Content tagged with “politics”

“An interesting look at the world in 1913, before the Great War. The book doesn’t mention the looming war, and that’s kind of the point. It goes city-by-city, discussing what was happening in each, on the eve of World War 1. The result is…interesting. The book paints the picture of the world as a…”

“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…”

“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 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…”

“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…”

“ An Onion editor regrets going easy on Joe Biden, with a broader reflection on how comedy and entertainment outlets frame and validate public figures, and what their responsibility becomes. ”

“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…”

“This is a book about pooping. Not personally, but as a species. How we deal with our poop, around the world. It’s what I call a ‘vignette book.’ Over 10 or so chapters, the author tells disconnected stories that each explain some aspect of the story of poop. Examples: The World Toilet Conference…”

“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 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…”

“This book is a rebuttal (?) to a prior book called The Benedict Option . I haven’t read that book yet. Apparently, The Benedict Option claimed that the world was so fundamentally broken that Christians should just retreat to our own spaces and wait for the end of the world (I assume – that’s the…”

“ Fascinating TV movie about the Brexit campaign from the perspective of those who wanted to leave. Emphasizes the usages of data, and the deep divisions in British society that the campaign exploited. ”

“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….”

“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…”

“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…”

“ It’s very common for famous people to lie about their athletic accomplishments in an attempt to sound inspiring. ”

“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,…”

“ Many U.S. presidents have had close brushes with death, including an actual assassination attempt on George W. Bush that hardly anyone knows about. ”

“I enjoyed this book, which is more of a rebuke of President Trump than anything else. I agreed with most everything in it, and Flake makes his case well, though I don’t know what other purpose the book serves. I didn’t really learn anything new, except that there are Republicans who explicitly…”

“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…”

“I’m not really a Conservative, but I do a fair amount of conservative reading. With that perspective, this is a well-written and thoughtful book. Its basic premise is this: Liberal policies have hurt people, especially the poor. Disadvantaged Americans are no better off than when LBJ’s ‘War on…”

“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…”

“I am a Democrat. I like to think of myself as liberal, but sometimes I think I just say this to be contrarian. Sure enough, this book has me thinking I’m much more conservative than I say I am. I read this because I’ve been looking for years for a clear elucidation of conservative values. I have…”

“This is a weird one. This is both a review of this book, and experiment in reading style and strategy. I decided to try something new with this book: I decided to give it one hour of my time, and see how much I could get out of it. If you search for ‘how to read like a graduate student,’ you’ll…”

“This is Christian/Conservative spy fiction, if that’s even a thing? It’s perhaps telling that the cover has a praise quote from Rush Limbaugh, and there’s another from Sean Hannity on the inside flap. (The author was on Limbaugh’s payroll earlier in his career, apparently.) This is #4 in a…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

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

“This is essentially a long-form rant against the fact that (1) people think they’re experts when they’re clearly not, and (2) they tend to look down on actual expertise and distrust experts. It was both inspiring and infuriating. The author writes well, but he offered no solutions. So, take it for…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“ A look at how Washington and Moscow have historically communicated and how Twitter might play a role in the future of crisis communication. ”

“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,…”

“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…”

“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…”

“ This is both an examination of how religion and politics merged in the last generation, and a personal story of the author’s widening gap with his own family over issues of faith. ”

“I had trouble connecting with this book. It describes Grand Prix and rally racing of the 1930s – the ‘Golden Age of Auto Racing,’ this era is called. Racing, especially then, is, by nature, visceral and sensory, and I felt disconnected from it. The central theme is that Hitler and the Nazis used…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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….”

