Politics and Leadership (2013)

2013 Ends on a Depressing Note — the NSA Is Indiscriminately Installing Spy Gizmos on Our Electronics — We Can’t Even Keep Trains on Track and from Exploding — and too Few Americans Seem to Care (31 December 2013)

America’s Obsession with Linking Insurgency and Terrorism to Al Qaeda (30 December 2013)

If I Shake Your Hand in Greeting at a Memorial Service for Nelson Mandela — Does that Mean I Approve of You and the Government You Represent? — a Comment on Why Bombs and Missiles Will always Come First for Reflexively Aggressive People Like Senators McCain and Rubio — and the Irony of these Nitwits Making the Comments They Did — while in Temporal Proximity to the Applauded Meaning of Nelson Mandela’s Life (10 December 2013)

Charles Krauthammer Provided Us with an Excellent Example of Nonsensical Republican Party Thinking — that Perfectly Illustrates the Barf-Inducing Hypocrisy of the Allegedly Conservative Right(29 November 2013)

Libertarian Nick Gillespie Wrote an Entertainingly Scathing Indictment of President Obama’s Record — as Seen from Young People’s Perspective — Recommended Reading for Anyone Interested in the Demographics of Politics and How to Write in a Captivating Way (20 November 2013)

Effective Leadership Is Based on Paying Attention — So, I Have to Laugh when Liberals Say that President Bush’s Katrina Failure Was Much Worse than President Obama’s Jaw-Dropping Incompetence in regard to the ObamaCare Rollout — a Sublimely Apt Lesson for Future Strategists(19 November 2013)

Jason Mick’s Story — about How the Federal Government Shut Down Lavabit Entrepreneur Ladar Levison — Should Outrage Every Freedom Loving American — and You Thought the Fourth Amendment Actually Meant Something (13 November 2013)

ProPublica Analyst Charles Ornstein Thinks that another ObamaCare Surprise Is Going to Arrive in January— He Might Be Wrong — but I Think that the Act’s Complexity, and the Market it Operates in, Favor Ornstein’s Concerned Perspective — and My Comment regarding the Larger Message about America’s Political Leadership (13 November 2013)

American Pragmatism Is Out the Window — Stephan Richter Focuses on Our Nihilistic Blame Game(12 November 2013)

Using Two Books to Illustrate His Point — the Intelligently Thoughtful Ezra Klein Explains the Meaninglessness of Political Campaigning — Virtually all of Us Vote according to the Partisan Outlooks of the Clans to which We Belong — There Is No Such Thing as “Game Change” — in the John Heilemann and Mark Halperin Sense (08 November 2013)

Do You Want to Emulate Superb Opinion Writing? — See This Column about U.S. Senator Rand Paul from Joan Walsh — with Its Incorporated Reference to Journalist Jill Lawrence’s Worthy Work — a Combined Display of Admirably Effective Political Kneecapping (07 November 2013)

If You Read Only One Book Review about Geopolitics This Year — Read This One by Larry Gross — regarding Max Blumenthal, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel (07 November 2013)

India Is in the Process of Making an Impressive Statement in Space — by Sending a Probe to Mars — and Implicitly Adding that — “Earth ain’t America’s oyster, no more” (06 November 2013)

A Depressingly Accurate Caricature of Today’s United States — Pakistani Drone Victim Rafiq ur Rehman’s Trip to America — and to a Government that Was too Busy Doing More Wrong to See Him (04 November 2013)

President Obama Keeps Coasting along in His Ratbag Style — if a Lie Is Not Enough, He’ll Throw an Innocent or Two under the Bus — Anything To Escape Accountability for His Lapses or often Questionable Intent — and a Necessary Comment in His Defense (29 October 2013)

What to Do about the Radical Dumb-Heads Running American Government? — Redistrict by Less Partisan Committee — the New York Times’ Adam Magourney Used California as an Example of How this Might Work (21 October 2013)

The ObamaCare Enrollment Fiasco — Serves as an Indicator of the President’s Cavalierly Uninvolved Leadership Style — Had This Been “Your” Most Important Baby, Wouldn’t You Have Insisted that the Techno-Dweebs Who Set It up Were both Competent and on Schedule? (20 October 2013)

Scum People Are Arguably Necessary to Our Spiritual Ecology — Comments on — (a) the Occasional Appreciation We Owe the Low-Lifes among Us — (b) another Way of Looking at the October 2013 Government Shutdown and Debt Ceiling Crisis — and (c) the Spiritual Conundrums that the Mess Raises (18 October 2013)

