Content tagged with “politics”

There are 121 item(s) tagged with “politics” on this site.

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100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
September 8, 2024
Words
814

“This book is pretty funny. I have to ask why it even exists. Actually, I don’t have to ask that; it exists because people love a hero. They love someone to fight their battles and attack people they don’t like in their stead. What’s interesting is that this book was published in 2005. I’d like to…”

Agitprop
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
December 16, 2024
Words
111

“This is a portmanteau of the words ‘agitation’ and ‘propaganda.’ Historically, it has been used for propoganda in support of communism. I couldn’t find a definition that made it clear what the difference was between it and ‘regular’ propoganda. The only thing is that the ‘agit’ part of it tends…”

All Politics Is Local
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
September 8, 2021
Words
95

“An idiom that describes the reality of staying in political office. Most politicians (especially those in Congress) are elected by a comparatively small geographic area, no matter how large their responsibilities become when in office. This means that they have to keep the voters from their…”

Anarchism
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
January 18, 2025
Words
807

“Anarchism rejects any type of hierarchical government or authority. It believes in ‘free association,’ which means humans coming together voluntarily to solve problems, rather than being forced by the state. I’ve always wondered how someone committed to anarchy would create a society, since…”

Apparatchik
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
November 29, 2021
Words
157

“This has its basis in Russian, where it was used to refer to a devoted member of the Communist Party. The party itself was referred to as ‘apparat,’ meaning something along the lines of ‘The Communist Machine.’ Today, it’s used to refer to anyone who is a blind or devoted follower of some…”

Bebe Rebozo
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
October 16, 2022
Words
162

“Bebe Rebozo was a close friend, confidante, and adviser of Richard Nixon. ‘Bebe’ was a nickname – it’s Spanish for ‘baby’ as he was the youngest of 12 in a Cuban family. Rebozo was often suspected of criminal activity, but nothing was ever proven, other than a minor tax penalty. Rebozo was also…”

Blackshirts
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Words
190

“In the context I decided to investigate, it refers to the starting defense of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. To differentiate players during practices in the 1960s, the Nebraska coach put his defenders in black jerseys, and the name stuck. When Nebraska keeps opponents to a low score, it…”

Blue Laws
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
November 22, 2021
Words
171

“Blue laws are regulations that attempt to restrict activities or the sale of specific goods or services for religious reasons. The most common in the United States is the restriction of selling alcohol on Sundays in some municipalities. Rumor has it that the laws were originally printed on blue…”

British Control of India
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Words
134

“The British had been involved India since the 1600s, when the East India Company set up trading operations there to import silk, cotton, and spices. The company slowly took control of large parts of the country through economic means, until they exerted de facto control of India in the mid-1700s….”

Bund
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
April 6, 2024
Words
212

“This is both a common and a proper noun. Commonly, it’s literally German for ‘bunch,’ but also extends to be ‘union’ or ‘group.’ As a proper noun, it’s refer to several different historical groups, both for and against the Nazis. The most prominent of which (for Americans at least) was The German…”

The Byrd Rule
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
August 16, 2010
Words
455

“Why Are the Bush Tax Cuts Expiring in the First Place? : Here’s why Bush’s tax cuts are set to expire – the income tax cuts and the estate tax cuts. If Republicans love their tax cuts so much, why didn’t they enact them for perpetuity? Because they didn’t have enough votes, thanks to an obscure…”

Charity and Personal Responsibility
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 20, 2014
Words
1120

“One of the defining characteristics of your political view is how you think a government should balance charity against personal responsibility. Charity is the government giving aid in the form of social programs for the economically challenged: welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, mortgage debt relief,…”

The Conservative Case for Drug Price Controls?
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
January 24, 2016
Words
316

“Reading a book called Rise of the Robots about the increasing role of automation in our lives. The author takes a bit of a detour in the chapter on health care to discuss how the markets are broken. I’m not sure how related to automation this is, but he makes this interesting point: …every other…”

The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
November 30, 2018
Words
112

“I’m giving this five stars just because it’s so comprehensive, and I applaud the detail of the work. But…it’s a lot. Perhaps read this blog post from Kirk Center: Ten Conservative Principles This is the crux of Kirk’s argument. This book is simply a long historical survey of the basis and…”

The Core Ideological Conflict: Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
October 3, 2016
Words
1239

“At its absolute core, the difference between conservatives and liberals seems to boil down to one thing: liberals believe that society can be fixed by grand architecture, while conservatives believe it can only be fixed by individual action. Call it the difference between ‘top-down’ and…”

The Corrupt Saga of Kwame Kilpatrick
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
May 13, 2009
Words
1150

