Like Stealing ACORN From A Blind Pig...

Whether you were playing hooky because of the unseasonably warm weather, or maybe just busy getting your holiday preparations together, you may have missed Gallup's semi-annual version of the 'Naughty and Nice' list that was released on Monday. Gallup's 'honesty survey', released every year about this time, tracks which professions Americans think are the most honest and ethical, and which ones are considered... well, dirty.

It should be no surprise to anyone that nurses and police officers came off squeaky clean near the top of the list. Wallowing near the bottom of the list were used car salesman - right next to "Members of Congress." Only ten percent of Americans trust Congresspersons to any degree these days.

To say those results surprised us would be a lie. National politics in the U.S. this year went far beyond mere mudslinging. We'd compare it to two well-dressed individuals rolling around in a hog lot - except we feel we'd be insulting the cleanliness of the pig.

The more important survey, released on Tuesday, came from the firm Public Policy Polling. They surveyed Republicans in the wake of the 2012 election and found that "49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama."

Considering 52% of Americans thought the same thing in 2008, that finding might not be seem so bad − except that ACORN, the community organizing group for low-income Americans, has been dead and gone for over two years, after being driven out of business by right-wing extremists.

Those right-wing extremists are part of the closed epistemic right-wing world, consisting of stations like Fox "News", right-wing talk radio, and fanatical right-wing websites. For years, these propagandists have told their viewers and listeners that they have all the answers, while everyone else in the media is just lying.

Sadly, as we've warned many times before, the damage they've been doing to America isn't just to fill your crazy uncle's head with half-truths and outright fabrications.

Do you have a position on the Panetta-Burns deficit reduction plan? According to another PPP poll, one-fourth of America has a position on Panetta-Burns right now, which is amazing to us, since there is no Panetta-Burns plan. Zero. Nada. Doesn't exist.

Over at respected Wall Street magazine Business Insider, another poll was conducted to ask Americans what they think will happen to the deficit if we go over the mythical fiscal cliff. Forty-seven percent of Americans insisted that the deficit would increase if we go over the cliff - which may have surprised the experts, like the CBO and professional economists. They all know that if we go over the metaphorical fiscal cliff, the U.S. national deficit will go down.

Then again, the professionals - who actually understand the fiscal cliff - may not be surprised at all, considering how many Americans think our nation is headed for a literal precipice with all the discussion of a fiscal cliff.

This is why we continue to harp about the desperate need for standards and practices in the national media, even while some of our best known media institutions are gutting their staff as they bow to the whims of Wall Street.

It's easy for organizations like Fox, and the blowhards on right-wing radio, to keep telling lies to Americans and convincing them those lies are true - while hiding the all-too-disturbing truth.

What's difficult is thinking that the opinion of who is trustworthy in America has real value anymore - especially when the people determining public trust also believe in zombie community organizing groups and have real positions on fake deficit plans.

Drawing The Line

There are times we look at what's going on in our national political debate, and have to wonder if the bigger picture hasn't been drawn by the ghost of Chuck Jones. After all, it's a strangely accurate coincidence that the ongoing fiscal slope debate in Washington, DC appears more like an old Looney Toons cartoon every day.

In case you missed the latest episodes in this ongoing farce, late on Monday, Republican Speaker John Boehner finally offered a joke of a "counterproposal" to President Obama. Not only were there few real details in Boehner's proposal, but what details there were effectively shaped up to be like one of Wile E. Coyote's dreams. In Boehner's 'crafty' plan, the President and Democrats - as the Roadrunner - would give Republicans everything they want, falling right into Boehner's carefully laid trap. In reality, the White House sidestepped Mr. Boehner's idiotic "plan", just like the Roadrunner would have.

Put another way, as Steven Benen notes, "This isn't a "counteroffer"; it's a Christmas wish list written by kids without access to calculators."

Not to be swayed by their rediculous failed 'counterproposal', Congressional Republicans appear to have gone back to the drawing board, and created an alternate plan, where they'll attempt to draw the deadline for the fiscal cliff right off the end of the legislative calendar - like Wile E. Coyote trying to run into the painted tunnel.

Someone should really check Bohener's office and the pockets of Congressional Republicans for receipts from Acme.

The simple fact is that Congressional Republicans still mistakenly think they have some kind of significant leverage in the debt and budget negotiations going on right now. President Obama and Congressional Democrats know; on this issue, the Republicans have virtually no power right now.

If no agreement on the fiscal cliff is made, Democrats get what they want, as tax rates will go back up to Clinton-era levels, when the economy was doing well for everyone. Democrats will then offer their own tax cut for everyone except the rich, just after the first of the year. It will be a Democratic tax cut, however, with the name Obama emblazoned across the top - something Republicans will be loathe to vote for.