Law Professor Rosa Brooks Wrote a Pretend Letter from the Future that Lays Out the Possible Consequences of Tea Party Thinking — Her Forecast Is both Believable and Depressing — and the Chinese May Be Preparing to Act Accordingly (17 October 2013)

The Only Branch of Federal Government that Still Works Is apparently Finally Getting Fed up with the Two that Do Not — a Constitutional Crisis May Ultimately Be the Result — and that Might Be enough to Start a Revolt by Responsible Sanity against Neo-Confederate Idiocy (14 October 2013)

Our MisbegottenWar on Terror Should Have Been Aimed at Our Own Stupidity — for Example, the Vanished American Supply of Lithium 7 — and Its Relationship to Maintaining Nuclear Safety on American Soil (11 October 2013)

Ladar Levison versus the American Police State — a Courageous Patriot (10 October 2013)

Jon Stewart Was Correct on Republicans’ Failure to Own What they Say They Believe in — regarding the 2013 Government Shutdown — Neo-Confederate Thinking Lacks the Old One’s Legitimate Claim to Martial Honor— and a Comment about Libertarianism’s Role in This Mess (09 October 2013)

Sometimes You Can See How Bad a Decision Was by Imagining It in a More Familiar Context — Take President Obama’s Decision to Skip Visiting Malaysia, the Philippines, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit — due to the 2013 Government Shutdown (08 October 2013)

Substituting Special Operations for Drone Strikes — in the Capture of al-Qaeda Leader Abu Anas al-Liby in Libya — and the Attempted Capture or Execution of al-Shabaab Leader Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr in Somalia — May Indicate the President’s Temporary and Perhaps Cynical Retreat from His Drone Murder Policy — during a Time when the 2013 Government Shutdown Has the Spotlight Aimed at Him(07 October 2013)

Americas Form of Government No Longer Works — a Perceptive Essay from Matthew Yglesias — about Political Scientist Juan Linz’s Idea — regarding the Functional Superiority of Parliamentary over Presidential Government (02 October 2013)

When Humor Is the Totality of What We Have Left — Republican Congressman Devin Nunes and Citizen Derek Goodson — Crafted Two Richly Descriptive One Liners about the October 2013 Government Shutdown (01 October 2013)

Reporter Miranda Green Noticed Something about the Food Stamp Cut that Most Commentators Missed — Better to Drag the Nation Down by Pretending to Do Good, rather than Profit by Actually Doing Good — with an Added Reference to Amanda Marcotte’s Take on the Delusion of Religious Rectitude (30 September 2013)

Sloppy Voter Thinking Makes Political Manipulation Easier — an Example from the House of Representatives’ $40 Billion Food Stamp Funding Cut — and a Comment regarding the Difficulty of Fact Finding in Politicized Situations (23 September 2013)

Robert Reich’s Essay about the Myth of the Free Market — Represents a Timely Dose of Truth about the Economic Basics — that America’s Plutocrats Do Not Want You to Know (19 September 2013)

King Obama’s Administration Is Reportedly Irritated with the British Executive Branch — because It Asked Parliament, whether Killing Syrians Is a Good Idea — the Historical Irony Drips (30 August 2013)

Differing Interpretations of the Merits of the Length of Bradley Manning’s 35 Year Sentence —Illustrate the Societal Conundrum of How to Deal with Lawbreakers, Who Expose Significant Government Wrong Doing — a Comment on America’s Institutionalized Lack of Self-Reflection (22 August 2013)

Representatively Docile Reporting from the Atlantic Wire — Regarding the Death of Reporter Michael Hastings — Exemplifies, in Reverse, How Dependent We Are on a Skeptical Press and a Reasonably Trustworthy Government (21 August 2013)

Clever Writing from Jacob Sullum Points to President Obama’s often Evident Lack of Soul — Demonstrating that Good Insight, Combined with Concise Writing, Can Pointedly Show Us How Things Really Are (20 August 2013)

Without Edward Snowden’s Leaks — We Would Not Know that Our Habitually Lying President and the National Security Agency Had Routinely Violated US Law — so Who Is the Real Bad Guy? — And an Ironic Comment about President Obama’s Genius for Politics (19 August 2013)

Newt Gingrich’s Rare Display of Accuracy Goes to the Heart of What Is Wrong with American Politics(17 August 2013)

Logan Penza’s Suspicion about the Reason for the Obama Administration’s Delay in Implementing ObamaCare Appears to Be Justified — Our Presidential Narcissist Reveals His Soulless Cynicism Yet Again (14 August 2013)

