The comics tell the truth- right-wing idiots keep getting hired

With the hiring of Larry Kudlow as a top economic advisor- a coke-addicted hedge funder in the '80s and early 90s, and someone who has been wrong about the US economy pretty much ever since - the Trump Administration is continuing a fine right-wing tradition of the 21st Century. And that is hiring shameless incompetents who keep getting promoted despite their failures.

The Daily Show's Trevor Noah pointed out Kudlow's foolishness on Thursday's episode of The Daily Show.

I particularly love the scene where Kudlow interrupts Paul Krugman in 2005 to insist there was no housing bubble and that there would be no problems in the economy if rising prices and employment ever ended. As UW's Menzie Chinn noted last week, Larry was WAY off on the housing market, and on his pooh-poohing of the looming economic collapse in late 2007.



Noah's segment on Kudlow reminded me of one of my favorite Daily Show segments of the Jon Stewart era. It took place 9 years ago last week, as the DOW Jones Industrial Average was bottoming out below 6,500 during the Great Recession that Kudlow failed to foresee (it has nearly quadrupled in the 9 years since). And Jon noted how many of Kudlow's fellow CNBC personalities failed to see the crisis coming (possibly because their interests told them to look the other way), and then blamed the wrong people once the crisis began.

Also noteworthy is that Jon began the segment discussing the "Rick Santelli rant", where Santelli went on the air blaming low-income "loser" homeowners for not being able to pay their mortgages - a situation we later found out was often due to banks fraudulently filling out mortgage applications and giving out sizable loans to homeowners that they had no business doing.

Oh, and have we mentioned that it later came out that Santelli was basically fronting for the Koch Brothers to try to keep banks and other businesses from being further regulated, and because of concerns of "major deficit and debt increases" (remember when Republicans cared about these things?). The next year, Citizens United came out, and our country's politics have been tainted by Koched-up crap ever since. And Scam-telli never lost his job nor did he ever have to apologize for being a fraud.

And Saturday Night Live got into the act this week, with Kate McKinnon going on "Weekend Update", and doing an impersonation of Education Secretary (and major WisGOP donor) Betsy DeVos that was both spot-on and cutting.

"I think [I am protested] because I do not do a good job. And I can't, because I don't know how."

"I may not be very good on camera, but behind the scenes, my ideas are much worse."

The comparisons to McKinnon's DeVos and Tina Fey's Sarah Palin are merely coincidental.

What's most frustrating about this Banana Republicanism is the lack of accountability for these right-wing dimwits. People like Kudlow and Scam-telli and DeVos should have been laughed out of any position of influence years ago. But because there is a seemingly unlimited amount of money and Koched-up stink tanks willing to give this discredited garbage a forum, they somehow keep getting seats at a table that they do not belong in.

They need to be booted out of the adults' room once and for all, and kept out for a LONG time.