy be damned.

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GOPers walk off rather than face reality

It was a cowardly act seen on the House floor yesterday. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) presided over the brief session, and after the Pledge of Allegiance closed the session. Where's that UP or Down vote you GOPers are always calling for now, Mr. Fitzpatrick? Were you afraid that your majority wouldn't hold up if the Democrats actually got the payroll tax holiday extension to the floor?

So, like cowards you abandon your posts and even go so far as to have CSPAN cameras cut off so that We the People wouldn't be able to witness inaction and recognize it for the cowardice it is. The video rolled for about a minute after you and your merry band marched out... long enough to capture this...

"We regret, Mr. Speaker, that you have walked off the platform without addressing the issue of critical importance to this country."

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)

Take care of your rich buddies for sure... but the middle class and working poor? Who needs them? Your attitudes have spawned an entire college of clowns to run for office. The pickings are so "rich" and hanging so low that any fool can successfully run for office... and plenty are.

All I can say is that this country voted them in... perhaps now the under-informed Teaparty supporters will smell the coffee, open their eyes and vote them back out. A class of highschoolers could be counted on to do a better job.

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Why America is no longer exceptional

This is one of the more damning reports I believe I’ve ever read.

“81 percent of seniors from our top fifty-five colleges and universities failed a test of basic U.S. history questions drawn from a national exam designed for high school seniors.  Only 22 percent knew, for example, that the words “government of the people, by the people, for the people” came from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.  If most American youngsters don’t learn about their nation’s history in the K-12 years, they are unlikely ever to learn about it.”

From a History News Network article. Read the whole story HERE.

The sad part about this is we don’t seem to ever learn that putting dogmatists in charge of educational content contributes to the decline of understanding and knowledge. Judging from recent ballot victories, this might be just what the majority of Americans want.

The discussion in this report is about history, but social studies and science are also under dogmatist attack. Witness a recent opinion piece in Forbes, another in the Palm Beach Post, and some of the work coming from the Texas SBOE.

I'm sorry. The people who vote Republican want conservative, but that is not what they are getting. The Republican party long ago married itself to the "social" conservatives, and those now make up the vast majority of the biggoted dogmatists who have floated to the top of the right wingnut cesspool.

I'm all in favor of fiscal conservatism, but that goal will remain unachievable so long as these science deniers and historical revisionists remain in power. Their brand of "conservatism" more resembles the dream of the Taliban than that of the Founders of our nation. 

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Priorities

Teddy Roosevelt was President when he was born, and he joined the Army at age 16 to go to war. None of that matters, as the Republican Congress first denies the final World War One veteran the honor of lying in state in the Capitol rotunda, and then they skip his memorial services at Arlington in favor of defunding NPR. 

President Obama and Vice President Biden were in favor of granting the highest honors to Last Doughboy, and both gentlemen attended the services. Obama stood at the end of the line to show his respect for the last of a generation of American patriots. 

I can find no record of any ranking Republican attending.

I report... you judge.

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H/T Montag

Governor Goodhair sure has Helen stirred up

And well she should be. Every Texan should be stirred up. The crap this Governor has elevated to emergency status is beyond imagination. 

Texas is facing a $27 billion budget shortfall, the balancing of which will inevitably cripple public schools, post secondary education, the ability of nursing homes to care for the elderly, and even of the highway department's ability to repair roads. The first budget proposal calls for cutting 9,600 state jobs, and will undoubtably to the loss of thousands more due to collateral damage to private sector industries and support services.

But this is not an emergency, according to Rick Perry. He just kind of brushes it aside and gives another speech railing against Washington excesses. Goodhair pretends the true emergencies in Texas don't exist, and that he and his wingnut cronies are not responsible for anything.

But what does Goodhair call an emergency deserving of the full and undivided attention of our state legislature? ...a bill requiring every woman seeking an abortion to view a sonogram of the fetus.

Helen does not understand. Texas is crumbling around our ears and Goodhair is only concerned with social issues. Read Helen's commentary HERE first, and be sure to read the comments. There are some doozies. Then read HERE where Helen addresses one of those comments. 

Priceless.

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I'm certainly on board

Washington bipartisan group working to change status quo... moving forward.

No Labels hopes to steer political discussions back to the middle ground.

"It's a noble endeavor, but one whose success is certainly questionable," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "Hyper-partisanship is cooked into American politics at this point. It has developed over the past three decades, and now it's the standard operating procedure for politicians."

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