The President Muffed a Chance to Act Like a Leader — rather than as a Political Hack — when He Declined to Meet with Russia’s President Putin — As Is Usual with Him, Other People Will Be Paying the Price (09 August 2013)

Terrorist Threat Warning and Embassy Closings — a Little too Convenient — the Price of Impenetrable Government Secrecy Is that It Makes Cynics and Slaves of Us (05 August 2013)

When Law Is Designed to Conceal Government Wrongdoing It Loses Moral Legitimacy — a Point Implied by John Glaser’s Short Essay on the Injustice Done Bradley Manning (02 August 2013)

Two Practices Symbolize President Obamas Plutocratic Big Brother View of Government — Refusing to Name the Enemies that American Secret Operations Are Fighting — and Considering Putting Pocket-Lining Larry Summers in Charge of the Federal Reserve Board (30 July 2013)

Although the House of Representatives Voted to Continue Funding the NSA’s Limitless Spying on Americans — the Vote Was Surprisingly Close — Perhaps Some Americans Are Finally Waking to the Fact that Abandoning America’s Historically Held Values Away Is a Bad Idea (26 July 2013)

It Is a Sad Reflection on Government’s Ability to Get Away with Killing People — that Virtually No One in the Public or the Media Is Demanding Answers — about Investigative Reporter Michael Hastings So-Called Car Crash (24 July 2013)

King Obama’s Judicial Mouthpiece Said that the King Can Kill You — and There Aint $#*t You Can Do about It — the Incorruptible George Washington Would Be Mortified (20 July 2013)

New York Times Columnist Nick Kristof — and Klaus Brinkbäumer, Deputy Editor in Chief of the German Newspaper Der Spiegel — Described the United States in the Ludicrous Light that We Deserve (17 July 2013)

In the Moral Calculus, Does Prominent Republican = Evil Douchebag? — Paul Krugman and I Suspect So (16 July 2013)

King Obama’s “Insider Threat Program” Bears Indicators of a Metaphorically Stalinesque Purge of Government — Done under the Guise of National Security (11 July 2013)

A Nation of Easily Manipulated Dimwits? — Independence Day Passed with its Customary Superficiality — Even though George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four Is Pretty Much Here (09 July 2013)

Is Having James Clapper in Charge of National Intelligence the Same as America Having the Clap? — Probably — Crypto Autocracy in Action on Independence Day, 2013 (03 July 2013)

America’s Burgeoning Secret Government Intentionally Plays Us against Our Frequently Ignorant, Reflexively Partisan, and Fear-Filled Selves (01 July 2013)

The Flip Side of Hiding the Supreme Court Conservatives’ Non-Logic underneath a Layer of Apparently Reasoned Analysis — as Chief Justice Roberts Did in regard to Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act — Is Justice Scalia’s Obvious Inability to Maintain His Mental Faculties, while Writing about the Majority’s Somewhat Reasoned Trashing of the Defense of Marriage Act — Taken together, both Opinions’ Legal Styles Highlight Why “Conservative” — Used in Conjunction with “Supreme Court Justice” — Is Likely to Mean Bigoted, Power-Hungry, and Duplicitous (28 June 2013)

If You Were an Economically Privileged White Fat Cat —You Would Understand and Agree with the Illogic of Justice Roberts’ Intentionally Ignorant Majority Opinion — regarding Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — a Brief Look at Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder (26 June 2013)

No Ham for You — Hypocritical Ridiculousness as American Leaders Want to Punish Russia and China for Not Cooperating in Catching Edward Snowden — Trust Us to Personalize Conflict, so as Not to Confront Real Issues (25 June 2013)

One Sunday Morning Television Question Highlighted the Difference between Pseudo-Journalists Like David Gregory and Chuck Todd — and Real Journalists Like Glenn Greenwald and the Deceased Michael Hastings — The Fact that Establishment Toadies, like Gregory and Todd, Dominate the Lame-Stream Press Partially Explains America’s Decline into Authoritarianism (24 June 2013)

Government Secrecy Allows the President to Lie to Americans whenever He Wants — for Example, regarding the NSA’s Telephone and Email Snooping — He said, “Lives Have Been Saved” — without Making any Attempt at All to Prove It (19 June 2013)

The Obama Administration’s Convenient Discovery that Sarin Was Used by President Assad’s Regime in Syria Seems Questionable — and Simultaneously Typical of How American Presidents Operate these Days — Why Tell the Truth, when It Is so Much Less Politically Problematic to Lie? (17 June 2013)

