Entire World Terrified After Senator McCain Calls for Bipartisanship

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) made headlines last week with his dramatic return to the Senate floor after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

One of his first actions while back on Capitol Hill was to cast a decisive vote in favor of starting the formal debate procedure on healthcare reform in the Senate. Ironically, he then proceeded to vote against the healthcare bill that had the best chance of passing and was again decisive in scuttling the Senate’s efforts.

While these McCain votes captured many of the headlines in the US, international observers were focused on a different aspect of McCain’s busy week. Specifically, upon his return to the Senate, McCain took the opportunity to give an impassioned plea for Democratic and Republican lawmakers to come together and collaborate on new legislation.*

One policy analyst based in North Africa spoke to The Daily Face Palm about why foreigners were so concerned. The analyst requested anonymity for fear of being targeted by a US defensive assassination strike.

“Bipartisanship in the US often results in bad domestic policy for Americans, but it always results in catastrophic foreign policy for the rest of us,” the analyst explained, citing the US approach to Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Yemen, and somehow still Afghanistan, among others as evidence for his fears.

The concerns were shared by regular civilians on the ground as well.

“We know how this ends,” confided one Iraqi villager, who said he is still trying to rebuild after America’s last round of across-the-aisle deal making.

Meanwhile, a Yemeni man had managed to find a small silver lining in America’s enduring interventions in that country, but shared a broadly pessimistic outlook on the idea of more cooperation in Washington, DC.

“The [drone war] has gotten the children to enjoy going outside even when it’s cloudy or rainy, since they know it’s less likely that a hellfire missile will interrupt a soccer game in those conditions,” the man told The Daily Face Palm. “But we’ve just started getting used to the cluster munitions. Who knows what indiscriminate weapon the Democrats and Republicans will agree on sending the Saudis next?”

At the time of publication, there were already strong signs that these foreigners’ concerns were well-founded. Near the end of last week, the Senate voted 98-2 in favor of new economic sanctions on a smorgasbord of countries on the DC wish list.

*This is a satirical post. While the news about Senator McCain’s actions and the sanctions vote are all accurately described, the quotes ascribed to foreign observers are fictional.

After Voting Against Sanctions, Sanders Reassures Supporters He Doesn’t Have Principles

Bernie Sanders Painting – DonkeyHotey, Flickr

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) came under heavy criticism this week after being one of only two senators to vote against this quarter’s batch of new sanctions against Iran, North Korea, and Russia.*

For example, former Clinton aide Adam Parkhomenko lashed out at Sanders on Twitter: “Feel the Bern? Bernie Sanders voted against Russian sanctions today. 98 Senators voted for Russian sanctions today. Sanders voted the same way anyone with the last name Trump would vote if they were in the Senate. No excuses ― stop making them for him.”

Oddly, Sanders apparently agreed with Parkhomenko that his supporters shouldn’t be making excuses for him. So he decided to make the excuses personally, by reassuring Democrats and progressives that his vote had nothing to do with principle.

“Make no mistake. I did not vote against the sanctions because sanctions have a terrible track record of changing policy or because they often culminate in a military conflict where thousands of innocent people die,” Sanders clarified. “Like you, I still believe that ratcheting up tensions with Russia and North Korea is the right solution, and look, who really cares if some innocent Russians or North Koreans die?”

“But Iran is a different story,” Sanders continued. “This is one of the only foreign policy conflicts that President Obama actually improved. These new sanctions threaten the Iran Deal and Obama’s ill-begotten reputation as an advocate for peace. We must defend both. Thank you.”



*This is a satirical post. While the vote discussed is real and the quote from Parkhomenko is legitimate, Sanders’ statement is embellished a bit. We’d argue the subtext is the same, however. You can read his actual statement here.

Kissinger Calls for Extending Military Service Ban to Cis-gender Americans

Following up on President Trump’s controversial Twitter directive to ban transgender people from serving in the military, Henry Kissinger said the ban didn’t go far enough. The venerable foreign policy expert proposed extending the ban to cis-gender people as well.*

Kissinger assured reporters the move was entirely about maximizing military readiness and had nothing to do with equality or a desire to see fewer Americans die in useless foreign wars.

“Today, America fights a different kind of war, where good and evil are not always set in stone. Sometimes the American interest requires us to fight against Al Qaeda, and sometimes you’ll be funneling manpads to them,” Kissinger noted, referring to powerful shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles often given to the dubious American ally of the moment.

If the US wants to win these wars, Kissinger argued, the American soldier of today must be prepared to deal with this ambiguity.

“So let the non-binaries fight the terrorists,” Kissinger said, using a broad term for people that do not formally identify with either gender.

