GOP political experiments

The whole idea of experiments is that they allow you to see if things work they way you think they do. Generally this means TPP is growing plants under different conditions to factor their various needs.  Seldom do you get experiments in politics. It took decades to discover that Reagan's trickle down economics doesn't work; the data are clear now, but still the idea persists. Money doesn't trickle down; the rich just get richer.  Now the whole idea of cutting budgets to bring back prosperity is a very popular at the state level. So Michigan, how's it all working for you?  Well, not so good really, and our democratic process seems to have been trashed out in the process.  And who is it that ended up running things?  Oh, somebody you never even got to vote for.  So now what? Then there's the Kansas experiment.  Imagine if the GOP had control of the legislature and the governor's office, why then the state could be put right, or so the argument went. So Kansas, how's it all working for you?  Not so good, but then why did your re-elect Brownback?  And now, even though things aren't going so hot fiscally, a pretty obvious result of disastrous policies, Brownback doubles down, keeps doing the same thing, while hoping for a different outcome!  In some places that's considered crazy.  Well, there it is.  GOP ideas just don't work and GOP governors and legislatures have proven it. Thanks. It was a great public service. Hope people learn something, although of late the other party hasn't had any great ideas either especially here in Lincolnland. Maybe things will have to break really badly before some new ideas come forward. 

Election politics in Lincolnland

As the election season heats up here in Lincolnland, citizens are getting the old GnOPe Rauner-round, promises bereft of any plans or details, as if the how such things will be done were unimportant. Now where is it written that somebody who has made a lot of money in business (He’s rich. Get over it.)  knows anything at all about how to run a government?  These local Trumpettes (There is also Overwhite, the milk magnate.) do have better hair, but apparently no realization that a state government doesn’t work anything at all like their businesses, although the state government can and may go bankrupt, and that’s something they have probably experienced.  Please wait until TPP manages to extract his retirement funds from the state’s coffers before doing anything rash. (Yes, the fight with the retirement bureaucracy continues.)  One recent Rauner-round promise was to improve the administrative efficiency of state universities. Now this is something that TPP knows quite a bit about, and it’s a double whammy, a rich businessman who wants to be a politician who wants to tell educational professionals how to run a university.  Sure.  It’s bad enough when professional politicians try to run universities, let alone an amateur politician.  What happens when administration is made more efficient, i.e., smaller, is that the necessary functions performed by said administrators get pushed off onto faculty as if they had nothing else to do. Been there, done that. TPP has no love of university administrators, but he doesn’t want their job as part of his. Most of the Rauner-round is standard GnOPe sound bites, almost, but not quite as tired, but every bit as defunct as trickle-down economics. Voters let the GnOPe try all of this out in Kansas, their noble experiment, and the data is now in and everyone can see just how well it all worked. In case you didn’t know, it failed miserably.  (“Far from giving Kansas a bright new future, Brownback plunged it into chaos.”  Details at 11.) No question Lincolnland is a poorly run state, but at times you have to consider carefully the alternative, and with the realization that things actually can get worse, TPP will just have to hold his nose, and vote for the incumbent; if you don’t you just may get the change you asked for, just not the change you wanted.  Or you could move to Kansas and just try it out for awhile.

Tired of evolution? Move to Kansas!

The Onion reports that in response to a public referendum Kansas has outlawed evolution. Bacteria will be prevented from mutating, but trying to prevent crossing over and independent assortment during meiosis will be really difficult, unless you just outlaw sex altogether since its purpose is to produce genetic variation among offspring. Of course under no circumstances will either natural or artificial selection be practiced. "Although the full impact of the new law will likely not be felt for approximately 10 million years, most Kansans say they are relieved that the ban went into effect this week, claiming that evolution may have gone too far already."
This was really good, but it would have been a bit more believable had it been Oklahoma rather than Kansas.