“I’ve been reading the Wikipedia article about Kwame Kilpatrick , the disgraced mayor of Detroit. I’m honestly wondering if there has been a more blatantly corrupt and dishonest politician in recent history. This guy was just unbelievable. I’ll give you the top level summary of what has been an…”

Dag Hammarskjöld
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
January 28, 2022
Words
112

“He was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, and is considered one of the greatest diplomats in world history. He served from 1953 to his death in 1961. He was killed in a plane crash in Congo. There are conflicting reports of the cause, and it was still being investigated into the…”

Daimyo
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
April 6, 2024
Words
144

“ The literally definition is ‘large land,’ referring to the fact that these Lords were landowners ”

The Death of the Liberal Class
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
December 12, 2021
Words
238

“This is a…polemic. The author is mad. He thinks that ‘the liberal class’ has capitulated to the interests of The Right, corporations, and the military. He never clearly defines ‘the liberal class.’ Or maybe he did and I missed it? I think he just means The Left. If that’s the case, then it’s pretty…”

Defining It
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
October 1, 2014
Words
351

“When I was in my first political science class at Augie , I remember the first paragraph of the text tried to define ‘politics.' It went something like this: Politics is what happens when people are forced to live together. This is true, but the base definition is even deeper. I’m convinced that…”

Démarche
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
October 28, 2021
Words
403

“This is a vague word that generally means a request or statement of position from one government to another. When a government makes a request or a demand of another government, it is in the form of a démarche. (How each country specifically defines that word varies.) From Protocol for the Modern…”

Diplomacy
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
March 7, 2018
Words
89

“I’m giving this five stars for what it should be – it’s the most expansive, authoritative history of diplomacy and foreign relations that may have ever been written. The amount that Kissinger knows is just mind-boggling. There is just so much detail… …and therein lies its weakness. This is a long,…”

Evaluating Externalities
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 8, 2014
Words
1053

“What can get mystifying about politics is that opposing politicians can have such different opinions about political issues. It seems like they can never agree about what to do about a given situation even though both sides are presented with the same facts. A large part of politics is about…”

Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
May 11, 2023
Words
1030

“This is the inside story of The Plame Affair – the revelation that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative, allegedly initiated by the Bush White House because Plame’s husband, Joe Wilson, had been critical of the administration’s reasoning for starting the Iraq War. The most obvious part of this book is…”

The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
May 30, 2021
Words
188

“This is a perfect example of ‘be careful what you wish for…’ I wanted a detailed examination of the federal budget. This book is that thing. I did not like it. The book goes deep into the process of the federal budget – how the different parties argue about it, and the tricks they use to disguise…”

The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
May 27, 2021
Words
304

“Kind of an odd book, but really interesting and entertaining, far beyond the original point. The book starts out as a condemnation of the Trump administration, on a specific point – they didn’t bother to staff important agencies. Lewis paints a portrait of a man who honestly didn’t think he’d win…”

Filibuster
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
December 21, 2021
Words
420

“In politics, a filibuster is when a legislator makes a long speech or takes some other action meant to delay and therefore prevent the adoption of legislation. It’s basically a rules loophole, that lets one person prevent a measure from passing. Here’s a general definition : the use of irregular or…”

Finishing the Story
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
July 30, 2011
Words
379

“I find this really interesting. Bush explains 9/11 classroom reaction Former President George W. Bush says what some people took as his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was actually a conscious decision on his part to project an aura of calm in a crisis….”

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
December 27, 2020
Words
206

“Fantastic book about the history of American colonialism, from the Philippines (which we set free) to Puerto Rico (which today exists in some weird in-between state), to dozens of islands (which we keep for geopolitical reasons). There are untold stories here about how the US never quite figured…”

The Human Connection and the Lack of Corporate Morality
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
October 13, 2014
Words
1563

“I own 25% of Blend Interactive , which is a significant percentage. This chunk of ownership binds me to this company, in the sense that I see the company as a sort of extension of myself in many ways. I’m not a minor owner – I’m a significant part of the day-to-day operations, and my input goes a…”

The Imperfections of Freedom
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
January 14, 2012
Words
362

“I just finished Ron Paul ‘s book Liberty Defined . it’s a collection of essays on ‘50 essential issues that affect our freedom.’ There’s everything from Abortion to Zionism (yes, it’s in alphabetical order), with all sorts of other stuff in between – the CIA, torture, moral hazard, envy, unions,…”

Individual vs. Group Focus
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
May 30, 2012
Words
204

“The Neal Boortz Commencement Speech : This supposed commencement speech by Neal Boortz is incendiary as hell, but I appreciated for articulating a point that I find very true: the difference between a focus on the group and a focus on the individual. Liberals feel that their favored groups, have…”

