Tag Archives: politics

A note about turnout in yesterday’s elections I haven’t seen any information yet on how turnout in last night’s elections, particularly in Virginia, which was an “off-off year” election, i.e., no statewide races at all, only state legislative and local races. The state of Virginia keeps turnout statistics online back to 1976. The bottom line is, clearly something happened in the late 1990s that drove down turnout, which has been reversed in the last two...

I am not quite sure how to begin other than say I am angry at why it has to come to this , and still not enough, before people react. Loudoun County, Virginia: One election event ended positively for a woman who had given Trump’s motorcade (and supposedly Trump) a message of defiance, a one finger salute, as it passed her while she was riding her bike. Former government contractor Julie Briskman won a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on...

by David Zetland    (Via One handed economist) Innovative bureaucrats? The Dutch are fond of subsidies for arts, sustainability and… innovation. These subsidies arise when bureaucrats with “topical portfolios” award cash to winners of various “promise to stimulate [topic]” contests. On the one hand, I am pleased to see the government providing public goods, i.e., stimulating efforts to help everyone. On the other hand, these programs tend to find the...

They got the goods, but some editor made them semi bury them. By Mark Mazzetti, Eric Lipton* and Andrew E. Kramer note that the first shipment of Javelin missiles to Ukraine was mysteriously held up by the OMB until April 2018 when then prosecutor general Yurii Lutsenko froze the investigation of Paul Manafort. This isn’t a scoop. Both events were reported at the time. To me the odd thing is that the key evidence is reported in the second to last...

Many liberal Democrats vote for the more moderate candidates in primaries, because they think half a loaf is better than none. The claim is that to win in the USA (or any first past the post system) you have to capture the middle. This is based on silly theory which requires the assumption that the set of eligible voters and the set of people who actually vote are the same. The contrasting view is that the key issue is getting people who might or might...

An introduction to Save the Post Office and Steve Hutkins. I am not quite sure how I got to Steve; but, I do remember chatting with Mark Jamison who also wrote at Save the Post Office and posting his words up at Angry Bear (Asking the Wrong Questions: Reflections on Amazon, the Post Office, and the Greater Good earlier this year. Mark and I still exchange emails and I owe him a trip out to western North Carolina. Steve is the blog owner, a Prof. of...

The Death Of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi And Related Matters The self-proclaimed “Caliph” of Da’esh/ISIL/ISIS, Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarri, who took the name Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has blown himself up after US special forces successfully attacked his compound in Idlib province of Syria near the Turkish border after a US military dog attacked him. (His nom de guerre was chosen for its links to historical caliphs, the leaders of global Sunni Islam after the...

Since Major Provisions of Affordable Care Act Took Effect Key Findings: The number of uninsured children in the United States increased by more than 400,000 between 2016 and 2018 bringing the total to over 4 million uninsured children in the nation. These coverage losses are widespread with 15 states showing statistically significant increases in the number and/or rate of uninsured children (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana,...

Today we have a commentary  by Student Loan Justice Organization Founder Alan Collinge with support from an Angry Bear editor. Alan: A key Republican Education Department official and Trump Appointee, A. Wayne Johnson, recently resigned his position at the Department and later made a radical call for student loan cancellation. Johnson noted the lending system was “fundamentally broken” and called for loan cancellation for all loan holders up to $50,000....

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) by Robert Waldmann To Be Sure Jennifer Senior I just read an op-ed by Jennifer Senior. I am not 100% satisfied. To be sure, she denounces the Republican Party in no uncertain terms. The op-ed is not completely Balanced. However, old habits die hard. The op-ed contains a good bit of nonsense. Some of it is there to give the essay a beginning a middle and an end. More of it is a bit of reflexive...