Skip to content

Category Archives: Politics

Attention Deficit Disorder at Work

Monday, June 10, 2013

Speaking of Iran-Contra, to which I alluded in my previous post, it looks like Obama is now the beneficiary of a phenomenon that I, at least, first noticed at the time of that affair. The geezers among us remember that at first, the scandal consisted of the fact that Reagan secretly sold weapons to Iran. [...]

Also filed in Media | | Comments (0)

The IRS “scandals”

Monday, May 13, 2013

The scandal de jour revolves around the fact that one office in the IRS, under a Bush appointed commissioner, used terms such as “tea party” and “9/12” to help pick and choose the 501©(4) applications to review. I don’t have much to add to what’s written here at the American Prospect. The real scandal, of [...]

Also filed in Democrats, Republicans | | Comments (0)

A better way to a better House

Saturday, December 29, 2012

A David Roberts (drgrist) tweet directed me to this article, which I thought I would pass along. I believe I’ve made similar suggestions in this blog (I know I’ve verbalized them), but for the life of me I can’t find the posts. Here’s the gist of it: Executive summary: The lack of fairness and accountability [...]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Little noted

Monday, November 12, 2012

In keeping with their fear and loathing of effective messaging, the Democrats themselves will probably never mention this, but tell your friends that the GOP only kept control of Congress because they managed to gerrymander every state they control beyond recognition. More people voted for Democrats for Congress than Republicans. It’s a point that should [...]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Election Day Musings

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

I’m still a bit groggy, having had only four hours of sleep last night, but as an amateur self-appointed pundit I feel it my solemn duty to get my reactions to last night’s events on record, for the edification and education of the non-pundits of the world. I freely confess that in my stupefied state, [...]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Mixed messages

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

If you’ve ever given money to a political campaign-even one-then like me you are probably getting about thirty fundraising emails a day. Clearly, based on what I get, people’s respond to different messages. Consider the subject lines in emails I received one after the other: NOTHING CAN STOP US (all caps in original) We risk [...]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Why, oh why?

Monday, October 15, 2012

Okay, I just bailed on the Murphy-McMahon debate. I can’t take it anymore. I have a simple question I would like to ask all Democratic candidates. When asked about social security or Medicare, every Republican candidate responds with some variant of the claim that he or she will not cut benefits for those saintly seniors [...]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

About the Debate

Thursday, October 4, 2012

I turned it off about 15 minutes before it was over. It’s no news that Romney lied about his “program”. The really irritating, though not unexpected thing, is how the debate was solely concerned with the obsessions of the Very Serious People in the Beltway: cutting benefits and the deficit. Unemployment is still high, but [...]

Also filed in | | Comments (0)

Meandering

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

A few observations about the campaign, and it is entirely coincidental that I am linking to a couple of stories from the Globe written by an excellent young reporter who shares my last name and half my genes. And it really is coincidental, sort of. First, a lot has been written about Romney’s lack of…how [...]

Also filed in Romney | | Comments (0)

Something sane happens

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Amazon is going to have to start paying sales taxes to the State of California. Apparently, at least for the moment, other states need not apply, though Amazon’s aspirations to achieve same day delivery (which implies distribution centers almost everywhere. ) seem to bode ill for any continued legal basis to justify Amazon’s exemption from [...]

Also filed in Economics | | Comments (0)