The Individual vs. The Community
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 7, 2014
Words
570

“Your personal political philosophy is highly influenced by how you view the way individuals relate to their larger community. For example: Conservatives view the individual as the prime mover. The individual is the engine of the economy and the engine of the community as a whole. Liberals view the…”

The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
October 31, 2024
Words
81

“This is a polemic to interoperability. Doctorow explains why manufacturers made their products resistant to repair, resistant to integration, and complicated to change. He explains the business rationale behind it all, and some of the really dirty tricks that companies have used to make it a crime…”

The Joy of Politics: Surviving Cancer, a Campaign, a Pandemic, an Insurrection, and Life’s Other Unexpected Curveballs
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
August 6, 2023
Words
276

“Amy Klobuchar is a Democratic senator from Minnesota. I’ve heard good things about her. She’s pretty conservative for a Democrat (a Kennedy Democrat ?), and several people have told me that she and John Thune (one of my state’s senators) are actually good friends, despite being on opposite sides of…”

Labels and Contexts
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 13, 2014
Words
653

“When discussing labels like ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal,’ it needs to be acknowledged that there are different contexts in which they apply. People can be both conservative and liberal at the same time, about different things. There are three major contexts in which you might apply these labels:…”

The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
December 27, 2022
Words
911

“This is the second of Mark Levin’s books that I’ve read, after Liberty and Tyranny . Levin, of course, is the firebrand right-wing radio show host. He’s considered one of the most aggressive , according to Wikipedia. Like his other book, Levin uses the word ‘Statist’ to describe someone who he…”

Lowering Taxes Does Not Raise Revenue
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 26, 2011
Words
937

“I try to give all political opinions a fair shake, but there is one conservative assertion that just makes me hang my head with embarrassment. This is the assertion that cutting taxes actually increases government revenues. No, it doesn’t. Not at the present rate of taxation, anyway. And now I have…”

Lumpenproletariot
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
February 3, 2025
Words
112

“According to Karl Marx, this is the lowest class. This is the working class – the classic Proletariot – but so ignorant that they’re not even aware of their situation, and don’t care about any class warfare. They have either accepted their fate, or simply aren’t aware that they are being exploited….”

Neoliberalism
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
November 15, 2023
Words
426

“This term has a long historical context, first being used in France in the 1800s. It seems to have switched sides many times, and been flexed and twisted to mean a lot of different things. In contemporary Western politics, it mainly refers to the resurgence of conservative (yes, conservative )…”

Oligarchy vs. Plutocracy
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
August 12, 2023
Words
297

“They’re actually very similar - in both cases, government power is effectively concentrated in a small group, but for different reasons and levels of formality. Plutocracy: This is where government power is held by the wealthy. However, it seems that this is informal – the wealthy are powerful…”

On Moral Hazard
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
October 19, 2019
Words
689

“As I write this, America is embroiled in the Ukrainian impeachment crisis. The claim is that Donald Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for a political favor – he wanted them to investigate Joe Biden’s son, who is (or was) likely to be Trump’s democratic opponent in the 2020…”

On the House: A Washington Memoir
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
December 1, 2022
Words
536

“This is not a sophisticated book. The author rambles. He tells stories. It jumps back and forth between time and scope. Subjects come and go and you never know what he’s going to talk about next. But this is a fun book. Boehner tells a great story. He swears a lot. He’s a good old boy. He’s met a…”

Opposition Party
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
December 30, 2023
Words
560

“This generally means the main political movement that is not in power at any given moment. If Party A is running a country, then Party B is the ‘opposition’ or ‘opposition party.’ I couldn’t find a formal definition for this – most definitions just mentioned vaguer terms like ‘political…”

The (Original) Problems of Haiti
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
January 15, 2010
Words
380

“I’m more than a little amazed that I stumbled on this article. A divided island: the forces working against Haiti: For years, I have wondered about this very question: why has the Dominican Republic done fairly well, while Haiti is a trainwreck, given that they share the same island? Last year I…”

Paris Commune
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
November 18, 2021
Words
146

“This was a communist government that seized control of Paris for two months in 1871. France was concluding the Franco-Prussian War at the time, and the only reason the uprising succeeded is because the army was outside of Paris. In fact, when the war concluded, the army marched back to Paris and…”

The Plight of the Christian Democrat
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 4, 2012
Words
859

“I enjoyed this post and agree with it in large part. Why I am a Beautiful Christian Democrat At some point – the 1964 Republican Convention, say some – the Republican Party established itself as the Christian face of American politics. What followed was a general ostracizing of Christian Democrats,…”