“They already understand that the world is not black and white, masculine and feminine, human rights-abuser and respectable ally.”



*This is a satirical post. All quotations cited above are fictional.

Progressive Opposes Universal Healthcare After Reading Sarcastic Facebook Comment About Positive and Negative Rights

Sean MacEntee, Flickr

“Healthcare is a human right.”*

It was a common refrain for Senator Bernie Sanders and his progressive supporters during his ill-fated presidential campaign last year. Like his progressive base, Sanders advocates for a single-payer government-run healthcare system as the best way to secure this right.

Seattle resident Ben Foster used to share Sanders’s vision for improving the American healthcare system. But he changed his mind after he encountered a “particularly witty” comment on Facebook mocking the idea of positive rights from his acquaintance Annie Kist.

According to Mr. Foster’s account of the extents, he had just shared an insightful analysis on the healthcare debate from Think Progress, which modestly argued, amongst other things, that healthcare is in fact a basic human right and that Republicans may consume the hearts of the uninsured as a delicacy at private events.

Ms. Kist was one of the first to comment on the post writing:

TFW someone says a positive right exists #amirite lol

Mr. Foster, who had never heard this line of argument, thought she might indeed be “rite” and replied. What followed was a long thread of inquiry and discussion on the libertarian theory of positive and negative rights, a discussion that frequently tested Facebook’s austere 3,000 character limit on individual posts.

Mr. Foster told The DFP that he was surprised that the conversation never degenerated into vicious and pointless cacophony of name-calling and spite that results in one party unfollowing or unfriending the other. “After the first joke in good faith, it evolved into a really productive and civil exchange of ideas,” Foster said, adding that it was “totally worth it” to stay up until 2 AM PST to finish hashing things out.

Social media researchers who spoke to The DFP on the condition of anonymity for no obvious reason, said Mr. Foster was right to be surprised about the productive nature of the discussion. They estimate that this may be only the second documented case of a fruitful political conversation occurring on Facebook among people with different ideological perspectives.

“I used to think my political opponents were greedy monsters that were intent on literally killing poor people so that millionaires could have a small tax break,” Mr. Foster told The DFP, expressing a view similar to that held by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and other leading progressives.

“But now I know some people just view politics primarily through a deontological lens and are trying to uphold consistent principles.”



*This is a satirical post. With the exception of the general slogan attributed to Bernie Sanders, which is real, the remaining quotations and events described are fictional.

New Empirical Evidence from Seattle Changes Minds in Economics

Among economists, the minimum wage is a contentious issue. The two sides of the debate fall largely along ideological lines, and both camps can point to arguments and studies that seem to support their position.*

For the past few years, the debate looked intractable.

But now, new minimum wage evidence out of Seattle is changing minds and is poised to resolve the question once and for all.

One economist who found the new evidence persuasive was Dr. Patricia Matthews, who spoke to The Daily Face Palm about her experience.

“Usually, when I hear about a new minimum study, I just skip straight to the results to see if they conform to my pre-existing views,” Dr. Matthews told The DFP. She added that this is really the surest way to know whether to praise the researchers for their hard work or raise pedantic objections on their methodology.

But she took a different approach to the new Seattle studies. Echoing the views of many other economists that have spoken publicly on the new results, Dr. Matthews said she was growing bored of the minimum wage debate.

“Look, I know the demand curve slopes downward, and I know Card and Krueger like the back of my hand. Metaphorically shouting those arguments back and forth was fun for awhile, but I was ready to move on,” Matthews said.

These sentiments have many economists looking at Seattle’s minimum wage studies with fresh eyes, and it could finally bring about an economic consensus on the minimum wage.

At press time, the Austrian School of economics was reportedly rethinking its emphasis on praxeology due to the widespread success of empirical studies informing and settling economic questions in Seattle and elsewhere.



*This is a satirical post. The quotations above and the individual quoted are fictional.

Lockheed Exec: Dysfunctional F-35 Perfect for Today’s Foreign Policy Needs

Hardly a month goes by without news of some preposterous new malfunction on the well-known F-35 fighter jet manufactured by Lockheed Martin.*

Critics often point to these episodes as clear evidence that the plane is a colossal waste of money and an abject failure.

But within the company, the program has a much better reputation. Internally, the F-35 is regarded as one of Lockheed’s greatest achievements in terms of marketing, engineering, and even ethics. Lockheed insiders view the F-35 as a revolutionary product, a weapon finally suited for the uniquely small foreign policy challenges of the 21st century.

To understand this disconnect, one must look to the context in which the F-35 emerged. A close reading of the history suggests the program is not the boondoggle as critics suggest, but rather a figurative coups.

