What is democracy worth?
Josh Marshall has a classic Editor’s Brief at Talking Points Memo this morning: Long, rambling, extemporaneous and loose, but also inherently fascinating: “I’m talking about the global contest between autocracy and authoritarianism on the one hand and...
The Fed bends the knee
Now comes word that the Federal Reserve is about to cut a key lending rate by about a quarter of a point. Even if you don’t routinely pay attention to financial news, this is a story you need to be following. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen economic...
It’s the system, stupid
This morning’s Guardian includes an op-ed piece from a former UC-Berkeley sociology prof who contends (via somewhat dubious example poll questions) that college-educated Democrats live in denser bubbles than Republicans. Perhaps, but that’s not the...
Thanks but no thanks, pundits
Yes, despite our national majorities and the encouraging results of the 2018 midterms, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about Trump and the GOP in 2020. But over the past few days, the pundit class has been aggressively pushing the alarming notion that if...
The case for Democratic fusion
Enough about the Democrat Party being one big tent. It’s more like a refugee camp inhabited by multiple parties that would naturally — in a parliamentary system — squabble and scrap before elections, but then come together to form a coalition...
Adrift and aflame
Politicians, even the good ones, lie from time to time, and sometimes with good reason: Remember how Jimmy Carter tried to tell us the truth, and we repaid him with mockery and defeat? Governments lie, too. But then again, so do companies, and coaches, and churches,...
So, about this ‘soil blocking’ thing…
One of the new things we’re trying in Year Three here at stately Black Sheep Manor is a seed-starting system based on a U.K. technique called “soil blocking.” My stepfather, Michael Sasser, gave me his soil blocking equipment in the winter of...
26 GOP Senators who might turn on Trump
There are currently 53 Republicans in the Senate, and so long as 34 of them stand by President Trump, a successful impeachment in the Democratic-controlled House will fail to remove our criminal president from office. That makes reducing that number to 33...
The Last Patrician
A comment on the life and times of George H.W. Bush, after a day of eulogies: It seems proper, here in the chaos of the Trump Era, to feel a certain nostalgia over the passing of a man so closely identified with the Old Establishment values of discipline, restraint,...
One hundred and thirty-eight days
The first skirmish in the “President Puts Kids in Cages and Lies About It” scandal ended yesterday with a tactical retreat by the White House and little else. More than 2,000 immigrant children are still in cages. Trump’s executive order just sets up...
Dan Conover
Howdy
Howdy! This is my current blog,