A Few Things That I Thought Were Interesting

• I don't think I have read a single newspaper article about Ben Carson that didn't contain the phrase "soft-spoken". Talk about cliches...
• Interesting article in the New York Times today about K-12 students and internet access. It said that 70% of teachers assign homework that requires internet access but that one-third of K-12 students in the country don't have broadband access.
• I read another article in the New Yorker that was speculating about why Bernie Sanders is as popular as he is even with the "socialist" label, which would have been a disqualifier just a few years ago. One of the ideas she suggested is that the Fox News crowd has been mischaracterizing Obama as a socialist for seven years, so the stigma has kind of been removed. If we've already had a socialist president, what's the big deal? Finally something to thank Fox News for!
• The astonishing tax plans of the Republican candidates (reminiscent of Paul Ryan's various hoax plans) show that the GOP has never really interested in reducing the deficit or the debt. The plans of Trump, Rubio, and Cruz would add somewhere between $12 and $16 trillion to the debt over ten years.

Some Opinions

• It has taken Scott Walker and the current Republican three-ring-circus legislature only a few years to change Wisconsin from the poster child for honest and open government to one of the most corrupt.
• It is comical to watch all the Don't-Tread-on-Me constitutional scholar Senators creating their own faux-Constitution out of whole cloth to justify ignoring a still-nonexistent Supreme Court nominee.
• I saw a post on Facebook or somewhere that said people get the President/Governor/Senator they deserve, and I'm afraid he is right. The reason Brownback (insert any other name you choose) is governor is that a lot more people voted for him than his opponent. The same is true for Bevin in Kentucky, Walker in Wisconsin, Pence in Indiana, etc. They were who the people wanted and now they pay the price.
• Carson and Cruz are the scariest candidates of a scary bunch.

Quote of the Day

"Antonin Scalia, who died this month, after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, devoted his professional life to making the United States a less fair, less tolerant, and less admirable democracy. Fortunately, he mostly failed."

Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker


 

Quote of the Day

"If Karl Marx had lived long enough to see Carly Fiorina’s failed GOP campaign, he might’ve been impressed with the former Hewlett-Packard CEO. After all, Marx only preached about the overthrow of capitalism—Fiorina had actual hands-on experience bringing a major corporation to its knees."

Branco Marcetic, article in In These Times 


 

Martin Feldstein and Groundhog Day

I see that Martin Feldstein is once again telling us that inflation is just around the corner. (The blog post cited uses the very fitting term "Permahawkery".)  It's also fitting that Feldstein makes his permanent prediction just before Groundhog Day, since this has definitely become a deja vu phenomenon.  It seems that Mr. Feldstein comes out every so often to check for the shadow of inflation and he sees it every time!  I suppose if he does it every year he is bound to be right sooner or later, and then he can say "told you so".  But so far a ouija board would have been more accurate.

I think I will add him to my list of People No Longer Worth Listening To.