2017-02-22 20:15
If you feel that all we hear about these days is Donald Trump, you are right. Due to a combination of factors including his breaks with conventional norms and his own use of social media, D… Read More
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Discussion of politics and society from a perspective of liberal values including individual liberty and separation of church and state.
2017-02-22 00:55
The 2016 election was a contest between two of the most dishonest politicians in America, with Donald Trump probably taking the lead in this category. Donald Trump has continued to beh… Read More
2017-02-20 19:46
Donald Trump’s attack on the media as an enemy of the American people has received widespread criticism. Carl Bernstein has called Trump’s attacks on the media worse than those… Read More
2017-02-19 21:42
Timeless started out the season as an entertaining time travel series, even if not the most significant genre show on at present. As it approaches its season (and possibly series) finale, t… Read More
2017-02-18 21:40
Donald Trump got off to what might be the worst first month of a presidency since William Henry Harrison (who died after his first month in office). While the apparently impotent… Read More
2017-02-17 16:47
After yesterday’s bizarre press conference from Donald Trump, which has me now wondering if Trump has gotten to the talking to pictures on the White House walls stage yet, it was inev… Read More
2017-02-17 01:56
“I’m not ranting and raving.” –Donald Trump at today’s news conference in which he was ranting and raving
As I only half jokingly Tweeted: If we were liv… Read More
2017-02-15 23:25
Two days ago I wrote about how James Flynn was on thin ice, and that Andrew Puzder’s confirmation as Labor secretary were in jeopardy. Later that day Flynn was forced to resign, and t… Read More
2017-02-14 23:03
A snowstorm in the Northeast today caused many schools in the area to close. Said Betsy DeVos, “What? The school closures weren’t supposed to start yet.” –Seth… Read More
2017-02-14 03:22
The chaos continues in the Trump White House.
Michael Flynn is reportedly “on thin ice” after it came out that he spoke with the Russian ambassador about sanctions before T… Read More
2017-02-13 00:06
The major genre event of the week was the much anticipated premier of Legion. After watching the pilot, I would say it is worthy of the hype. If it can maintain this quality, it would rank… Read More
2017-02-12 20:58
Yesterday I looked at very early discussions from pundits and pollsters regarding the 2018 Congressional elections. It is far too early to say what will happen, but at least there is old da… Read More
2017-02-11 22:10
I have said many times that the party winning the 2016 presidential election would very likely suffer for it, considering how flawed and unpopular both candidates were. If Hillary Clinton h… Read More
2017-02-10 19:42
Donald Trump’s first three weeks in office have been a disaster, with Trump learning that being president is a hard job which he is not prepared for. Public Policy Polling shows that… Read More
2017-02-10 01:50
There were two setbacks for the Trump administration today. The more significant was an appeals court ruling against Trump’s travel ban:
A three-judge federal appeals panel on Thursd… Read More
2017-02-08 21:19
Donald Trump continues to show both his bigotry and his incompetence in his attacks against the federal judges ruling on his travel ban. The Hill reports:
Trump argued the law gives him bro… Read More
2017-02-08 02:27
Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Education secretary today, joining Donald Trump’s Bizarro World cabinet despite the lack of any experience in education beyond lobbying against it, along… Read More
2017-02-07 01:27
When even John Yoo is saying that Donald Trump is abusing executive power we know both that we have a problem, and that opposition to him is becoming widespread. We have already seen major… Read More
2017-02-05 23:26
Just as we struggle to get used to the transition in Washington, there is another huge transition to look forward to. As I posted earlier in the week, the big news is that Peter Capaldi has… Read More
2017-02-04 21:23
After being mocked for her alternative facts in using a Bowling Green Massacre which never existed to justify Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, Kellyanne Conway admitted she was wr… Read More
2017-02-03 19:55
It is not a good day for Ivanka Trump’s businesses as efforts to stop sales of Ivanka Trump’s products in protest against her father appear to be successful. First Nordstrom ann… Read More
2017-02-03 00:13
Thanks to the incompetence of Donald Trump, opposition to his administration is far beyond what I might have hoped for a month ago. While it took five years to have massive opposition to Ge… Read More
2017-02-01 21:30
Living in West Michigan, I opposed the political agenda Betsy DeVos long before she hit the national stage. (I also opposed her husband’s candidacy for governor of Michigan in 2006.)… Read More
2017-02-01 00:50
And at Dulles Airport, a 5-year-old Iranian boy was detained for hours and kept from his mother. Or as Kellyanne Conway calls it, “alternative daycare.” –Stephen Col… Read More
2017-01-31 02:17
Donald Trump’s immigration ban has resulted in massive protests, including from the acting attorney general who has refused to fight legal challenges to the executive action.