“A shockingly good novel. I normally wouldn’t have read this, because fantasy is a genre I don’t think I’ve read a single page of, but a friend (who is a huge fan – he has tattoos…) recommended it. By page 100, I was contemplating taking the day off work to stay home and read it. What was amazing to…”

“An absolutely lovely novel, which is – at its core – about the relationships we make, and specifically friendships that develop over extended periods of time. Alexander Rostov is an aristocrat who is convicted of subversion in the years following the Russian Revolution. Since he resides in the…”

“A fairly nondescript techno-thriller about World War 3. In my attempt to replicate my love of Red Storm Rising , I took a chance on it. It was okay. The plot centers around the Zumwalt, one of a series of new stealth destroyers (a real thing, apparently), and its massive railgun (not a real thing,…”

“I bailed out on this book about a third of the way in because it doesn’t really have a point. The only point is that the author is pissed off and wants to rant about stuff. The author is kind of an Internet personality. He was an editor for Rolling Stone , he has a podcast and a Substack, and last…”

“ Maps throughout history show how a 100-million year old coastline predicts voting demographics in modern-day Alabama. ”

“ The story of the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko – why it happened, who might have done it, and why polonium is such an attractive murder weapon. ”

“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…”

“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…”

“ A series of wild, surreal stories describing what it was like producing content for Alex Jones during his heyday. ”

“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,…”

“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…”

“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…”

“An entertaining novel about a corrupted political campaign in the then-future year of 1996. A political candidate gets a microchip implanted in his head, which is used to control his actions while at the same time interpreting real-time feedback from the public. Easy reading with a solid amount of…”

“ Memories of a physician who was in the emergency room where JFK was brought after he was shot in 1963. ”

“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…”

“This is an excellent spy novel. Years ago, I listened to quite a few of Daniel Silva’s novels on CD in the car. I remember really enjoying them, and always wanting to get back to them. I looked up the Gabriel Allon series (his most successful series), and found the first title in it (this one)….”

“This is another book to which I gave every chance, but I eventually abandoned because it just never proved its point. The author is apparently quite famous in politically conservative circles. His prior book – Wealth and Poverty – was well-known, and I gather that he had something to do with…”

“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:…”

“A wonderful six-part miniseries that chronicles the rule of Nicolas II, the last Czar of Russia, and the patriarch of the infamous Romanov family that was massacred in 1918. The episodes transition between a compelling, acted story, and historians and scholars who provide context to what is…”

“This is a first-rate political/military thriller. Some backstory: Joel Rosenberg wrote five books in the ‘Last Jihad’ series. Someone gave me book #4 – ‘The Copper Scroll’ – and I loved it . So, now I’m going back and reading the entire series from the start. The series has some controversy. It got…”

“Strange little book. I wanted to read some Michener without commitment, and this is the shortest Michener book. It’s a family history, told in flashback by a modern-day solider preparing to testify in front of Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 80s. The main character comes from a long…”

“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…”

“Devastating analysis of how much we suck as humans, and how easily manipulated we are by social media. It’s a long-range survey of how governments are using social media as a weapon, or force-multiplier, for their own ends. Extensively researched. Seems like a long book, but it is literally 1/3…”

“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…”

“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….”

“I saw a book sitting in a bookstore over the weekend: Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way) . I’m heavy on unread books right now, so I didn’t buy it. But I got to wondering about it later, so I went looking for a book summary. I…”

“A solid look at how science works, and how the media and the public interpret it. The book can get depressing. Science is not exact. It’s vague, and sometimes not reproducible, and complicated to understand. The media tends to prey on this for headlines and clicks, and the public doesn’t know what…”

“ One of the best novels I’ve ever read. Incredibly suspenseful with a fantastic payoff in the end. There’s a sentence 84% of the way through (according to my Kindle) that had me literally slack-jawed for about 60 seconds as my mind reeled with the implications. ”

“A book which counters claims of Left-wing media bias. Chomsky actually claims the media is biased towards big business and government and provides a ‘propaganda model’ which he claims demonstrates it. The rest of the book is mainly history – Chomsky uses things like some murders in Central America,…”

“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 )…”

“ On the eve of the 1996 election, the NY Times crossword had a clue based on the future outcome which could solve the puzzle in two completely different ways. ”