Is the Word “Senator” Probably Synonymous with Lazy, Irresponsible, and Blowhard? — More than Half the Senate Ducked a Closed Door Meeting with the Intelligence Community about the PRISM Telephone Metadata Snooping Program (16 June 2013)

Politically Liberal Law Professor Geoffrey R. Stone’s Harsh Condemnation of Edward Snowden — for Leaking the Government’s Large Scale Telephone Surveillance Program — Demonstrates What Happens When Smart and Ignorant People Get Caught Up in Logically Circular Thinking about Appropriate Government Employee or Contractor Behavior (11 June 2013)

Intelligent Sheep Defending the Obama Administration’s Unconstitutional Seizure — of apparently Everybody’s Telephone Metadata — Deliberately Miss the Point about Valid Constitutional Concerns(10 June 2013)

Professor David Bromwich’s One Liner Excoriates the American Stalinist Wannabes — Who Support the Obama Administration’s Elimination of the First and Fourth Amendments (07 June 2013)

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Has Detailed the Failure of the War on Marijuana — and Its Egregious Racial Bias — in a Factually Scathing Indictment of the American Criminal Justice System (05 June 2013)

Glenn Greenwald’s (Below-Quoted) Phrase Synopsizes President Obama’s (Arguably) Impeachment-Deserving Contribution to the Dismantling of the First and Fourth Amendments (30 May 2013)

Chinese Computer Hacking Made Off with Billions in Defense Technology — and Probably Closed the Military Gap (Compared to the US) in Some Critical Areas — All because American Political Culture Is Demonstrably too Inept to Recognize that National Cyber Security Cannot Depend on Marketplace Laissez Faire (29 May 2013)

Barack Obama Keeps Talking as if Someone Else Has Been Commander in Chief — apparently Continuing His Game of Machiavellian Public Deception (26 May 2013)

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich Wrote the Obvious — but Perhaps It Is the First Time that a Prominent Democrat Has Admitted that His Party Is Just as Incompetent to Govern, as its Republican Opposition (25 May 2013)

Protecting American Business and Workers — an Opinion Piece by Dennis Blair and Jon Huntsman Jr. Demonstrates What American Leaders Should Be Thinking, but Are Not (22 May 2013)

James Traub Synopsized the Catch-22, Anti-Liberty Logic of the Past Two Presidencies’ National Security Thinking — When You Pee Your Freedoms Away, What’s Left to Defend? (20 May 2013)

A Responsibility-Avoiding Leader Is a Bad One — President Obama Is a Good Example of What Happens When Character and Professional Role Do Not Match (15 May 2013)

Ya Just Gotta Laugh at Our Complacence, to Wit — (a) Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels are Higher than Humanity Literally Has Ever Seen, but that News Got only a Handful of Folk’s Attention for Maybe One Day — (b) King Obama Finally Targeted a Few too Many People at Home for His Regal Hijinks, but the Only Ones Really Upset Are Those whom the IRS and DOJ actually Screwed with — (c) Remember Pastor Martin Niemöller’s Warning about Complacence? (14 May 2013)

Struggling with Even the Most Elementary Basics of Leadership — Commander in Chief Obama’s Pusillanimous Posturing in Regard to Military Sexual Assaults (08 May 2013)

Vanished Senatorial Integrity — Former Senator Gary Hart Warns that the American Republic Is Being Lost — He’s Right, of Course (06 May 2013)

Bill Moyers’ Interview of Glenn Greenwald Delivered an Enviably Cogent Critique of the Obama Administration’s Attack on Freedom and Human Rights — Accurately Delivered and Worth Watching, the Program Includes a Transcript for People Who Read Faster than They Listen (02 May 2013)

Liberals Continue to Demean George W. Bush’s Legacy — while They Ignore the Immensely Greater Trampling of Human Rights and Law that President Obama Revels in Every Day (26 April 2013)

60 Minutes’ Television Summaries of the Boston Marathon Bombing — and the Anticipated Opening of the 911 Museum — Illustrate Our Lack of a National Sense of Moral Proportion — which Sadly Results in Repeatedly Compounding the International Cruelties of the Human Condition (22 April 2013)

After the Senate’s Rejection of Expanded Background Checks — Gun Control Advocates Are Blaming the Wrong People — a Comment on the American Political System as It Really Exists (18 April 2013)

