Politics

A collection of 681 posts

Economics

How the Republicans Do (Tax) Policy

This is a disgrace to politics. Elizabeth Warren highlights the very broken system that is American politics and law-making.

News

Elections in the Hands of Rupert Murdoch

This one has really not garnered as much attention as it should have. It has long been thought, in the UK, that whomsoever the Sun newspaper supports for election will get elected. Rupert Murdoch, its owner, and owner of so many media outlets, holds tremendous power, but this often becomes

Education|Deep Dive

Foetal Viability, Education and a "Drain on Society"

This is an important subject and article that contains some difficult ideas, but here is a conversation that we should not shy away from having. I was urged to write this by someone working in the relevant area to whom I was talking today. Several years ago, I had a

Republican Party

Roy Moore, Polarised Politics, Double Standards and Ignoring Moral Disasters

Most readers will probably know about the evangelical candidate for the Alabama state seat, Roy Moore, and the sexual allegations. There are now some four women cited as claiming sexual abuse involving minors (one of the women being fourteen at the time, and with some thirty people on the record

Obama

Trump Has No Vision or Positive Driving Moral Force

This comment from Michael Neville is Quote of the Day stuff: Another problem that Trump has is that he doesn't know what he wants, other than self-aggrandizement. He has some vague idea about what his hard-core supporters want or more often don't want and to keep

Obama

Quote of the Day: Andy Schueler on Trump and See Noevo

This is blisteringly good, as ever. Andy Schueler, absent for too long, bangs See Noevo to rights: I know. You and virtually all liberals and Dems. Don't forget every single independent and conservative with even just a shred of decency. And that’s what’s been so great

Obama

Obama vs Trump: No Contest

I cannot begin to express how much I dislike Trump as a human being. Such narcissism and nefarious moral values. What, to me, gives a reflection of Trump's moral character is to see how he pales into the merest of moral shadows in light of Obama, his character

Donald Trump

Corker & Flake: GOP Follows a New, Dangerous, Path

From an admitted liberal such as myself, the news of Republican stalwarts Bob Corker and Jeff Flake roasting Trump in public should be met with joy. They have both right royally slammed Trump yesterday and recently, and this adds to the words of George W. Bush who took some unnamed

Economics

Quote of the Day: C. Peterson on Fining

This is so obvious, and yet is something I hadn't before considered. Thanks for C. Peterson who has recently been dropping by: The issue that first drew my attention to this matter of the actual value of money was when I realized that our punitive fine system is

Joe Biden

Biden Eviscerates Trump and His Administration

I won't lie, I like Joe Biden. Here, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), he gives a speech that goes to town on Trump. It's picking up quite a bit of traction. What is interesting is that Biden here says that the time

Donald Trump

Beyond Twitter, Trump Is Making His Mark

This Reuters article is both interesting and very scary. Trump is famous for his Twitter tirades, and with these in mind, it is easy to think Trump is nothing but a buffoon who is bumbling about not really having any effect - just see the Obamacare repeal debacle. The problem

Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt: The Conflict Between Truth and Social Justice at Universities

Jonathan Haidt is a moral and political psychologist of great note. ATP's Alan Duval has spent a lot of time in part agreeing and in part critiquing aspects of Haidt's systems of thought. Universities have become a hotbed of "social justice warriors" slogging it

News

Quote of the Day: Edgar Mitchell on Politics and the World

Okay, it was a day a long time ago. Love this: "Suddenly, from behind the rim of the Moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like

Deep Dive

James O'Brien Challenges on Political Correctness

This is diamond. It's about time that someone challenged that old canard "political correctness" as in "political correctness gone mad!" It's so often used as a pejorative term that I get wound up because the people using it really don't

Church

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Abortion and Same-Sex Marriage

The phenomenon that is Jacob Rees-Mogg in UK politics is an interesting one. He is the quintessential English "gentleman" politician - an upper classed toff of a Conservative MP who appears to fulfil all the stereotypes you can muster. And I'm not just goint OTT here

Trump

Access to Trump: The World of Golfing Lobbyists and CEOs

USA Today has done some pretty pernickety research into who frequents Trump's golf clubs and whether Trump is himself there at the same time. Trump owns multiple golf clubs, and their membership lists are private. However, by using access to social media and old-school time-consuming detective work, USA

Saudi Arabia

Letter Concerning Selling Arms to Saudi Arabia

I recently wrote to my local MP concerning selling arms to Saudi Arabia. This is her reply: Letter back from Caroline Dinenage MP about selling arms to Saudi Arabia: Dear Jonathan,Thank you for writing to me about the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.Let me firstly assure you

extremism

Gun Control and Vehicle Terrorism

Australian Prime Minister has said in the last day: “After the Nice truck attack last year I asked the counter terrorism co-ordinator… to get together with all of the state and territory police agencies, with business, with local government and make sure that we had a comprehensive strategy for protecting

Deep Dive

The Paradox of Tolerance

I will shortly be writing a couple of pieces on tolerance, but I thought I'd whet your appetite. H/T Jon Hamer.

Trump

Trump Taken to Task

To follow on from my previous piece on Trump, here is a video of Jimmy Kimmel skewering the President on his insanely bad press conference. Check it out. Let's make Trump king.

equality

Trump Is Simply an Idiot

There are many reasons this is so. Firstly, let's look at his ability to communicate like an adult. Here is part of the transcription of the press conference he gave after the Charlottesville problems. I didn’t wait long. I didn’t wait long. I didn’t wait

alt-right

"Alt-Right"? No, the Far Right.

It's all going off in the US, that's for sure. But something that has been bugging me, and many others, is the use of the term "alt-right". This seems to be a term to describe the rise of the right amongst social media and

climate change

Pruitt Demands Peer-Review of 14-Man Peer-Reviewed Climate Change Report

Scott Pruitt is in charge of the US Environmental Protection Agency and he denies that climate change is human caused. He is presently claiming that scientific reporting of climate change is "politicised" and recently took much criticism after announcing that he wanted to have a "red team,

Democratic Party

Trump to Take 17 day Golfing Holiday

Trump once told a New Hampshire campaign rally: "I'd just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off and make great deals." He has also spent years slamming Obama on Twitter for the cost of his holidays. Now, according to Associated Press,

Brexit

James O'Brien and Today's Daily Mail Front Page

I was in the doctor's surgery today and saw a couple both reading the Daily Mail and complaining about how shocking it was that the EU border controls are tightening now we said we are coming out of the EU. We complained about needing more control over our