“The only people truly bound by campaign promises are the voters who believe them.”
― Christopher Hitchens
There are two types of promises: comforting lies, and those meant to be kept. Campaign promises differ from normal ones only in the choice of subject; where a doctor might tell a panicked child, “Now, you might feel a little pinch,” a politician will promise to end world hunger (more…)
One of the dangers we presently face is that, with now-President Trump doing or saying something outrageous every couple of days, we’re likely to lose track of the national dialogue on policy. To resist that trend, let’s discuss something other than what’s happening right now but instead might happen soon.
The perennial Republican talking point on food stamps (actually SNAP these days) is that there’s widespread abuse. To be fair, this is what their constituents want; vast numbers of calls and letters show up in their offices every single day complaining about this person who was buying junk food at a convenience (more…)
There’s tons of articles about Trump’s character, how he won the election, obstructionism then and now, and so on. Yesterday the media message was all about fake news; right now the big thing is his cabinet confirmation process, and tomorrow there’ll be something else, depending on what people choose to be scandalized about. But in the mean while, things will be happening, and we shouldn’t lose sight of them amid all the hype.
So let’s boil it down to essentials: We’ve got a brand new president coming in, and his platform was Reform. (more…)
There is more than one valid and effective solution to our problems. Unfortunately, the political parties in our strongly divided system are far more concerned with blaming one another than in getting anything done. This is hardly a purely American phenomenon, of course; that’s just a handy example.
The evident solution is NOT to discard parties and then recreate the process from the ground up. Instead, it’s to get (more…)
The Not Fake News 