It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

In the post election shock wave, there has been plenty of speculation as to what Trump might do, in terms of things which would be [perceived to be] very bad for the country. Much of the speculation is probably overblown, but some it could be on point, and the country could certainly be in for a rough few years. However, rather than jump on the bandwagon of what horrible things might happen, I figured I'd take a different rhetorical track, and speculate on positive things which could happen. Trump is, in actuality, in a fairly unique position as a president elect, being both relatively unbeholden to special interests, and being historically less partisan than most nominated candidates. He will find himself, in a matter of months, in a fairly unique position, at least in recent memory, and actually capable of accomplishing things which no traditional partisan candidate could hope for. So in that spirit, I'm going to speculate on some things he could do, which could actually...

Wanted to write a quick post, re this article from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/donald-trump-rigged-election/ In it, they chronicle Trump's assertions that the election is rigged, presumably to disenfranchise the people in terms of selecting their government. They note that in addition to various politicians from both parties refuting the assertion, there is not evidence of wide-scale voter fraud or election rigging (they ignore, of course, the tangible evidence of smaller-scale electioneering on the part of the DNC, as documented by Project Veritas Action, but that's to be expected from a liberal media outlet). The thing is, though: Trump is, once again, sorta accidentally and indirectly correct. While there's little evidence of the type of election rigging which would typically be associated with the term(s), there is reasonable evidence of media outlets attempting to influence the election. Moreover, though, and probably more importantly, there is goo...

Recently, I was pointed to an op ed in the Washington Post by Peter Thiel, which was in part a rehashing of his speech at the RNC convention. In it, he makes some pretty excellent points about the current state of the [federal] government, and how nominally the government wasn't always the unmitigated disaster and national embarrassment which it currently is. One could quibble with some of the finer points (eg: that Jeb Bush lost the primary because he spent money poorly, rather than primarily just because of being representative of the entrenched entitled politician class which voters are sick of), but on the whole, I think he makes some pretty good points. I'm going to also take issue with his nominal conclusion (ie: that we should take a chance on Trump to fix the system), but I'm not going to spend a lot of time dwelling on that point. If you're reading this blog, chances are you're reasonably well-informed, both in terms of current events and relevant histor...

Donald Trump is nothing if not polarizing; his life has been defined by self-promotion, and his political campaign so far by insulting various people. He has found himself the beneficiary of a populist sentiment of frustration with the political establishment, and a pervasive (and accurate, although oft inaccurately attributed) sentiment that in contradiction to the government's proclamations of prosperity and stability, the trend in the country is anything but. At this point, he has secured his position as one of the two miserable options for the next presidential term in the US, and has (at present) roughly 45% of the population supporting his bid for such. One could make the case that he's the lesser of two evils, but that's not saying much. Trump is an egotistical, bloviating, and aggrandizing figure, with a thin skin and a tendency to lash out at people he perceives to offend him. He has no governmental experience, and although he has managed several businesses, his ...

So the UK recently voted on a referendum to withdraw from the EU. Naturally, as with any popular vote, there is some concern that the voters were uneducated, manipulated by misleading propaganda, didn't know what they were voting for, etc., but regardless of those concerns, the UK government has indicated that it will respect the "will of its people", and move to withdraw from the EU. A big motivating factor for a withdraw, at least in the propaganda message, was to gain the ability to regulate immigration into the UK. There is a sentiment, accurate or otherwise, that immigrants from other EU countries are straining the UK's economic system, and/or straining the public benefits system. In general, one would surmise that the UK is hoping to preserve as much of the rest of the existing relationship dynamics with the other EU countries, while saving the money the pay to the EU (which is not insignificant), and gaining the ability to better control their borders. Of c...

This opinion piece  is too interesting to ignore, even if it's admittedly sorta fringe in comparison to "real" issues. Salon being an ultra-liberal publication, and the author being a political writer for such, I'd think it's fair to conclude that we're solidly in the mindset of a hardcore liberal here. And that's what I want to focus on, because the gripe expressed is to wacky and left-field, that it really makes you wonder about the mental fitness of liberals in general. Here's the synopsis the train [wreck] of thought, for those too lazy to read the article: Captain America is the quintessential representation of American idealism, in terms of moral compass and judgement The author lauds this expression in the previous films, noting Captain America's loyalty, solid judgement, and [importantly] unequivocal stance that too much government power/control was ripe for abuse, and thus needed to be countered by the people There is praise for Cap...

(Note: This is another area-specific post, so if you don't care about politics in California, this won't be very interesting to you. Consider yourself noted.) Property taxes in California are kinda messed up. For a quick primer, skim the Wikipedia page on Prop 13 ; this is not the only problem, but is the genesis for a lot of the issues. Note that Prop 13 itself was a voter backlash against the inability of the state to constrain its tax & spend addiction, which has not really abated since its passage, and also represents a huge ongoing issue for the state... but that's a topic for another blog post. In this one, I'm going to concentrate on things I would change with property taxes alone, to make that system more sane. I see two fundamental problems with the current taxation scheme, which will be the basis for three changes I would suggest (two to address the issues, and an additional one which I think would just be a great improvement in general), and one subst...

