Category: Politics 2011
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Philanderers for president!
Are you a better person for being married only once? That’s what I was wondering today as I read this article in the Washington Post. Mitt Romney, currently polling second among Republicans in the run for the party’s presidential nomination, doesn’t have a string of broken marriages to point to. Gosh, he’s been married to…
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Iraq and Afghanistan: the folly slowly winds down
The end result will be a gradual deterioration and failure of both endeavors [Iraq and Afghanistan] as casualties and costs go through the roof and as Americans grow tired of a conflict with no clear exit criteria. Eventually we will declare a weak victory and leave, but no one will be fooled: we will have…
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Governments should not be run like a business
It’s hard to listen to a politician today without hearing them tell you that the problem with government is that it’s not being run like a business. For example, Mitt Romney says his private sector experience running a venture capital firm (Bain Capital) was great preparation for being governor of Massachusetts and, he hopes, president…
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Master liar
I’ll give Herman Cain one thing: he is a great liar. Of course, I cannot say for certain that Cain is lying about denying incidents of alleged sexual harassment and, more recently, denying an alleged 13-year on-again, off-again affair with an Atlanta-based divorcee. On the latter allegation, Cain at least admits a friendship with the…
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Give ’em a real holiday
I don’t know if you have noticed, but real holidays have been slowly disappearing. It’s getting almost impossible to find a holiday that is, well, a holiday. If you are thinking that a holiday is the same thing as having a paid day off during the week to shop, Madison Avenue blesses you. If you…
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How to unoccupy Wall Street
There is no sign that protesters occupying Wall Street and other cities are going away. Police are just one of many groups baffled by these groups: seemingly disparate communities of people intent to live 24/7 outside in urban environments, making homes in cheap plastic tents, sleeping in sleeping bags on cold concrete surfaces, and using…
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Free and clear
Protestors on Wall Street and elsewhere are occupying spots in major cities, trying to make the top one percent acknowledge the ninety nine percent. Many are without jobs. Those with jobs may have taken pay cuts, or were forced to go part time, or were required to contribute more toward health care or retirement. Many…
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Wall Street’s puppet masters
Last month I wrote how the oligarchy stays in charge. At the time, the Occupy Wall Street movement was nascent, so nascent that not even I was blogging about it. Since then it, everything has changed. It used to be that the headlines were full of stories about how we need to cut the deficit…
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Sucking it up for Herman Cain
Herman Cain is Tea Party America’s favorite presidential candidate of the moment. Recent polls show him leading among Republican voters. While recent history suggests that Cain fascination will be brief (Michele who? Rick who?), you can understand why conservatives would be gaga over him. Cain, when speaking about Occupy Wall Street protesters, had this retort:…
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Maybe it’s about time for a little class warfare
It’s too early to say whether the Occupy Wall Street movement will have long-term legs. A group of a few hundred people has spent the last two weeks or so occupying Wall Street day and night. They are protesting many things they do not like about that street and the moneyed class that inhabit it.…
Occam's Razor 