For years, Lockheed Martin has been the world leader in weapons sales, racking up billions of dollars in revenue each year. The company seems to have mastered the complicated mix of engineering and lobbying required to succeed in the industry, and the shareholders have enjoyed the benefits.

But behind the soaring stock price and consistent year-over-year results, company executives realized there were significant human costs of their success. The problem was their weapons worked, perhaps too well–against combatants and civilians alike.

When the US military inevitably killed civilians or occupied a country aided by Lockheed’s technology, far more people would turn against the US and plot attacks against US citizens. The phenomenon is well-known in defense and intelligence circles as “blowback”. One famous US general also described it as “insurgent math”, where each incident of collateral damage creates far more terrorists than were killed in the initial strike–creating a self-perpetuating and futile cycle.

This process was good for business by establishing an inexhaustible source of demand for weapons. But it also jeopardized American lives. For many at the company, this was a bridge too far.

“We just wanted to profit off the US taxpayer by selling the government weapons it didn’t need,” one anonymous Lockheed executive told The Daily Face Palm, adding that he was trying to make a dishonest living like anyone else. “But we didn’t want to get our fellow Americans killed.”

This created a dilemma for the leadership of Lockheed. On the one hand, most of their business model relied on government weapons contracts; their shareholders and employees were counting on them to remain profitable. On the other, it was increasingly obvious that their products were having the opposite of the intended effect–they were not making Americans safer.

Due to its large size and specialization, the company could not realistically change direction and get out of the defense business altogether. Such a drastic move would have caused job losses in every single congressional district in the United States.

Instead, the company began to brainstorm ways it could retain its defense contract profits while limiting civilian casualties.

One of the first ideas proposed was the idea of “surgical strikes” and “smart bombs”. However, these were soon dismissed as simple “marketing BS” according to the Lockheed executive, who participated in the discussions. “Turns out foreign civilians don’t care if their family members were mistakenly killed by a smart bomb or a dumb one.”

But eventually, the discussions produced a breakthrough. Lockheed’s leadership realized that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, “the US doesn’t have any real enemies anymore. So why does it need real weapons?”

This epiphany ultimately shaped the F-35 program as a compromise between Lockheed’s desire to retain corporate welfare and its goal not to endanger Americans.

To all outside appearances, the F-35 looked like any other major weapons program–huge price tag, cost overruns, delays, massive profits, some sick fonts, etc. But there was one key difference–it was completely impotent.

“The program truly is a model for the future,” the executive told the DFP. “The F-35 couldn’t kill civilians even if it wanted to. Hell, some days it can barely fly.”

“That means Americans are safe, and so is our bottom line. What’s not to like?”



*This is a satirical post. The quotes and sources cited above are fictional, but we’d like to assume they are more or less reflective of reality.

Haley: US Willing to Fight to the Last Korean

Speaking to reporters in New York, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley weighed in on the North Korean crisis. As the leader of the world’s only indispensable nation, President Trump has some “hard choices” to make in the coming days, Haley said.*

“The American people do not always understand why the US is involved in conflicts as remote as North Korea. Some voters wonder, ‘How is this our problem? Why don’t we let the people in the region sort it out?'”

“But,” Haley continued, “the US must remain engaged. The rest of the world looks to the United States–and especially to President Trump–for leadership. And sometimes that means we have to make sacrifices for the greater good and to protect our allies.”

Critics of military intervention argue that it would cost tens of thousands of lives in North Korea and in South Korea as well. South Korea’s densely populated capital of Seoul is near the border and within the range of North Korean artillery.

Ambassador Haley did not find these objections persuasive, however.

If Kim Jong Un continues his pursuit of a deliverable nuclear weapon, Haley said President Trump is prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. “The US is willing to fight to the last South Korean.”


*This is a satirical post. Hat tip to Scott Horton for aptly summarizing the US position on North Korea and inspiring this piece.

Why 10-Year Budget Projections Are Worse Than Useless

In recent months, we have seen a string of shocking headline figures based on 10-year budget projections.

For example, when the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA) bill got scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we learned that 23 million fewer people would be insured, but that it would reduce the deficit by $119 billion. When Trump proposed his initial budget, Bloomberg said the plan included $3.6 trillion in budget cuts.

These numbers sound enormous. It’s estimated that there are 325 million total in the US, so the 23 million people would represent 7% of the entire current population. Likewise, total expenditures of the US government in FY 2016 came to $3.9 trillion. In the normal meaning of language, a $3.6 trillion budget cut would suggest that Trump was planning to eliminate nearly the entire federal government.

But of course, that’s not what he actually proposed–in fact, on net, Trump didn’t propose cutting the budget at all. His plan called for a 16 percent increase in the budget through 2020.