“… Read More
2017-01-30 23:04
During an interview on BBC Radio 2, Peter Capaldi announced he plans to leave Doctor Who, with his last appearance to be on the 2017 Christmas special. Radio Times Reports:
The actor was sp… Read More
2017-01-30 02:50
With over four hundred scripted shows (expected to surpass 500 in 2017) it is probably impossible for any one person to fairly rank the best of any season. Even many professional televi… Read More
2017-01-28 20:30
Donald Trump’s first week in office showed that we definitely need extreme vetting for presidential candidates, not immigrants. Trump’s immigration ban is already creating consi… Read More
2017-01-27 19:51
The White House has pulled ads to promote signing up for coverage under Obamacare, including ads already paid for. If the goal is to provide more affordable coverage, this is counterproduct… Read More
2017-01-26 21:40
One of the many downsides of Donald Trump’s election is having people like Steve Bannon working in the White House. However, if Clinton had won, we might have had people nearly as bad… Read More
2017-01-25 20:41
Donald Trump’s use of executive orders have confirmed the worst fears about what we would see from a Trump presidency. Everyone who is aware of the policy assumed Trump would reinstat… Read More
2017-01-24 18:58
The election of Donald Trump appears to be stimulating reading along with protests. The Hill reports a surge in sale of George Orwell’s novel 1984 after Kellyanne Conway said that the… Read More
2017-01-23 19:36
Last week, prior to the inauguration of Donald Trump, I had recommended the novel It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis on Facebook. The 1935 novel had a populist demagogue beat FDR… Read More
2017-01-22 21:21
Donald Trump got off to a poor start with an attack on the press by his press secretary, while Saturday was a good day for the start of an anti-Trump protest movement. The excitement seen i… Read More
2017-01-22 00:38
The week included two shows ending their season with a twist (a tip off that this post has many spoilers). It was notable that the comedy The Good Place did a far better job with its twist… Read More
2017-01-21 01:18
After Donald Trump won the nomination, we had hoped that it was just an act to win the Republican nomination, and he would take on a more reasonable tone. Instead he fought with a gold star… Read More
2017-01-20 01:35
A large number of Americans are looking at the inauguration of Donald Trump with dread. Beyond ideological differences, there are concerns that Donald Trump does not respect the norms which… Read More
2017-01-19 00:14
Climate change deniers have been making fallacious claims of a hiatus in the warming of the planet, based upon cherry picking data. The actual data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric… Read More
2017-01-17 22:43
A new CNN poll shows the same finding as a recent Gallup poll which found that Donald Trump has record low approval for modern presidents:
Donald Trump will become president Friday with an… Read More
2017-01-17 01:07
There are reasons to fear that the Trump administration might set new records for corruption in government, but before Democrats can claim the high moral ground they must recognize the corr… Read More
2017-01-15 21:58
I am not going to give any spoilers on the season finale of Sherlock which airs tonight but leaked out early, waiting to watch until this is posted, but there remains a lot to say about las… Read More
2017-01-14 19:54
The Hill and Politco report that the Senate Intelligence Committee is going to probe the alleged connections between Donald Trump and Russia. As long as it is a real investigation, an… Read More
2017-01-14 00:23
Donald Trump’s confrontation with the press on Wednesday has reinforced the view among civil libertarians that Donald Trump’s election is a threat to the free press. In November… Read More
2017-01-12 19:39
While civil liberties advocates worry about the incoming Trump administration, with some urging the Obama administration to curtail surveillance prior to Trump’s inauguration, The New… Read More
2017-01-12 01:05
Fake news has become a greatly overused expression. A few days ago Margaret Sullivan wrote that it is time to retire the term:
Faster than you could say “Pizzagate,” the label h… Read More
2017-01-10 20:47
As I’ve discussed previously, Republican plans to repeal Obamacare are not going well for them. Donald Trump is still talking about immediate repeal, while having no idea what is actu… Read More
2017-01-09 19:37
Donald Trump’s expressions of bigotry received almost as much attention as La La Land at the Golden Globe Awards last night. Meryl Streep had the most publicized criticism in her acce… Read More
2017-01-09 17:44
It is great that CNN is putting Bernie on for a Town Hall format show tonight, but why do it during the national championship game? That sounds like DNC debate scheduling Read More
2017-01-08 21:56
