There can be no doubt that the best moment of the debate between the five Democratic candidates for president came early when ex-Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley verbally slapped around Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on the issue of greater gun controls. O’Malley was right that the gun issue in America does not come down to rural […]
Let me start off by saying that Putin’s use of force in the Ukraine and Syria is wrong on several levels. He’s wrong in principle to pursue a military solution, and even if we condoned his use of force, he would still not be acting in the best interests of his country. If Putin wanted […]
Volkswagen’s use of manipulative software to conceal that its diesel engines couldn’t pass emissions inspections is far from the first time that a large corporation has broken the law to cheat the public, not even the first time this year. Cheating can show up in any industry, as demonstrated by the Peanut Corporation of America […]
As of this writing, the unanswered question is how Chris Harper Mercer obtained the gun he used to kill 10 people at Umpqua Community College. The police easily reconstructed a profile of Mercer, and it’s a chillingly familiar one: Young male, antisocial, withdrawn, without real relationships, mental problems that his family and others recognized. So […]
Read More… from 10 more innocent victims sacrificed to a misreading of the 2nd amendment
Yale economist William Nordhaus writes as if he wants to address human-induced global warming—euphemistically called “climate change” even by the most ardent environmentalists—but I think he loves what he calls “the market” more than he does the environment. You can see him grasping for straws to balance his love or humankind and other living things […]
Read More… from Pope is right to hate cap-and-trade, which is akin to the Church selling indulgences
In commenting about John Boehner’s resignation from Speaker of the House and Congress, President Obama told the Big Lie in American politics. It’s a lie that virtually all mainstream politicians tell and that’s presented positively by most Democrats and negatively by all Republicans. The lie is that Boehner and Obama are on opposite ends of […]
A recent National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast put the lie to the Big Lie that protests in the wake of police killings of black citizens in Ferguson, Cleveland, Baltimore, New York and elsewhere have led to a significant uptick in violence against police across the country. The reasoning is a bit absurd. It goes like […]
CNN structured the second Republican debate to maximize the amount of time the candidates spent sparring with their opponents, as opposed to stating their position on issues. The moderators were looking for zingers that could serve as sound bites and for contentiousness that could animate headlines. They seemed to care more about churning personal disagreements […]
We won’t know for a few days—and maybe weeks—who won last night’s debate between 11 Republican candidates for president. What we did learn is that they overwhelmingly agree with each other on most issues, including: Build a wall on the Mexican border, and then get tough with illegal immigrants, but not legal ones. Reverse Obamacare. […]
A few years back, I rated Barack Obama as the sixth best president of the twelve we have had since World War II, behind Johnson, Clinton, Eisenhower, Nixon and Carter, in descending order. At the time, I wrote, “Obama is basically a pro-business, anti-union liberal who shares the consensus view that the United States should […]
Read More… from Reevaluating Barack Obama: one of the best presidents since WWII