When Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before Congress back in the beginning of March, it was widely recognized as a snub against President Obama, an embrace of the Republican party, a gesture to Israeli hardliners of strengthened military ties, and, perhaps most significantly, an attempt to shackle Republican leadership to perpetual and limitless military support for Israel. […]
The election results are in, and, though individual races broke in surprising ways, the overall trend was about what po predicted, though perhaps not quite as hard on the Democrats as most of the polls expected. (Kudos again to fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver, who nailed it despite admitting up front that the margin of error was […]
William Kristol, over at the conservative Weekly Standard, summarized the staff’s reaction to the Republican presidential primary debates as: “Yikes.†He quotes a “bright young conservative†who puts it less succinctly but more eloquently: “I’m watching my first GOP debate…and WE SOUND LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!†Indeed. Liberals have known this for decades. Too many democratic […]
Cuh-ree-pee! I don’t know whether you followed the Republican primary debate. I didn’t, preferring to let someone pick out the relevant bits in the post-analysis rather than expose myself to all that crazy, hateful ideology, known as “red meat for the Republican base†in one go. Apparently, there wasn’t much to miss. Even liberals who […]
I’m using Edward Luttwak’s Coup d’Etat for RPG instruction. See, the campaign is titled “Bastards!†and we’re all to play bastards of one stripe or another: people denied inheritance of once kind or another and determined to win it back by any means necessary. I intend to play a conquering hero closed out of the […]
News has it that a compromise has been reached to allow the US debt ceiling to be raised. I use the term “compromise†loosely. Apparently, Democrats have compromised by agreeing to a trillion or so dollars in spending cuts, agreeing to take the heat from the Republican base for raising the debt ceiling, obligingly preparing […]
This morning I learned of a Twitter hashtag called “#FuckYouWashington†and went to check it out. To my delight, it demonstrates that the teabaggers aren’t the only source of political anger in the country. As anywhere on Twitter, many tweets are content-free, but among those with something specific to say, the complaints in #FuckYouWashington are […]
Eileene and I periodically argue politics. I’m a good liberal, though I hope a reasonable one; she’s got a conservative bent. (Although in the current political climate, she comes off as a moderate with strong liberal views on social issues, and I come across as a knee-jerk leftie. It’s our country’s politics that are extreme.) […]
I don’t need to point out that Mitch McConnell’s plan for dealing with the imminent US debt crisis and consequent shut-down of the federal government is a total steaming pile. Others before me have (correctly) identified it as (1)an act of ideology, placing proven failed economic policy ahead of good governance, (2)an act of hypocrisy, […]
We watched the fireworks last night. Because I was sick with an airport cold, I didn’t feel up to braving the crowd and hike from parking to viewing at the Rockford firework show, so we went instead to the more modest Kirkland fireworks. It was nice, too; gradually it’s dawned on me that the immediacy […]