The Republicans’ alternate backup plan as we noted above, is to only pass the bare minimum on the fiscal cliff: a tax cut for the middle class, with no tax rate increase for the rich, no closing loopholes, nothing on unemployment, and no extension of the debt ceiling. Yet, as Timothy Geithner told Speaker Boehner last week, and as the White House reiterated today, without tax rate increases on the rich, there will be no deal. Period. So Republicans won't get what they want that way either.

In fact, when the debt ceiling needs to be renegotiated in January or February, Democrats will vote to raise the ceiling, as both sides have without argument for most of our history as a nation. If Republicans balk and cause problems, like they did in 2011, Republicans alone will be held to blame for any economic downturn caused by their political temper tantrum. So refusing to be responsible legislators will only hurt Republicans, politically, in the end.

For Congressional Democrats, all they have to do is wait for Congressional Republicans' next cockamamie idea to blow up and fail, like the latest "genius" idea from Acme. Then Democrats can stick out their tongues, give the Republicans a raspberry, and speed away back to their normal lives.

You know, the more we discuss the topic, the more we realize the fiscal slope debate is exactly like an old Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon.

We recommend you watch out for falling Republicans.

A Time To Choose

It happens more often than most sports fans realize, the confluence of sports and elements like politics and ethics. For sports fans of many kinds - and especially for football fans - the events of this past weekend should have made it crystal clear that sports, like nearly every other part of life, collides with politics and ethics all the time.

For NFL fans, that realization began with the murder of Kasandra Perkins, mother of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Javon Belcher's three-month-old daughter, at Belcher's own hand. That was followed by Belcher's suicide, committed in front of his head coach and general manager. It was capped by the Chiefs playing an NFL game that should not have been played for a whole host of reasons. Yet Chiefs players and coaches unanimously voted to go ahead with the game as scheduled, winning only their second game of the year in Belcher's memory, in what has been an otherwise dismal season.

For University of Nebraska Cornhusker fans, the terrible weekend began with the inexcusable meltdown of their football team in the Big 10 Championship game, a collapse of the kind that made many in Husker Nation begin to think some seriously violent and nasty thoughts. That implosion of the now twenty-third ranked Huskers was followed by an invitation to the Capital One Bowl, to be paired against the sixth-ranked Georgia Bulldogs.

Welcome to "sports" in America, in 2012.

Both Sunday's Chiefs game and the upcoming bowl game for the Huskers are embarrassing examples of why the attitude that 'sports always sets a good example for our kids' is sadly no longer the truth.

As Dave Zirin of The Nation magazine made clear, the pretense Chiefs' and NFL officials claimed - that going ahead with the game on Sunday was a good and maybe even healthy idea - can be completely disproven by years of science and player experience. Both factors say that when NFL players play a game while distracted, they are much more prone to dangerous and severe injuries. There is little that could be more distracting to an NFL player than knowing your friend and teammate killed himself yesterday, in front of your head coach, after murdering his girlfriend.

As for Nebraska, our own staff members have experience with the politics of bowl games and college football.

There are many who have called for Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini to be fired for "only" achieving a 10-3 season, after the disastrous Big 10 Championship meltdown. That would be exactly the wrong thing to do. If Nebraska were to fire Pelini now, with a new Athletic Director coming in, the message it would send is that Nebraska will ONLY accept all winning, all the time.

Not only is that an unrealistic goal - it's one that has a serious cost, beyond dollars, that we highly doubt Nebraska fans are willing to pay.

We've seen the price of that kind of 'winn at all costs' attitude over the last two years in the football programs of both Ohio State and Penn State. If your ONLY goal is about winning college football games, things like educating your students, respecting the law, and respecting the game become liabilities.

Big 10 officials also could have worked behind the scenes to help Nebraska secure a more fair and just bowl game. Instead, school officials will subject a team that achieved a 10-3 season to a likely slaughter by Georgia, in exchange for a very big financial payout - in part because the money is obviously more important than the players, or the fans. We have to wonder if some part of the bowl assignment against Goergia is punishment because neither the Husker players or the coaches could be perfect - which is sadly what is expected these days.

Neither the example of the Chiefs, the example of fairweather Husker fans, or the example of Big 10 executives is any kind of lesson to teach children.

It's time we, as fans, choose to put our mouths and our dollars behind what we really believe. Do we believe in the players as people, as fellow human beings, with all the failures and flaws we each have? Do we accept that humans are more important than money?

Or will we continue to expect machine-like performance and perfection - and punish those who are unable to live up to those unrealistic expectations?