Category: Politics 2015
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The southern strategy bites back
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson recently wrote that Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party permanently. In the past the establishment elite controlled the party. Unfortunately well-moneyed Republicans were relatively few in number. They had to find votes somewhere so they adopted a “southern strategy” that pandered to the fears and prejudices of those principally…
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The libertarianism in the Internet
It can be dangerous when politicians open their mouths. In the case of Donald Trump, it’s because he spews hatred and racism and has gathered support from a lot of dittoheads for doing so. But in one way both he and Hillary Clinton have something in common: they don’t really understand the Internet. It would…
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Give us a real retirement (or the 401K/IRA trap)
There are some proposals afloat (from progressives naturally) to increase social security payments. Social security used to be enough to marginally live on with Medicare helping by reducing health care cost spikes. Social security is supposedly indexed for inflation but it’s clear that the index doesn’t measure the true cost of living. If you depend…
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Following the leader
Oh good, I’m not the only one horribly alarmed by Donald Trump. Actually there are plenty of us, including the editorial staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post. It shouldn’t take much to feel very alarmed if you actually listen to what Trump has to say. He asserts wild claims as facts…
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Open season on a fixed income
It’s open season time and you know what that means. For most of us it means not bothering to take the time to see if there is a better medical, dental or vision plan out there. And by “us” I definitely mean “me”, at least until this year. Although I retired in 2014, I was…
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The roots of terrorism
Ever get this strange feeling of déjà vu? Last Friday’s horrific terrorist events in Paris are being called France’s 9/11. Last I checked there were 129 mostly French citizens murdered in six separate but obviously well coordinated terrorist incidents in Paris, and more than three hundred wounded. I don’t think it’s coincidental that these incidents…
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2016 Democratic Presidential Debate #2
Gone were the two pretend candidates. After the first debate Jim Webb figured out he was too mainstream to run as a Democrat this time around, sort of like the way John Kasich is figuring out no one wants to hear him because he talks common sense. Lincoln Chaffee, a former Republican himself like Webb,…
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2016 Republican Presidential Debate #4
By now these candidates are all getting a bit uncomfortably familiar — at least to those of us that tune into these debates. With some exceptions though they all pretty much sound the same and parrot the same ideas. What made this latest debate a bit more interesting than the other ones is that from…
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2016 Republican Presidential Debate #3
I’m not much on Twitter but I decided that if I was going to watch the latest Republican Presidential Debate at least I could be trendy and live tweet it. Alas, it didn’t occur to me until shortly before it started. So unless you happened to follow me on Twitter you wouldn’t have known. (And…
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The grownup in the hearing room
Did you watch Hillary Clinton’s testimony in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Thursday? Okay, most us did not, at least we did not watch all eleven hours of it. This includes yours truly. I did watch clip after clip online and the more I watched the more engrossed I got. I…
Occam's Razor 