From some facebook musings of mine: [Update: I’d also look at this by Scott Winship, which goes against my main theme, and is quite convincing.] You just hear the racism and xenophobia, but Trump’s main themes are actually about trade and jobs. Blue-collar white voters feel abandoned by both major political parties… because they have been abandoned. Shouldn’t working-class white…
Tag: politics
Dukakis is one smart Greek
It’s too bad this man wasn’t president. Oh, the economic and foreign policy horrors that could have been avoided. But I don’t say that just because he’s Greek. (Though that helps.) And I don’t say that just because he was kind enough to write the introduction to my Greek Americans book. (Though that was very nice of him.) Here’s what…
It’s been a bad week for cops
Eight cops have been shot and killed this month. And February, 2016, ain’t even half over. Already, on my social media stream, I see my cop friends blaming Obama. Well, you must remember December, 2003 when seven cops were shot and killed? Republican George W Bush was president. August of that year? Nine cops were shot and killed. April? Ten…
There is absolutely NO NEED TO PANIC!
The latest Brennan Center report projects the 30 largest cities will see a 14.6 percent increase in homicide this year. You know the last time the nation saw a 15 percent annual increase in the homicide rate? Never. Remain Calm. All is well. But don’t worry, they say in their best “you are getting sleepy” voice. There’s no reason to…
Does rhetoric incite violence?
Why don’t anti-abortion politicians who say #BlackLivesMatter-rhetoric endangers cops take responsibility for Officer Swasey’s murder at Planned Parenthood? If anti-abortion rhetoric doesn’t have any relation to the murder of Officer Swasey and innocent women at Planned Parenthood, how could anti-cop rhetoric have any relation to people attacking cops? On the flip side, if anti-abortion rhetoric does incite violence against abortion…
What the War on Drugs was really about: “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black”
Dan Baumwrites about what the Drug War was really about: In 1993, I was researching my first book, Smoke and Mirrors, which is the tale, starting in the 1968 Nixon presidential campaign, of how drugs were turned into a political weapon. I tracked down as many people as I could who had been involved in drug policy in the Nixon,…
Right-Wing Lies (XI): Donald Trump says…
There’s something that’s starting to scare me about Trump and his supporters. I mean, is it really inconceivable that he will win the Republican nomination for president? Here’s a doozy of a Tweet posted by Donald Trump: Leaving aside the racist imagery, Trump’s numbers aren’t even close to being true. Here are the (approximate, but true) numbers (which, like Trump,…
Bar the doors! Board the windows!
Halloween is coming! 6,000 inmates are about to be released from prison. Most got about 2 years cut from a 10 year drug sentence. Think of it: 6,000 roving marauders. Pirates! Barbarians!! Thugs!!! They’ll be Shanghaiing our youth, raping our maidens, and pillaging our homes! At least that’s what I’m learning from some on the Right. (See me on Bill…
Liberals eating themselves
In the Comey story, in which a seemingly liberal FBI director discusses crime, police, race, and history and get pilloried by the left, the New York Times takes the cake. In some Bizarro World I’m not part of, The Grey Lady deemed Comey’s comments “incendiary” and playing “into the right-wing view that holding the police to constitutional standards endangers the…
Three Cheers for FBI Director Comey
It’s kind of funny to watch the Left completely freak out at the mere suggestion from Comey that viral videos might have an impact on police on crime. See thisand this and this: "But he acknowledged that there is so far no data to back up his assertion…" https://t.co/ShhyMlv50H — Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 23, 2015 And this: Mr. Comey’s remarks…