Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Big new announcement: I am now blogging tech issues for Forbes under the header “Robot Overlords.” Go check it out! And tell your friends! Also, I’m still blogging over at A Practical Heretic about topics non-political. For the consolidators in the house, you can follow all of my writing on Facebook. And, as always, I [...]
Can some of the more economically minded in the house explain something to me? I was having a discussion with someone about economics in which two claims were made by the same person. The first, is that inflation is always bad, and so currency should be on some sort of standard (he preferred the gold [...]
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not [...]
We’re heading towards a future of higher food prices and more hunger.
Today is Ash Wednesday, and for a number of reasons, I have decided that part of my Lenten Sacrifice will giving up following, reading, and writing about the current, day to day back and forth of politics. This, obviously, will change my focus of writing here on the blog. I have planned some posts in [...]
The AP notes that as a result of natural gas drilling, smog in parts of Wyoming is the worst in the country: Wyoming, famous for its crisp mountain air and breathtaking, far-as-the-eye-can-see vistas, is looking a lot like smoggy Los Angeles these days because of a boom in natural gas drilling. Folks who live near [...]
It’s institutions of government – not its size – that matter when it comes to how good a job the government does.
In just over a decade, America has gone from a bipartisan consensus that torture and brutality are bad to a bipartisan consensus that they’re necessary.
“Collective bargaining in the years since has played a major role in America’s economic miracle. Unions represent some of the freest institutions in this land. There are few finer examples of participatory democracy to be found anywhere. Too often, discussion about the labor movement concentrates on disputes, corruption, and strikes. But while these things are [...]
The House GOP wants to virtually eliminate Federal funding for poison control centers. The nation’s network of 57 poison control centers takes four million calls a year about people who may have been exposed to a toxic substance. In three-quarters of all cases, the centers are able to provide treatment advice that does not require [...]
We live in a country where Creationists can run for President without being laughed out of the room, homeopathy is seen as real medicine, millions of people buy into “The Secret” that wishing for something hard enough makes it happen, and the cast of the Jersey Shore is rich. Until that changes, I find it [...]
Republicans want to cut the IRS budget: Every dollar the Internal Revenue Service spends for audits, liens and seizing property from tax cheats brings in more than $10, a rate of return so good the Obama administration wants to boost the agency’s budget. House Republicans, seeing the heavy hand of a too-big government, beg to [...]
It’s not the size of your government that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.
The privitization of Federal helium reserves is a textbook example of the damage to the nation that can be caused by imprudent budget cutting.
My official statement. Please refer to this the next time somebody says something stupid.
Moodys warns the the Republican plan to cut spending could cost the economy 700,000 jobs.
Color me surprised. General Motors, which nearly collapsed from the weight of its debts two years ago before reorganizing in a government-sponsored bankruptcy, said Thursday that it earned $4.7 billion in 2010, the most in more than a decade. It was the first profitable year since 2004 for G.M., which became publicly traded in November, [...]
Looking at the Republican field for 2012, I'm more than a little disheartened that the most prudent and fiscally conservative contender for the Republican nomination is Mitch Daniels. The same Mitch Daniels who, as director of OMB, oversaw a federal budget that went from a $236 billion suprlus to a $400 billion deficit. The same [...]
The Affordable Care Act has been ruled Constitutional in Holder v. Mead.
Kevin Carson has some interesting thoughts about the intersection of unions, management, and government. Here’s a snippet: The most obvious forms of state intervention that hobble labor are legislation like: 1) The provisions of Taft-Hartley which criminalize sympathy and boycott strikes; 2) The Railway Labor Relations Act and the “cooling off” provisions of Taft-Hartley, which [...]
Since Barack Obama took office, federal taxes have been lower for pretty much everyone.
This made me laugh out loud: At a press conference Monday, visibly embarrassed leaders of the Republican National Committee acknowledged that their nonstop, effusive praise of Ronald Reagan has been wholly unintentional, admitting they somehow managed to confuse him with Dwight D. Eisenhower for years. The GOP’s humiliating blunder was discovered last weekend by RNC [...]
Contrary to some assertions, Wisconsin public servants are not better compensated than their private sector counterparts.
The drive to cut taxes is at the heart of the budget mess.
There really isn’t a lot of redistribution happening in the United States.
“My preference, I suppose, would be for parliamentary leaders to actually physically whip members of congress into line (willingness to withstand lashing being a decent proxy for preference-intensity) but barring that the House’s tradition of iron-fisted rule-based discipline is a great model.” – Matthew Ygelsias
Being unemployed, especially in the long term, makes it less likely to get hired.
“I’ve said this before, and I will say it again. Unless your proposal includes a substantial increase in taxes and a substantial amount of cuts to the military budget as well as ending the farm subsidies and giveaways to big oil and big energy and big business, you can kindly just shut up about the [...]
I received an email today, one of the many PR emails I get per day as a consequence of being an OTB author. This one is for a book about what the Founders would think about modern governance, and begins with this paragraph: Washington, Jefferson and Madison knew exactly what they were doing when they [...]
The excellent group blog League of Ordinary Gentlemen has started an experiment hosting single-person blogs under their banner. The first is Not a Potted Plant by Burt Likko (aka “Transplanted Lawyer”). The second is A Practical Heretic, written by yours truly. Feel free to drop by and say hi if you’re so inclined.
Michael Medved wishes that conservatives would stop implying that the President of the United States wants to destroy the United States.
Park Circa connects people who have empty parking spaces during a set time to people that need them. We enable coordination between neighbors and friends, so that your community resources are optimized for everyone’s benefit. We help organize and publish parking schedules and we facilitate payment between parties, so that people can find parking when [...]
At the present time, my schedule has settled up a little bit so I hope to be finished with blogging Liberty and Tyranny within the next two weeks. So what’s next? Well, several commenters here have stated that Glenn Beck shouldn’t be casually dismissed because “nobody addresses his arguments.” Very well, I accept the challenge. [...]
Examining Levin’s examination of the Constitution, jurisprudence, and property rights.
In chapter three of Liberty and Tyranny, Mark Levin applies his typical standards of logic and evidence to matters of faith.
John Tierny notes that the Kennedy family has been blocking access to Robert Kennedy’s official papers from his time as a public servant. But so far, nobody has been able to see this trove of documentary resources about the foreign-policy intrigues and governmental activities of a half-century ago. Why not? Because Robert Kennedy’s family controls [...]
Michelle Bachmann gave a quick history lesson to the Iowans for Tax Relief. Unfortunately, it gets the facts a tad wrong. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) had an interesting take this weekend on America’s first European settlers, who she said “had different cultures, different backgrounds, different traditions.” “How unique in all of the world, that one [...]
Over in the Taking Requests thread, anjin-san suggests: More music posts. How about “your top 5 album picks”? I like tough questions. This is a post that should probably be about agonizing choices and excruciating writing and re-writing. But because I have a baby and a Minecraft account, I don’t have time for that. So [...]