President Obama’s Synopsis of How America Responds to Evil Left Out the Psychologically Most Important Point — Our Indiscriminate Retaliations Create More of the Same (17 April 2013)

The Belligerent Arrogance of America’s Anti-Nuke Foreign Policy further Aggravates already Difficult International Tensions — Take North Korea and Iran, as Examples (12 April 2013)

The President of Empty Gestures Does It again — His Voluntary 5 Percent Pay Cut Is Supposed to Make Us Feel that He Is on Our Side — Instead, He Looks Like the Self-Involved Manipulator that He Characteristically Is — and a Paragraph about Getting What We Deserve (05 April 2013)

Monsanto’s Reported Ability to Influence Senator Roy Blunt into Doing Its Dirty Work Exemplifies How Rotten Congress Is — Section 735 of the Newly Signed Appropriations Act (HR 933) Deprives the Judiciary of Its Power to Protect both Environment and Public Health against GMOs Gone Awry (04 April 2013)

The American Public’s Willingness to Start Wars — which Only Our Military One Percent Has to Die for — Parallels Our Moral Complacence in Not Taking on the Socially Insane U.S. Gun Lobby (02 April 2013)

U.S. State Department Is Playing Concealing Games with Relevant Keystone Pipeline Information — Like Keeping Public Comments Secret and Covering up the Fact that its Consultants Had a Financial Interest in the Proposed Outcome (29 March 2013)

Scott Smith’s Foreign Policy Take Down of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke’s Erroneously Alleged Competence in Afghanistan — Is a Worthwhile Read for “Wannabe” Leaders (28 March 2013)

The Inevitable Karma that Attends Looking for Trouble — the United States Has Now Established a Drone Base in Niger (Africa) — and Anti-Terrorist Imam Boureima Abdou Daouda Sums the Risk in a Simple Metaphor (26 March 2013)

Journalist Chris Hedges Is Arguably too Vitriolic a Critic of Corporatist Culture to Gain a Foothold in Our Attention — but He Is Consistently Right (25 March 2013)

Writer Joshua Holland Asks whether Americans Are too Stupid for Democracy — He Says No, but His Facts all Point the Other Way — and Supporting Examples Provided by Our Leaders’ Foolishly Incomplete Discussions about Iraq’s Once Suspected WMDs, Iran’s Suspected Bomb-Building, and Syria’s Alleged Chemical Weapons Use (20 March 2013)

Was the Globalist’s Editor in Chief, Stephan Richter, Over the Top — when He Referred to Ordinary Americans as Health Care Serfs? — I Don’t Think so (18 March 2013)

Bigotry Combines Cowardice with Aggressively Defended Ignorance — take Senator Rob Portman’s Reversal into Favoring Gay Marriage, only after His Son Revealed that He Was Gay — a Comment on Ideology as Stupidity’s Refuge (15 March 2013)

Nigerian-American Teju Cole’s Haiku-Like Tweets Hint at the Immorality of Drone Murder — but Only to Those Who Still Have Functioning Souls (11 March 2013)

Al Jazeera Asked a Culturally Penetrating Question — which the US Media Is too Gutless to Ask Itself — regarding Army Private Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks (09 March 2013)

The New York Times Made Light of Senator Rand Paul’s Anti-Brennan, Anti-Drone Filibuster — Instead of Asking Why Only 7 Republicans and 1 Democrat Were Willing to Oppose President Obama’s Assertion of Kingly Power (07 March 2013)

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Perfectly Symbolizes the Obama Administration’s Two-Faced Hypocrisy — See Alec MacGillis’ Summary of Parasite Jack’s Trail to Power (01 March 2013)

While Members of Congress and the President Receive Massive Amounts of Defense Sector Lobbying Money — Who Does the Dying? — Who Assists the Maimed? — Who Damps the Rage that We Leave in Our Wake? (25 February 2013)

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice Is Typified by its Delayed Easy Street Freeloading on the Combination of Floyd Landis’ Whistleblower Suit and USADA’s Evidentiary Case against Lance Armstrong (24 February 2013)

President Obama Continues to Refuse to Release Legal Justifications for Drone Murder — Did Someone Crown Him King? (21 February 2013)

Where Did Once Brave America Go? — Professor Michael Brenner on the “Unmanly” Prevalence of Fear and Denial in the United States (18 February 2013)

Does Institutionalized Mindlessness Make Us Dumber or Only More Cynical? — The State of the Union’s Annual Bouncing Clown Show Would Have Embarrassed Me even in Elementary School (15 February 2013)

