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Monthly Archives: June 2016

No surprises here

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Americans have differing opinions about torture: “Remarkably, the gap between torture supporters and opponents widens between voters who are Christian and those who are not religious. Just 39% of white evangelicals believe the CIA’s treatment of detainees amounted to torture, with 53% of white non-evangelical Protestants and 45% of white Catholics agreeing with that statement. […]

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Refreshing

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Good for Kevin Lembo: State Comptroller Kevin Lembo added his name to a growing list of advocates and officials asking Insurance Commissioner Katharine Wade to recuse herself from reviewing the Anthem-Cigna merger. “With each passing day I grow more concerned about both the process by which the review is being conducted and the eventual impact […]

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A bad idea

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

The State of Connecticut is, if every so timidly, exploring the idea of imposing a mileage tax in Connecticut. The state of Connecticut is on the road to testing the possibility of a ‘Mileage Tax.’ The brakes were put on this plan one year ago when News 8 first reported about the idea, but now […]

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Free speech in Connecticut

Monday, June 27, 2016

I did not hear about this when the issue arose in 2014: Republican Party Chairman JR Romano said he called the State Elections Enforcement Commission earlier this week to make sure Democratic lawmakers running for re-election know the rules about using a candidate for another office in their campaign materials. Just in case some of […]

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Why we really need the TPP

Monday, June 27, 2016

Shouldn’t this have been front page news: On June 24, foreign oil company TransCanada filed a lawsuit against the U.S. under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline violated NAFTA’s broad rights for foreign investors by thwarting the company’s “expectations.” As compensation, TransCanada is demanding […]

Filed in Corporate Crime, Economics, Inequality | | Comments (0)

Brexit

Monday, June 27, 2016

The Brexit vote is all over the news, at least it was a day or so ago, and there are no end of explanations to why the British voted the way they did. It was a fairly unique situation. The right had reasons to support an exit, given the anti-immigrant posturing of some of the […]

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One more reason I won’t give to the DNC, DCCC, or DSCC

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

As most politically aware Democrats know, there will be a primary in late August to decide the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate. Alan Grayson is one candidate. Lord knows he’s not perfect (well, actually there is no Lord), but at least he’s an actual Democrat, something that can only technically be said about […]

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Burdensome government regulations

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Years ago my wife and I bought a second home in Vermont. It is somewhere between a shack and a house, if truth be told. We found shortly after we bought it that we could not pay the mortgage on the house and college tuition at the same time, so until recently it has been […]

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Hillary is stalking me!

Thursday, June 16, 2016

My wife and I have a landline. It’s primary use appears to be as a conduit to allow telemarketers and robocallers to reach us. However, I am of a generation for whom a ringing landline once actually meant there was a human being trying to reach someone, so like Pavlov’s dog I react to a […]

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The mind of a pundit

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

If you read Dean Baker’s blog, Beat the Press on a regular basis, you know that he regularly beats up on Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, especially when Samuelson offers up yet more reasons to eviscerate social security. Today Dean relates that Samuelson is upset that Obama has joined the ranks (if only rhetorically) of […]

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