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Monthly Archives: July 2016

A modest proposal, and an observation.

Apparently Donald Trump is trying to get out of the debates. Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of intentionally stacking debates against prime time programming to “rig” the election process, despite the fact that the schedule has been set since last September, Politico reports. Said Trump: “As usual, Hillary and the Dems are trying to rig […]

Back from the shadows again

No posting here for quite some time, due to the fact that I’ve been vacationing in Vermont. The main purpose of this post is to make it clear that I’m still alive. One of the advantages of having no television is that I am spared watching conventions, so I have followed each second hand, so […]

Our Free Press at Work

Sorry to return to this subject, but… If there were a God, I would be thanking him or her right now for the fact that I don’t have a television nor am I forced to watch television news. Put Fox aside. Are there no televison “journalists” with the guts to call bullshit on Republican spinmeisters? […]

Beyond Plagiarism

In all the fuss and fury over Melania Trump’s plagiarism, something has been overlooked. The point of her speech was to introduce her husband to the somewhat dubious side of the country-you know, the folks that are not stark raving mad. So, consider this particular piece of plagiarism: Trump told GOP delegates on Monday: “From […]

God in the classroom 

A few days ago I learned that among all the horrible things in the Republican platform, there is a demand that the Bible be taught “as literature” in public schools. Of course, it’s a transparently bogus demand for the establishment of the Christian religion, but transparently bogus arguments have won in the past. Remember, the […]

Perhaps I can help

So today I got several emails from the DCCC pushing similar themes. Here’s the first few paragraphs of one: We’re confused… After Bernie Sanders’ inspiring call to unity, we thought at long last Democrats would…well…unify. But sadly that’s not what’s happened. Grassroots Democrats just haven’t stepped up. The entire world is watching to see if […]

The party of crazy

Long before Trump even announced his candidacy, I was saying that 2016 would be the year the Republicans went all in on the crazy. I was right. Had it not been Trump, it would have been Cruz, who is perhaps even crazier than the Donald. In previous years insane candidates might win Iowa, but the […]

Those Brits, behind the times

Simon Wren-Lewis is a British economist who has a blog called Mainly Macro. Recently he blamed the British tabloids for the Brexit vote, among other things: My post ‘The triumph of the tabloids’ is now easily my most read post in the four and a half years I have been writing a blog. I suspect […]

The Greatest Country on Earth

This sort of says it all: Over the last 30 years, local and state governments increased how much they spend on putting people in jail three times more than how much they spend on educating students, according to a new analysis by the Department of Education. The department examined corrections spending and education spending data […]

Getting easier to pass the Trump test

We folks here in Southeastern Connecticut have had to watch the slow decline of the New London Day, which used to be a good newspaper with a reasonable editorial policy. It has now become, essentially, an automatic supporter of all but the most insane Republicans, and even they get a second look. One of the […]