We Can Recognize Immoral Thinking because It Consistently Refuses to Come to Grips with the Real Issues — an Illustration Using Columnist Michael Gerson’s Recent Drone Column — and a Parallel Example from CIA Director Nominee, John Brennan (08 February 2013)

Collusion among New York Times, Washington Post, and the CIA — to Keep a Drone Base Location Secret — a Comment on the Decline of the Function of the Fourth Estate (07 February 2013)

Professor Paul Krugman Called the NRA an Insane Organization — and Former Pediatrics Assistant Professor Helena Rho Tells Us about the NRA’s Legislative Attempt to Prevent Pediatricians from Asking about Gun Ownership (05 February 2013)

Think about the Portrait of Our Dystopian Society, which Senator Lindsey Graham Painted in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Hearing regarding Gun Violence — Then Consider that He and His Anti-Government Ilk Are Directly Responsible for the Anarchical State of Affairs that He Says People Now Need Guns to Combat (30 January 2013)

U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division Chief, Lanny Breuer, to Step Down — after PBS’sFrontline Implicitly Exposes Him, Attorney General Eric Holder, and President Obama for Being Plutocracy Friendly (28 January 2013)

Carefully Scripted Benghazi Outrage from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — Stained Her Admirable Record — although almost No One in Her Camp Is Going to Notice (23 January 2013)

An Oath Taken on Two Bibles that Once Belonged to More Honorably Consistent Leaders — and a Speech Containing an Astonishing Hypocrisy — President Obama’s Second Inauguration Mirrored the United States’ Often Self-Defeating Moral Condition (22 January 2013)

The Ridiculous Right’s Demented Ostrich Display — the Attack on President Obama’s Innocuous Gun Related Executive Orders (18 January 2013)

If One Is already a Prominent Person, Why Is Trolling for Angry Responses to Boldly Stated Stupidities so Attractive — Would Not a Quieter Reputation for Thoughtful Intelligence Be Preferable? —on Modernity’s Rampant Narcissism (17 January 2013)

The Forced Suicide of Aaron Swartz (Reddit Founder and Internet Freedom Advocate) — Was almost Certainly due to Unconscionable Prosecutorial Excess from U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz — an Example of Why Freedom Lovers, on Both Left and Right, so often Despise the Federal Government — and a Comment regarding the Obama Administration’s Responsibility for Letting this all Get Out of Hand (15 January 2013)

James Yeager Is a Good Representative for Gun Advocacy’s Extreme Right — but His Passion and Profane Directness Do Not Automatically Make Him an Idiot — a Comment on the “Not So Fringe” (13 January 2013)

A Dark, but Amusing Gun Control Essay from Novelist Douglas Anthony Cooper — Examines Our Culture’s Infatuation with Violence — and My Comment about the Not Obvious Spiritual Thinking that the Social Contract Requires (12 January 2013)

Robert Scheer Concisely Disposed of President Obama’s Absurd Claim that He Is a Financial Sector Reformer — Comments on the Nomination of Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary (11 January 2013)

National Research Council (NRC) and Institute of Medicine (IOM) Health Report — Shows How Far the United States Lags Affluent Nations — in Longevity and Accepted Indicators of Health Quality — Tables and Graphs Dramatically Make the Point (10 January 2013)

Competing Poles of the Firearms Debate Are Inadvertently Presented in Two Pro Gun Videos — Gun Advocate Alex Jones’ Lack of Self Control with Piers Morgan — and a Legally Modified AR-15 Equipped with a Slide Fire Solutions’ “Bump Fire” Shoulder Stock and a 250-Round Magazine (09 January 2013)

The Tiresome Problem of Generals — Who Speak Out against the Evils of Unnecessary War, only afterThey Have Retired — General Stanley McChrystal Now Agrees that Drone Murder Is Bad — Yet, He apparently Didn’t Do Squat about it, even when He Was the Ranking Commander in Afghanistan — and a Comment about the Moral Implications of True Leadership (08 January 2013)

Congress and President Are Looking at the Wrong Things — Economically Speaking — a Not so Isolated Example from the Fiscal Cliff Deal (07 January 2013)

If It Is “Them” Voters’ Fault — Can We Help by Improving their Knowledge Base? — Probably Not, Say the Findings from a Clever Political Science Experiment (03 January 2013)

The Often Maligned David Brooks Is Correct — “It’s Them Voters” — and My Added Comment about the Utility of Using Reasoned Common Sense to Dissect Political and Economic Camouflage (02 January 2013)

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Politics and Leadership (2013)