Tag Archives: politics

Via Diana Ravitch’s blog on a Time magazine article What the U.S. Can Learn from 3 Countries About Reopening: TIME Magazine just published a story about school reopening in Denmark, South Korea, and Israel, with lessons for the U.S. Lesson #1 from Denmark: Get the virus under control before reopening schools. Unlike Denmark, the United States is bungling that, and the virus is spreading in the south and west. Perhaps states that have taken the necessary...

Brad Setser on Offshoring Life Science Production and Transfer Pricing I just posted a discussion of an interesting proposal from Biden written by Alex Parker who mentioned some February 5, 2020 testimony from Brad Setser. The gist of this testimony was noted back in a March 26, 2019 blog post entitled When Tax Drives the Trade Data: I often hear that pharmaceuticals are one of America’s biggest exports. But that isn’t what is in the actual trade data...

Selection by Ken Melvin The times they are a changing. And they are changing at pandemic speed. Five months ago is ancient history. Now is a but a fleeting interval. From now, the future. What will our world look like six months from now? What will it look like in three years? So much for being the ‘Greatest Nation Ever Known’. We just got rolled by a virus whilst beset with incompetent leadership, inadequate healthcare, a global warming crisis, and a...

The 2020 Presidential election nowcast based on State polling: Trump support deteriorating even in red States For the past four weeks I have posted a projection of the Electoral College vote based solely on State rather than national polls (since after all that is how the College operates) that have been reported in the last 30 days. Here’s how it works: – States where the race is closer than 3% are shown as toss-ups. – States where the range is between...

Truth Is The Daughter Of Time This is a frontispiece to a 1951 mystery novel by Josephine Tey (real name: Elizabeth Makintosh) named _The Daughter of Time_It is about the question of whether or not King Richard III ordered the murder of the “Little Princes in the Tower,” his nephews Edward and Richard, as has  long been alleged, and for a long time was simply accepted as historical fact.  This bestselling and very well and wittily written novel makes...

(Dan here…a note for reality) Full liability release for businesses and hospitals It’s necessary, Mitch McConnell and his colleagues say, because of a “flood” of frivolous lawsuits crushing businesses and threatening economic recovery. So it’s important to say this clearly and out loud: there is no crisis of COVID-19 litigation. It’s made-up, it doesn’t exist, it’s a ploy to get businesses out of paying for compliance. That’s entirely it. We have all the...

Important questions from my friend Paula W…….. ! Listen up world! Betsy DeVos, we have a few questions for you: • If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid? • If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days? • Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those...

Given the state of the race, people are starting to ask what this would mean for the future of progressive politics in America. James Kwak is gloomy: I think the policy solutions are obvious . . . The problem, of course, is the politics—not just President Trump and the Republicans, but a Democratic Party controlled by its conservative wing, defined primarily by its insistence on fiscal responsibility, and terrified of doing anything that anyone might call...

As posted by Anne: #Coronavirus data has been removed from the U.S. CDC website after the Trump administration’s order to re-route hospital data directly to the administration. Missing are current inpatient and intensive care bed occupancy, health worker staffing, and PPE supply status. pic.twitter.com/mwBjw4QE7d — CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) July 16, 2020 Pope Francis “All dictatorships, all of them, began like this, by adulterating communication, by...

Blacks Should Be More Afraid Of Other Blacks Than Cops Rudy Giuliani joined Fox and Friends to trash Mayor de Blasio and decree that Black men should be more afraid of other Black men than of his cop buddies murdering black men with racist intent. Echoing Trump’s “law and order” idiocy and hatred of the Black Lives Movement, Giuliani gave his unfettered support to law enforcement, and decreed that he has always been the true savior of New York. Me: What...