Sherlock began the season in The Six Thatchers with a plot twist which was in some ways both shocking and predictable. Major spoilers ahead for those who have not seen the episode yet… Read More
2017-01-08 02:37
It seems unlikely — but the idea’s been floating around for several days now, and so far she’s not rejecting it. For what it’s worth, Secretary Clinton, we’d lo… Read More
2017-01-07 21:43
With the intelligence reports released yesterday being somewhat underwhelming but raising serious questions, I fear that many people will continue to look at the Russian hacking through par… Read More
2017-01-07 01:07
As I discussed earlier in the week, it was far easier for Republicans to vote to repeal Obamacare when it would be blocked by a filibuster or veto. Republicans might not have the votes in t… Read More
2017-01-05 22:09
The miracles of modern technology now provides a simple tool to keep up with everything Donald Trump has said on any topic. A searchable database can be found here which contains all of Don… Read More
2017-01-04 20:15
With Republicans appearing to make abolishing Obamacare a top priority (following their failure to gut ethics oversight of Congress), the American Medical Association has weighed in with th… Read More
2017-01-03 23:14
Among the first actions by the House Republicans were rules changes to reduce the power of the Office of Congressional Ethics, and then reversing course. The bad news is that it highlighted… Read More
2017-01-01 21:25
A Doctor Who Christmas Special is different from a regular episode. While there have been some exceptions, generally they are lighter and disconnected from the story lines of a particular s… Read More
2016-12-31 20:52
While there is no question there are also major differences between the two, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton also have far more similarities than supporters of either are likely to admit… Read More
2016-12-30 18:58
The 2016 election had the deleterious result of electing Donald Trump president, but at least we did not wind up with another Bush or Clinton as many had predicted. While some still talk ab… Read More
2016-12-29 20:39
While I don’t always agree with Barack Obama, compared to the two candidates to replace him in 2017, he will be missed for his policy not doing “stupid stuff.” Hillary Cli… Read More
2016-12-28 21:50
John Kerry worked hard to seek peace in the Middle East but was thwarted by obstacles including an Israeli government which did not appear to want peace on reasonable terms. Like Kerry, I s… Read More
2016-12-28 02:22
Today there was a sad followup of a genre news item from over the weekend, and a terrible disturbance in the force. Carrie Fisher died following the heart attack she suffered while travelin… Read More
2016-12-26 19:01
There has been a lot of playing “what if” after Donald Trump unexpectedly beat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Now Barack Obama has joined in, saying he could have… Read More
2016-12-25 05:19
While waiting for the Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio, we have The 12 Doctors of Christmas video above.
This will lead us into the upcoming season, to start in April 2017… Read More
2016-12-24 20:15
Julian Assange and Wikileaks had a significant impact on the Democratic Party. The revelations in the leaked email led to the removal of Debby Wasserman Schultz as chairperson of the Democr… Read More
2016-12-23 17:38
While Donald Trump was tweeting about expanding the nuclear arsenal yesterday, another controversy arose when Ivanka Trump was harassed by another passenger on an airplane flight. The right… Read More
2016-12-22 21:55
Maybe Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin aren’t such great buddies after all. After Putin said his country’s nuclear potential needs fortifying, Donald Trump tweeted: “The Un… Read More
2016-12-21 23:09
Normally when someone loses an election they keep relatively quiet. I thought that the horror of seeing Donald Trump being elected president would at least be balanced by being through with… Read More
2016-12-21 00:52
Under the best of circumstances there will be major conflicts of interest and ethical problems when someone with business interests as vast as those held by Donald Trump becomes president… Read More
2016-12-20 01:16
The bad new first is that Donald Trump has received enough electoral votes to become president. The good news is that Hillary Clinton lost again. As expected, the attempts to deny Trump a m… Read More
2016-12-19 02:42
We have now gone almost a year without any new episodes of Doctor Who. (At least there was Class, along with seeing Matt Smith on The Crown and Jenna Coleman on Victoria). Peter Capaldi and… Read More
2016-12-17 23:43
Hillary Clinton and her supporters continue to blame others for her loss to Donald Trump, despite a poorly run campaign with an unpopular candidate. James Comey was a hero to Hillary Clinto… Read More
2016-12-17 01:42
“The Democratic National Committee was actually hacked because one of its directors clicked on a fake email to change his password, which gave Russia access to his account.