“An interesting book which explores how humans react to the news on an emotional/psychological level. It discusses the different types of news: political, economic, disaster, cultural, etc. and how we perceive and relate to them. Some interesting points I gathered: The true measure of news is if it…”

“ There was a viral headline all over social media for a couple of days. This article breaks it down, determines what was true and what wasn’t, and presents a larger look into how the news regularly gets twisted. ”

“ Keegan Michael Key provides the anger for Obama’s laid back speech, from the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2015. ”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“The author of this book is very angry about misconceptions that people have and the fact that they continue to have them. He comes down pretty squarely on the political Right, but he never actually articulates a political position. He’s furious about ‘political correctness.’ He’s also not a fan of…”

“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 author of this book makes a good point in the afterword: all facts promote or minimize a viewpoint, merely by their selection. So, choosing to retell or convey a fact promotes some point-of-view because that fact tells a story. And conveying that fact means you want to tell that story, and not…”

“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,…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“About halfway through this book, I theorized that it might have been better as a video course. Geography is, by nature, visual, and there’s just so much information in this it gets harder to figure out where it’s all happening. Also, the author ventures away from his geographic premise in some…”

“This is the definitive history of oil, from the first discovery in the 1850s through the first Gulf War of of the 1990s. It’s a lot – 900-some-odd pages. Not for the faint of heart. I actually brought back in college in the mid-90s, and never finished it. I promised myself I’d get back to it, and…”

“A fascinating book which details an experiment which took place in 1976. Twenty-one subjects in Evanston, Illinois (north of Chicago) were followed for one year. All of the news that was published in the area was cataloged, as was all the news the subjects consumed. They were regularly interviewed…”

“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),…”

“ The U.S. ambassador to South Korea has a mustache that reminds Koreans of Imperial Japanese leaders. This has upset some Koreans. ”

“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…”

“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 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…”

“(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…”

“ The BBC obtained recordings of several phone calls made by Tunisia’s deposed dictator while he was on the run and trying to determine if he should, or even could, return home. ”

“This is two things: the story of for-profit spying in general, and the specific story of the ‘ Steele Dossier ’ that was compiled on Donald Trump prior to the 2016 election. As for the the general story, it’s a look at how investigative journalists often turn into spies-for-hire; essentially,…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 – 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?…”

“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…”

“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….”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“ Not sure what to do with this book. It’s basically a polemic against the idea that technology can save us from everything. The author is arguing that some solutions are to be found offline. I’m not sure what the point was, honestly. I got about halfway through it before I abandoned. ”

“This is the story of one week in 2008 – the week when Lehman Brothers was about to fail, and then almost everything went with it. It was the week that ended with TARP – the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. And to be clear: this is 600 pages about that one week . It’s a nauseatingly…”

“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…”

“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…”

“This is a novel from 1851 designed to reveal the horrors of slavery. And it worked – it caused outrage across the United States and pushed the country toward the Civil War. The author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was prompted to write the novel by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which…”

“ Higher education does lead to more liberal political viewpoints, but the gap isn’t as large as many claim it to be. ”

“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)…”

“ A group of artists collaborated with the showrunner of Melrose Place to insert Leftist political art as props in the show. ”

“ The internet will actually make the next pandemic worse because of the propensity for fake news and misinformation that comes at the intersection of world politics and health. ”

“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)….”

“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…”

“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…”

“An in-depth look at the geopolitics and geo-economics of the world. The author goes around the globe and explains each country’s situation, historically, geographically, politically, and economically. What’s interesting is that a lot of the book is not actually about geography, but that’s the…”

“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…”

“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…”

“ Russia would absolutely love an independent Scotland, because its withdrawal from the NATO has a shockingly large impact on world security and the world’s economy. ”

“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…”

“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…”

“A book about entrepreneurship and thinking up the next great idea. It’s at its best when talking about the theoretical marketplace, how new ideas fit needs, and different perspectives on how people view the future. It’s get worse when it gets more specific about how to start something up. Mixed…”