So these ruminations are somewhat prompted by this current event , in which Trump is railing against the RNC establishment for having a rigged system which favors political insiders at the expense of anyone trying to mount a campaign as an outsider. As is typical, Trump is more or less accurate in his assessment, which was delivered with all the political nuance and subtlety of an elephant on PCP covered in feces. But a actually want to examine another aspect of the Trump campaign story, which is the idea that if he does not receive the nomination, he may decide to continue to run as a third party candidate. In the aforementioned linked article, the Washington Post reiterates the perception that this would be devastating for the Republican party, as voters are split between an establishment candidate, and the offensive and dangerous egomaniac who is connecting with the population's distrust and dissatisfaction with the establishment. Yes, such a run would likely split the vote...

So John Brennan, the acting CIA director, made it clear in a recent interview that the CIA would not carry out torture again , even if order to do so by a future president. Presumably, this was somewhat in response to Trump's campaign assertion that he would bring back torture, and even more sever forms of such [violations of international treaties], if elected president. So even if Trump gets elected, the US will not torture people any more. Well, that's the way it's supposed to be interpreted anyway... but as with many things in politics, a careful examination may reveal a different version of the truth than what the headlines are designed to lead you to believe. First, let's note that Brennan, for whatever nobility may be in the stance, isn't taking this stance because he thinks torture is fundamentally wrong, and/or he wouldn't authorize it again in the abstract. His quote, specifically: "I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and tec...

So Obama was hanging out at SXSW , and has this to say, re the current smartphone encryption debate:  http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-11/obama-confronts-a-skeptical-silicon-valley-at-south-by-southwest To summarize the article, the salient point are in these quotes, imho: "The question we now have to ask is, if technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system, where the encryption is so strong there’s no key, there’s no door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot?" Obama said. "If in fact you can’t crack that at all, government can’t get in, then everybody’s walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket."  Compromise is possible, he said, and the technology industry must help design it.  "I suspect the answer is going to come down to, how do we create a system that, encryption is as strong as possible, the key is secure as possible...

Several articles recently cite a  recent web study from Johns Hopkins concluding that roughly 60% of Americans wanting to buy a gun would buy a smart gun if one was available. No, wait, that's not actually a correct representation of the study. The actual study found that nearly 59% of people buying guns would consider  purchasing a childproof gun if one was available. Note the subtle, but profound, intentional misrepresentation of the results of the study, by the article about the study itself (compare paragraph one, the summary, to paragraph eight, the actual findings). Also note the heavy dose of unrelated statistics and propaganda, intended to emphasize how vital it presumably is to propagate the use of "smart" guns in society. But that's only the start of the problems around this topic. See, there's no particular definition of "childproof" either, which allows people to extrapolate their own impressions. One could suppose that the 60% who wo...

I was going to not write anything about the SOTU , political drivel as it primarily is, but as usual in reading the text a few things jumped out, and motivated a sort of response. I'm not going to cover every point, of course (most of which are vapid and well-trod by this point), but a few bear mentioning. Obama on "progress" over his term: It’s how we recovered from the worst economic crisis in generations. ... yeah, if by recovered you mean stringing the economy along in a strange sort of limbo, where the Fed keeps housing affordable and stocks mostly positive after printing roughly $3,000,000,000,000 of additional money to buy up all the junk bonds the government created during the housing bubble. The recovery which has brought us to the precipice of another crash, which you're desperately hoping to postpone until you're out of office. Oh, and you has to create another roughly 7 trillion in national debt so that people in the middle class still cannot affo...

So this morning, this happened:  http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-12/obama-regrets-divided-u-s-before-final-state-of-the-union Let me see if I have this right: Obama, the great Divider in Chief, said he regrets how divided and partisan politics has become. As Jon Stewart might have articulated [cue dramatic head turn to close-up camera], "Whaaah?" This is the Obama who blamed Bush for overstepping presidential power to push agenda items, then used the same mechanism to do the same thing more than any previous president. Before that, this was the Obama who used the "Rahm it down their throats" strategy to pass his signature massive reform and entitlement program over the substantial and well-founded objections of every single legislative member of the other party, without anyone even reading the whole bill. This is the president who constantly blames his Republican predecessor for every problem he can, even when it's absurd to do so. The pr...

One of the recent hot-topic issues in the news has been how to address gun violence in the United States. From cops shooting unarmed  people, to the uncounted number of civilians murdered every year by "law enforcement", and with the extremely rare instances of mass shootings perpetrated by civilians getting hugely disproportionate media coverage , everybody seems overtly concerned with trying to do something to fix the problems. President Obama had an overtly emotional televised announcement that he was going to once again ignore the Constitutional limits of power imposed on his office to try to make it more difficult for people to acquire guns in the United States. Everybody is interested in reducing gun violence in the US... or are they? You see, there's actually some contention on that last point. President Obama is certainly intent on reducing gun possession in the US... but only for civilians; he's actively funneling military ordnance and equipment to the d...