Category Archives: Politics

Today’s Fantasy vs. Reality Watch

Items today about How Americans feel so negative about the economy, despite actual statistics; How Christian Nationalism is working in Wyoming — the usual evocations of concerns that are not real; How to determine truth, with an aside about science-fictional … Continue reading

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Lessons in Media Literacy

How stories about the border are designed to scare you, one way or the other; How right-wing sites promoted a false story about immigrants displacing veterans from New York City hotels; Heather Cox Richardson on the debt crisis and how … Continue reading

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Today’s Authoritarianism Watch

Items today: Heather Cox Richardson on the transformation of the Republican Party since Reagan, from a party of small government to one bent on enforcing Christian nationalism; How Republicans now argue that juries don’t count (when they lose); FDR’s four … Continue reading

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Budgeting, Firearms, Walls, and Executing Trans People

Several items today. How family and government budgeting are more unalike than similar; How firearms training teaches you that you are in constant danger, and should shoot at once; Thomas L. Friedman on building bigger walls, but also allowing in … Continue reading

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The Town Hall, and the Core Issue

The political news today is about the “Town Hall” on CNN last night that gave Donald Trump a full hour to spew his usual shtick of lies and insults, before an audience of his fans, and the commentary in the … Continue reading

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A Slow American Civil War?

Items today about The debt ceiling crisis and the deficit scolds This Modern World on teacher bots and the debt ceiling, among other things How the latest mass shooting suggests an American ‘slow civil war’

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Mental Illness, Gun Violence, and Lying

It’s hard to get through a week without more incidents of gun violence in the US, and Republican claims that they’re all due to mental illness. So why is the US an extreme outlier in gun violence? Why would more … Continue reading

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This Week’s Political and Cultural Items

Why Republicans can no longer be called the party of “family values” How Republicans are obsessed by the woke mind virus More reasons why the US needs more immigrants, not fewer Benjamin Wallace-Wells on Tucker Carlson Jerry Coyne on another … Continue reading

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Our New Hillside, and the usual political matters

First of all, tree trimmers have been near us for two days, trimming and potentially cutting down the eucalyptus trees on the hillside next to our house. This is welcome news because eucalyptus trees are fire-prone, and because a couple … Continue reading

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Making the Story Go Away

The big news today: Fox News has settled the case brought by Dominion Voting Systems. (Fox News had repeatedly implied that the 2020 election was somehow stolen via manipulation of the voting machines built by Dominion. Without an ounce of … Continue reading

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