Category: politics
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I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize
I am stunned. Although I spent the last week cautioning people from assuming a Clinton victory, although I told myself it’s never over until the ballots are cast, I realize now that I never actually entertained the possibility of a Trump victory. I had too much faith in the basic decency of the American people,…
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In which Dinesh D’Souza proves he doesn’t know the difference between past tense and present tense.
(written in response to an insipid Facebook post by the — thankfully — inimitable Dinesh D’Souza, showing the idiotic comic copied above) “Is” is not the same as “was”. But, hey, what would you expect from a hack? I think it’s actually hilarious that defenders of the modern GOP think they can win…
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Three thoughts on the FBI’s bite at the Apple
I had three thoughts after reading about the brewing conflict between Apple and the FBI.
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“Morning” After Blues?
I had the same thought as Steve Bennen when he penned A generation later, Rubio flubs ‘Morning in America’: Maybe the whole “morning” metaphor was a little too subtle for Marco Rubio. He’s not pitching Reagan’s message; he’s offering the literal opposite. The point of “Morning in America” was that things had turned a corner and…
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Versailles on the Potomac
{Originally penned 2015 Apr 26 and recently rescued from the Drafts folder} So there have been police confrontations (and possibly even riots) in Baltimore over the past 12 hours, but apparently CNN didn’t feel compelled to cover them. Instead they kept with covering the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where various people, including the President, got to…
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Regarding >> “America has a simple ideology”: how one of Russia’s top US experts tries to explain America – Vox
A couple of observations: What might underlie this Russian perception — which I think is over the top — is something far more threatening to the Russian psyche than the idea that America is scheming and plotting to topple them. Far worse indeed is the truth, which is that since the end of the Cold…
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On riots, protests, and the legitimacy of violence (short)
For everyone who has counseled the citizens of Baltimore (and Ferguson and…) that “violence is not the answer” and that it would be better if everyone just protested peacefully: 1) As has now been documented extensively, the protests were by and large peaceful — and even more by and large, ignored by the national media.…
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re: Sexism in science: Peer editor tells female researchers their study needs a male author – The Washington Post
Apparently the study was so flawed that only a man could fix it. Just ’cause, you know, it isn’t science without at least a trace amount of testosterone spilled on it. Or — and this seems more likely to me — the editor is himself hard up for papers with his name on them, and…
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Regarding “Huckabee: The Supreme Court ‘Cannot Overrule God’ On Gay Marriage”
Gov. Huckabee is entirely correct: SCOTUS cannot overrule God. The justices can’t make a gay marriage sanctified. But then, they can’t make a straight marriage sanctified either. It’s really quite simple: To the extend that marriage is a sacrament, the government cannot have an opinion, and the marriage-equality suits do not speak to this. To…
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Happy Victory over the Confederacy Day
On this day one hundred fifty years ago, a scruffy, scrappy, but determined general accepted the surrender of his well-born, well-dressed, and traitorous counterpart, effectively ending a vast sedition launched in the name of slavery, orchestrated by cowardly politicians, and fought — like most wars are — by poor men dying at the behest of…