Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Freedom of Speech

I am not a libertarian nor am I a member of the ACLU, but I generally agree with them on the importance of free speech. This, I believe, is a real and growing problem on college campuses: Students affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement crashed an event at the College of William & Mary, […]

Right Wing Propaganda Tank IPI Likes the Trump Tax-Cuts-for-the-Rich “framework”

Right Wing Propaganda Tank IPI Likes the Trump Tax-Cuts-for-the-Rich “framework” There’s no surprise here.  The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is a right-wing “think” (i.e., propaganda) tank that has consistently argued for tax policies that favor multinational corporations and the wealthy.  So IPI has a posting on Sept 29 that is supportive of the so-called “tax reform […]

Trump’s Inadequate Response to Hurricane Maria and the Posse Comitatus Act

by ProGrowthLiberal  (originally published at Econospeak) Trump’s Inadequate Response to Hurricane Maria and the Posse Comitatus Act Credit to Matthew Yglesias for his discussion of the incompetence of Donald Trump as well as the excuses for it from his defenders including: Officials have also cited the Posse Comitatus Act as a complicating factor that helps explain why […]

Oxfam America President Abby Maxman Questions Slow Aid Response to Puerto Rico

Oxfam is a global organization working to end poverty. Its goal is to help people build better futures for themselves, hold those responsible accountable for the failures of people in power and/or government, and work in disaster areas. Their mission as stated is: “ To create lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice.” Earlier […]

A thought for Sunday: of basic decency and humanity, and how the economy is shoring up the GOP

A thought for Sunday: of basic decency and humanity, and how the economy is shoring up the GOP A few threads of the Trump malAdministration came together this past week. The latest attempt to overturn Obamacare confronted Trump with a choice between his two main goals: basking in a Trump triumph vs. erasing all of […]

Genes, Violence, and Testing

The abstract of an article in Molecular Psychiatry entitled Genetic background of extreme violent behavior reads as follows: In developed countries, the majority of all violent crime is committed by a small group of antisocial recidivistic offenders, but no genes have been shown to contribute to recidivistic violent offending or severe violent behavior, such as […]

The Kurdish Independence Vote

The Kurdish Independence Vote Buried on the back pages of this busy week has been the news that in Iraqi Kurdistan on Monday there was a referendum on independence reportedly supported by 92% of the voters.  I imagine that is not inaccurate, and that there was strong support for this referendum, even as Kurdistan Regional […]

Trump’s Refusal to Release His Own Tax Returns and California’s Legislature

Trump’s Refusal to Release His Own Tax Returns and California’s Legislature As most everyone is aware, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, breaking precedent with decades of presidential candidates and president’s release of tax returns.  Even Dick Cheney,  grumpy corporatist veep, released his tax returns.  I had fun using them as the raw […]