Economy Idiotica “The biggest picture is that the post-1980 economy failed to deliver the broad-based benefits that Reagan and his allies promised.” That’s from a piece by David Leonhardt, Explaining Bidenomics. Focusing on the signal and not on the phony Republican noise, look at this chart. In the 1920s we had our 1%, just as… [read more]
Or Not
Civics – Or Not In order to graduate from my public high school I was requried to take a course in civics and pass the exam. That education was required in nearly every public high school in those days. In the 1980s this course often became optional or, in many schools, civics classes weren’t available… [read more]
Reality Jokes from the 1950s
Q. What do you call couples who practice the rhythm method of birth control? A. Parents Q. What do you call teenagers who are taught abstinence as the only acceptable form of birth control? A. Parents Amazingly, according to some bible thumpers, some Republicans and a former Republican Party platform, only abstinence is to be… [read more]
Heroes
9/11 happened. It wasn’t a few paragraphs in a history book or a script for a bombastic political speech. It was exactly what it was, a terrorist attack on our nation twenty-two years ago tomorrow. I learned long ago that what we see on TV of disasters like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and fires doesn’t and… [read more]
TR
Labor Day is supposed to be more than a three-day weekend or the last barbeque of the summer. It’s a day to honor those who labor. Joe Biden gets that. Perhaps no national leader has understood this better than Teddy Roosevelt. Steve Schmidt highlighted this in his post on Monday by including an address by… [read more]
What Have/Could We Become? – Part 2
Find Part 1 here. Letting loose the behavior geek that resides inside my skin, I’m always trying to figure out what seems impossible to figure out, like understanding why common sense people would say and do self-harming things. Let’s start. with an explanation. The predominant and overriding passion of our time is what Eugene Robinson… [read more]
What Have/Could We Become? – Part 1
Ed. note: Be sure to read Frank Levy’s response in the Comments section at the bottom of this post. Eugene Robinson wrote in The Washington Post on August 24, To understand how completely Donald Trump has transformed the Republican Party, all you had to do was watch Wednesday’s debate and Trump’s surrender to Georgia authorities… [read more]
How About Some Optimism!
Art Friedson has graciously shared his posts with us before and now has allowed us to post another of his offerings. This is an important message, a positive one that stands guard against the phony claims of American carnage, attacks on our democracy, lies about late term abortions and the political dishonesty, hypocrisy and cowardice… [read more]
Quick Takes From the First Republican “Debate”
No, it wasn’t a debate. It was an inane shouting tantrum. . The Candidates . Vivek Ramaswamy – His forced smile and verbal steam roller tactics took just 1.6 seconds to become unbearable. Great talker, successful businessman who clearly suffers from Universal Genius Hubris (“UGH”) syndrome: “I’m brilliant and super good at business, so I’m… [read more]
The Core Issue
From STAT, August 21, 2023: More children are dying from guns, and disparities are deepening . In 2020 guns caused the most deaths among U.S. children and adolescents, for the first time surpassing motor vehicle deaths. In 2021, it got worse. A new analysis of CDC data in Pediatrics shows that from 2018 to 2021,… [read more]
