Tag Archives: politics

What to Do about Conservative Rationality in Addressing Climate Change? Two business-friendly conservatives, both former senators, Trent Lott and John Breaux, have an op-ed in today’s New York Times announcing the formation of new group, Americans for Carbon Dividends.  Now out of office, they recognize climate change as “one of the great challenges of our generation.”  To counteract it they propose a bipartisan coalition to institute a carbon tax, with...

by Bradford DeLong   (originally published at Grasping Reality with Both Hands) THE DAMNATION OF THE PROFESSIONAL REPUBLICAN POLICY INTELLECTUALS I have long known that the thoughtful and pulls-no-punches Amitabh Chandra has no tolerance for fuzzy thinking from Do-Gooder Democrats. He is one of those who holds that not even a simulacrum of utopia is open to us here, as we muck about in the Sewer of Romulus here in this Fallen Sublunary Sphere. ”There are...

“Deeply Disturbing” It’s not a crime if you brag about it on T.V. In fact, it’s hardly worth mentioning. What is this about? “We don’t know the answer, but we hope the inspector general will find out.”

Cartoonist Rob Rogers was fired from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for refusing to do cartoons extolling the virtues and accomplishments of Trump. According to The Association of American Cartoonists; “Rob Rogers is one of the best in the country and his cartoons have been a wildly popular feature of the Post-Gazette. Readers looked forward each morning to opening their papers to see Rogers’ latest pointed commentary.” Things changed for Rob when the...

AG Jeffrey B. Sessions: “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.” I would quote back to the hypocrite Sessions. Leviticus 19:33-34: 33 “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner...

Healthcare Insurers Lose in Court Over Risk Corridor Funds I have written a couple of times about Sessions, Upton, Kingston, and Republicans sabotaging the ACA Risk Corridor Program with the insertion of Section 227 in the CRomnibus Bill signed in December 2014. Not only did Senator Sessions, Representative Upton (MI), and Representative Kingston (CO) block the funding of the Risk Corridor Program; with the insertion of Section 227 by Representative...

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts.) by Robert Waldmann In a generally good article on how Trump got nothing out of Kim in Singapore, David Nakamura, Philip Rucker, Anna Fifield, and Anne Gearan make a false claims “Deals reached between Washington and Pyongyang under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama collapsed after North Korea conducted additional missile and nuclear tests.” This implies in particular that the...

The disastrous German Emperor who was a doppelganger to Donald Trump: Kaiser Wilhelm You know the drill. It’s Sunday, so I write about whatever else is on my mind. I am presently reading Miranda Carter’s “George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm,” her 2009 biography of the three grandchildren of Queen Victoria who were respectively, the King of England, Tsar of Russia, and Kaiser of Germany at the time of the outbreak of World War 1. I was gobsmacked by her...

This post “America’s allies should respond to steel tariffs with targeted sanctions on the Trump Organization” by Matthew Yglesias is brilliant (even though he is mainly agreeing with the prior brilliant article by Scott Gilmore “Trade sanctions against America won’t work. Sanctioning Trump himself might.” The proposal is so brilliant and the case for it so clear, that, I think, each title is enough to convey the idea. Yglesias elaborates while quoting...

When Big Sur Met Silicon Valley: Remembering The Santa Cruz Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Collective I spent Memorial Day weekend with extended family members in Santa Cruz, near where many of them live, but with none of them right there  It was most pleasant, but explaining the nature of the place and the University of California branch there led me to think more deeply about the place.  I am not aware of anybody else saying this before, but it struck me...