Political Representation Among the Lower Class
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
August 28, 2011
Words
237

“Economic Inequality and Political Representation : Here’s some light reading for the weekend. I examine the differential responsiveness of U.S. senators to the preferences of wealthy, middle-class, and poor constituents. My analysis includes broad summary measures of senators ‘ voting behavior as…”

The Politics of Getting Re-elected
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 14, 2014
Words
2469

“One would hope that politicians always act in ways which they think will directly benefit the country. But, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they do things that actually go against their better judgment. Sometimes they do this in a specific situation, and sometimes they just adopt long-term…”

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
December 7, 2022
Words
323

“This is a book about the start of the pandemic and how public health officers and departments responded to it. It’s sort of a sequel to The Fifth Risk , which was about how the Trump administration failed to staff critical government departments. I didn’t love it, largely because of Lewis’s writing…”

A Promised Land
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
January 15, 2021
Words
221

“You read memoirs for two things: (1) a play-by-play re-telling of history, and (2) some higher truth to it all; some ‘gestalt’ that makes you look at things differently. This book has #1, for sure. Not so much of #2. The book starts with Obama’s childhood (but doesn’t spend a lot of time on it),…”

Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
May 3, 2021
Words
127

“Very short book about the problem of the US federal budget. It’s not balanced, the deficit keeps growing, and so does the debt. The book details the two basic theories of balancing the budget (reduce spending or raise taxes), and a growing number of people who want to do both. It also lays out some…”

Run, Donkey, Run
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
February 24, 2011
Words
424

“A bunch of Democratic senators are on the the run from Wisconsin so they don’t have to vote on what appears to be a union-busting bill sponsored by the governor. According to this CNN article , this isn’t the first time Democrats have done this: The catch-me-if-you-can tactic was pioneered by Texas…”

The Sad State of Political Commentary
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
June 24, 2009
Words
546

“The O’Reilly Procedure : Ebert writes about a pet peeve of mine – political commentators, both on the right and the left. They drive me nuts. Ebert discusses Bill O’Reilly in particular. Understand that Ebert is a self-admitted liberal, but his points hold true for about anyone. I am not interested…”

The Sad Truth About Climate Change
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
September 2, 2010
Words
1352

“(This post is going to make some people hate me. I’m sorry for this in advance.) I’ve come to some peace about climate change. I wasn’t obsessing about it before, but I do think about it quite a bit. The debate rages over the source of climate change – is it something we’re doing, or something…”

Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
May 22, 2024
Words
233

“I bought this because I’m a Jen Psaki fanboy. I was looking for memoir of her time as Joe Biden’s press secretary, but that’s not quite what I got. This is really a self-help title about communicating. Each chapter covers a different theme of how to communicate between people and audiences. Things…”

States’ Rights and the Scope of Government
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 28, 2014
Words
2004

“There’s a constant debate in this country about the appropriate size, scope and strength of government. This debate has raged since all the country was founded and shows no signs of letting up. Conservatives think all forms of government should be smaller in scope. And while Liberals don’t…”

Statutory vs. Effective Tax Rate
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
December 31, 2011
Words
1011

“I’m learning the difference between the statutory tax rate and the effective tax rate. it’s an important distinction. The statutory tax rate is the tax imposed by law (by ‘statute,’ hence the name). This is expressed as some percentage. The effective tax rate is what percentage of our income we…”

The Supreme Court Should Be Blameless
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
June 28, 2010
Words
427

“I get annoyed when people ‘applaud’ the Supreme Court for decisions, or vice-versa. John Thune just did it on Facebook: I applaud the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in McDonald v. Chicago. The decision affirms that Second Amendment protection for individuals’ right to bear arms also extends to…”

Suzerainty
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
October 28, 2021
Words
187

“From Wikipedia : […] a relationship in which one state or other polity controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. The dominant state is called the ‘suzerain’. This seems to be a fairly historical term. There doesn’t…”

Tammany Hall
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
March 22, 2022
Words
311

“This refers to a democratic ‘political machine’ in New York from the late 1700s all the way through the 1960s. It began as something like a fraternal order, and took the name ‘Tammany’ from an Indian chief. The members started to exert political influence shortly thereafter, picking candidates and…”

TARP
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
September 13, 2022
Words
1630

“TARP – the Troubled Asset Relief Program – was the famous ‘$700 billion bailout’ that the U.S. government undertook in 2008 to try and stave off the mortgage crisis. The crisis that led to this program was the basis for the book (and movie) Too Big To Fail . Did the government lose $700 billion?…”

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
September 12, 2010
Words
1283

“This is such a loaded phrase: ‘Tax cuts for the wealthy.’ Every election season, it’s thrown around like a weapon. And it’s never questioned – it’s constantly accepted as patently bad, even downright evil. If any politician had anything anything to do with ‘tax cuts for the wealthy,’ they should be…”

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
June 16, 2023
Words
1219

“Much is made of the title and implied angle of this book, but – to be clear – this is a solid, comprehensive biography of Abraham Lincoln. The purported angle is this: once elected president, Abraham Lincoln appointed his main rivals for the office to important positions in his administration….”