And the CBO analysis didn’t say the AHCA would cut the deficit or health insurance immediately. Rather, their analysis found that 10 years from now, the plan would result in 23 million fewer people having insurance and the cumulative deficit over 10 years, would be reduced by $119 billion relative to current law. That is, on average, the annual decrease to the deficit would be a mere $12 billion due to the AHCA.

This type of long-term analysis and language is commonplace in US national politics, but it achieves no useful outcome. It confuses far more than it clarifies. It does not provide accurate estimates of long-term results. It does not improve the average voter’s understanding of policy effects. And it gives politicians a means to claim they are being fiscally responsible without actually exercising any prudence whatsoever.

Missing the Mark

When the president prepares a budget plan, there should be little pretense about accuracy. It is fundamentally a political document prepared by the Executive Branch, and we should not be surprised if reality turns out somewhat less rosy than the future foreseen by the president’s sales pitch.

But when long-term projections are provided by the CBO, the figures are supposed to be much more credible. Indeed, in the media, the Congressional Budget Office is almost always described as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, giving it an air of authority.

The problem is that the CBO estimates have proven to be consistently wrong as well. And in general, the CBO has been wrong in the same direction–it overstates economic growth, underestimates government outlays, and underestimates the effects of economic incentives. The net result is that the CBO projects lower debt and lower deficits than actually end up occurring.

Meanwhile, when it comes to healthcare, the Congressional Budget Office underestimated the job declines that would be produced by changing economic incentives, and it substantially overestimated how many people would gain healthcare coverage by about 11 million. Again, the bias points in the same unhelpful direction–the CBO underestimates the costs of government intervention and overestimates the benefits.

This bias is concerning, but it’s not really the main problem. The problem is that the CBO has been given an impossible task of projecting the performance of a massively complex economy over a very long time period. Even with the very best economists, that would not turn out well.

A Logical Contradiction
The CBO’s already herculean undertaking is made more difficult by the fact that they must make their projections as if current law will not change.

This is the logical and only conceivable assumption for them to make. (Clearly, they can’t conjure into existence entirely new policies for the purpose of their analysis.)

Yet, at the same time, this assumption is plainly absurd. In virtually every election cycle, politicians campaign on bringing new changes to Washington. Even incumbents run on making change, and national elections of some magnitude occur every two years.

So the CBO has to assume the law won’t change for ten years, even as most of the politicians that make the laws risk changing in two years–and all of them advocate for changes of one stripe or another while in office.

This combination is not going to produce an informative result.

Instead, the time horizon for analysis should take the US political cycle into account. Looking beyond one or two years is a fool’s errand.

Budget Cuts “Tomorrow”

Some bars have a sign in them that says “Free beer tomorrow”. The sign is always up and never changes. There will always be free beer tomorrow, but alas, tomorrow never comes.

Something similar happens with these 10-year budget projections. Congress has a knack for starting any proposed cuts in the later years, while letting spending run wild in the immediate future.

Since the headlines are often based on the full 10-year run, it doesn’t superficially matter when the cuts occur. A $200 billion cut in year 7 would look the same as a $200 billion cut in year 1 in much of the reporting. However, a $200 billion cut in year 1 has real world consequences that a $200 billion cut in year 7 does not–maybe taking away the money from a powerful special interests, maybe eliminating programs, etc. Even if these cuts are good policy, they will encounter resistance, and the resistance will be much stronger if the cut happens in the near term rather than in the hypothetical future.

The focus on 10-year projections thus gives politicians a way to have their cake and eat it too. In any given bill or budget, they can continue spending at current levels and rates of increase for next couple years–thereby avoiding hard decisions and difficult political fights. And then they can put the “draconian” cuts in the out years. Over the full 10-year cycle, they can claim to balance the budget or reduce the deficit and pretend to be fiscally responsible.

But in reality, they’ve done nothing at all. And when it comes time to implement the hard cuts needed, well, it will be time for a new bill and a new 10-year analysis. Rinse. Repeat.

In fact, this is the tack taken in the ostensibly fiscally conservative AHCA bill passed by the House. Above we noted that the bill will cut (merely) $119 billion from the cumulative deficit over 10 years. However, the deficit reduction doesn’t even start until 2021–or year 4 (see page 35). Before that time, the bill would actually increase the deficit over baseline estimates.

This approach should not come as a surprise. The focus on 10-year projections helps Congress avoid making hard choices. Instead of encouraging long-term fiscal discipline, it just distracts us from the reckless decisions being made in the here and now.

If Congress had a sign like the neighborhood bar, it might say “Balanced budget in Year 7”. But alas, Year 7 never comes.