Then Hilla… Read More
2016-12-15 23:52
Donald Trump had previously announced a press conference to explain how he would avoid conflicts of interest as president. He subsequently canceled the press conference. A group of Democrat… Read More
2016-12-14 22:28
Hindsight is easy, but in retrospect there were plenty of clues that Clinton would lose Michigan, and the general election. Before the primaries, I noticed an unusual amount of enthusiasm a… Read More
2016-12-14 00:40
While many Clinton supporters are already making unsubstantiated claims of a conspiracy between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to rig the presidential election for Trump to excuse Clinton… Read More
2016-12-13 01:19
The Hill reported once again today that Dems grapple with lessons from Clinton disaster. As Joe Tippi pointed out, the election was so close that any of the factors cited could have changed… Read More
2016-12-12 00:48
The first season finale of Westworld, The Bicameral Minds, confirmed more fan theories, had additional revelations, and leaves big questions as to where the show is going for the second sea… Read More
2016-12-10 22:31
We are seeing another wave of anti-Russia hysteria following an article in The Washington Post which makes unproven claims of Russian tampering in the presidential election. The claims cont… Read More
2016-12-10 01:57
With roughly seven weeks until he takes office, President-elect Donald Trump still has a few things he’s researching. Needs to figure out, like, ‘What does a president do?&rsquo&helli…Read More
2016-12-09 02:24
A Pew Research Center survey shows what was expected after a campaign with the two most unpopular candidates in memory. Donald Trump is the least popular president-elect in modern history… Read More
2016-12-07 21:30
A report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzed news coverage during the 2016 election found that both Hillary Clinton an… Read More
2016-12-07 00:37
Everyone was upset when Donald Trump said he might not accept the results of the election. Now that he has been elected, there are those who do not accept this and are trying to block his el… Read More
2016-12-06 03:06
Yesterday, Donald Trump had his third top secret intelligence briefing. If you’d like to know the details, just check Trump’s Twitter feed.
It’s been reported that Preside… Read More
2016-12-05 00:28
Gilmore Girls, A Year In the Life finally revealed the greatest mystery beyond the secret of life, the universe and everything (which was revealed in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Gal… Read More
2016-12-04 02:34
Like most observers, I am apprehensive about the names being mentioned for top positions in the Trump administration. His national security advisers are far too hawkish, although the same w… Read More
2016-12-03 00:34
Donald Trump has created quite a stir today by speaking with Taiwan’s president, possibly risking problems with China. The New York Times reports:
President-elect Donald J. Trump spo… Read More
2016-12-02 00:21
Ivanka Trump is probably the most moderate to liberal member of the Trump family, and the incoming first daughter is expected to have more of a public role than the next first lady. Ivanka… Read More
2016-11-30 22:47
The nomination of Hillary Clinton by the Democratic Party in 2016 was among the worst blunders in the history of politics. She was the about the most status-quo candidate possible in an ele… Read More
2016-11-29 23:24
Issues were generally ignored during the 2016 election campaign, with media coverage concentrating on what atrocious things Donald Trump has said and the latest revelations in the Clinton s… Read More
2016-11-29 02:22
It is doubtful that the recounts which Jill Stein has pushed for in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania will change the election results. Despite this, Nate Silver has made the following… Read More
2016-11-27 21:12
The CW Network has released the above extended preview of this week’s crossover episode between Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. Bleeding Cool provides the comic b… Read More
2016-11-26 23:55
The Guardian features a conversation between Bernie Sanders and Spike Lee about the election. Spike Lee started out by describing what Sanders was up against in running for the Democratic n… Read More
2016-11-25 23:53
After the revelations of NSA surveillance my concern, along with others such as Daniel Ellsberg, was not that we were already in an Orwellian totalitarian state, but that the infrastructure… Read More
2016-11-24 18:37
The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump has been “turning away intelligence briefers since election win.”
President-elect Donald Trump has received two classified intellig… Read More
2016-11-24 18:14
Barack Obama has fulfilled the tradition of pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving. Before he leaves office he should make a more meaningful pardon and honor the American tradition of individu… Read More
2016-11-24 00:01
With Donald Trump often expressing contradictory views, sometimes in the same speech, we will not really know what a Trump administration will be like until we see what they actually do. In… Read More
2016-11-22 23:51
While we approach Donald Trump’s presidency with some dread, at least this stage is more interesting than it would be if Clinton had been elected. Rather than what would be a fairly p… Read More
2016-11-22 01:53
Among the many unique aspects of the 2016 election was that the Democratic candidate was to the right of the Republican candidate on foreign policy. Unfortunately Donald Trump, while never… Read More
2016-11-21 01:19
This week I’ll start with two shows which a lot of time could be spent on to interpret their full meaning–Westworld and Mr. Robot. Both deal with technology, but only one is rea… Read More
2016-11-19 22:19
The cast of Hamilton had a message for Mike Pence (video above). This message was delivered by Brandon Victor Dixon, who played Aaron Burr:
“We, sir — we — are the diverse… Read More
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