Teapot Dome
Section
Stuff I Looked Up
Type
Explanation
Date
September 8, 2021
Words
196

“This is known mainly as a political scandal. Teapot Rock is an rock formation in Wyoming that (supposedly) resembles a teapot. It sits on top of an oil field that was discovered early in the 20th century and became known as Teapot Dome. The oil field was owned by the government as a Naval oil…”

Them: Why We Hate Each Other - and How to Heal
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
May 23, 2021
Words
130

“Wonderful book that just confirmed what I already knew – political polarization is out of control, and the only way to fix it is from the bottom up. Sasse is a Republican senator from Nebraska. He’s also an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. He wrote this book in 2018, right in the middle of the…”

Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
July 19, 2021
Words
248

“Before he was a news show host, Chris Matthews was chief of staff to Tip O’Neill in the 1980s. During that period, Tip was the most prominent Democrat in the country as Speaker of the House, and he was the constant adversary to President Ronald Reagan. This book chronicles the six years from 1980…”

The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
July 6, 2023
Words
361

“This is a sort of snarky book, but still very well-written. The author is tired of clichés that he believes the political Left has ‘captured,’ but which he believes are simply not true. He spends the book deconstructing them. Some of the clichés the author is upset about (written in the form of…”

The Unbundling of “Marriage”
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
May 12, 2010
Words
1523

“Marriage is a bundle. It is, all at once, a contract, a romance, and a spiritual institution. But I don’t think it’s going to stay this way. Marriage is actually three structures, layered on top of one another. As it’s most basic level, marriage is a contract . When you get married, you are…”

The U.S. Economy is Complex and Slow-Moving
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
September 27, 2014
Words
832

“I saw two animated statistical graphics recently that reinforced and sharpened a belief that I’ve had lurking in my head for years. Links to the graphics are below (I would embed, but they’d both be useless unless full-size): Percentage of adults with less than a high school diploma (1970-2012)…”

What It Means to Be a Democrat
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
December 8, 2019
Words
108

“So, this is a tough book to evaluate. It’s a…polemic? …manifesto? written by George McGovern toward the end of his life. Each chapter discusses an area of national concern (wars, education hunger, addiction, etc.), and McGovern explains his position (which is presumably the Democratic party line)….”

Which political party is the “Christian party”?
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
December 23, 2010
Words
465

“This is a really interesting point in a really interesting article. Over the last few decades (and someone would say since the 60s), the Republican party has become the ‘Christian’ party in politics. Walking Away From Church During the 1980s, the public face of American religion turned sharply…”

Why 51% Shouldn’t Be Enough
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
March 21, 2010
Words
396

“I don’t want to get too political, but Here’s my feeling on the process Congress is going through right now to get this health care bill passed. This is a huge bill, both in raw dollars and in the way it will change the relationship of the citizen to the state. it’s probably one of the most…”

Why Labels Matter
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
November 14, 2014
Words
795

“We’ve talked a bit about the ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ labels, but you might be wondering why they matter. Indeed, why wouldn’t a politician just eschew labels and say ‘I’ll do what’s best for the country in all situations’? Wouldn’t that be great? The problem is that politicians have to get…”

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
January 13, 2018
Words
85

“Tedious book. Seemed a bit scattered. The gist appears to be that the biggest reason nations fail is because of unfair, ‘extractive’ institutions, like dictatorships, that give people little incentive to work and are designed to enrich a few. The book goes on about this for 460+ pages, with example…”

Why Taxes are Going to Go Up
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
December 26, 2011
Words
408

“Americans don’t really want spending cuts : This article is brutally honest, in two places. First, this is an important point to note: Any truly meaningful debt reduction plan must include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Why? For the same reason criminals rob banks: That’s where the money…”

Why the Wealthy Subsidize the Tax Burden of the Middle and Lower Class
Section
Personal Blog
Type
Blog Post
Date
February 10, 2016
Words
816

“I have a theory: the U.S. economy requires a significant number of Americans to be stupid with money. If we ever all got our crap together and started managing our personal budgets responsibly, the economy might fall apart. Consider this article from Bloomberg this morning: Americans Can’t Help…”