Grokking Republicans: Obedience to Oppression
Stanley Milgram's book Obedience to Authority is experiments directed at understanding the problem of the Nazis, starting on page 5 with Adolf Eichmann and the death camps. We can't avoid it. But we...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: Authoritarians Without Conscience
John Dean, of Watergate fame, as much as admits that the title of his book, Conservatives Without Conscience, is wrong. These are not the conservatives of his youth, but authoritarians. Conservatism...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: Authoritarian Followers, Leaders, and Doubles
These are the Americans you are most afraid of, because they are not afraid of themselves.Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders cook up between themselves. It...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: The True Believer
It is an article of faith in much of the Right that the only way to oppose tyrants and fanatics, whether Nazis, Communists, or ISIS, is with tyranny and fanaticism. Experience shows those willing to...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: The Jack Acid Society
In this week's break from the science of Republicanthink we are indulging in maximum snark instead. Certainly we need it when we want to understand the John Birch Society, either in its original form...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: The Lucifer Effect
Warning: TriggersHow did we get to the abuses at Abu Ghraib? Or to torturing prisoners in the US, whether by waterboarding at Guantanamo, or years of aggravated solitary confinement, or horrific...
View ArticleClik here to view.
XKCD on Marriage Equality
People often say that same-sex marriage now is like interracial marriage in the 60s. But in terms of public opinion, same-sex marriage now is like interracial marriage in the 90s, when it had already...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: Columbus Day holiday
No Grokking Republicans book Diary today on the Columbus Day holiday. But on that point, there is this.John Oliver, Last Week Tonight: Why is this still a thing?(I tried to embed this video without...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: The Varieties of Religious Delusion
Whatever you think of the question of God or Gods, religion is a real thing, for good or ill. In the quest for More and Better Democrats the question of fewer and less evil religious nutters has a...
View ArticleGrokking Republicans: Learned Helplessness vs. Personal Control
GOTV (Get Out The Vote) is the greatest nightmare for Republicans today. Democrats of all sorts, cowed in a multitude of different ways over the last 50 years, will learn to believe in themselves, and...
View ArticleEbola Vaccine Progress and Issues
We should have safe and effective Ebola vaccines deployed in Africa in quantity, most likely starting in the Spring of 2015. We might have had them before the current outbreak were it not for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Global Warming: We are the 99.99%
It isn't 97% any more. Everybody quotes that one number from a few years ago on the scientific consensus on Global Warming. But a more recent study found one (1) paper by one (1) author rejecting...
View ArticleACA Signups: Season 2, Episode 1
ACA open enrollment has been renewed for a second season in spite of all efforts to cancel it, repeal it, axe it, kill it, behead it, stone it, stomp on it, demonize it, hate it to death, draw and...
View ArticleACA Signups: Ho-Hum Edition
You know what the big deal about ACA enrollments is this time? That it's no big deal.That will not stop Republicans claiming that Obamacare is the disaster to end all disasters, just that they are not...
View ArticleThe End of the Death Penalty in Maryland
Gov. O’Malley to commute sentences of Maryland’s remaining death-row inmatesWhen the Maryland legislature outlawed imposition of the death penalty in criminal cases, it curiously did nothing about...
View ArticleRWNJs: We Love Bibi, So Obama is an Anti-Semite
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is virulently anti-American, in addition to being virulently anti-Palestinian. Bibi's government has directly insulted President Obama and Vice President Biden...
View ArticleGlobal Warming: Pundit Wrong Again
David Roberts claims that going to 100% renewables costs too much, and is too hard. But he thinks he is on our side. He is wrong, and some of his claims along the way are flat-out ludicrous.It turns...
View ArticleThe Republican Clown Car Express to Nowhere
With Romney out, Jeb Bush is next in line in both polls of Republicans and of Republican money, that is, in fundraising. But Jeb Bush is deeply loathed by many on the left, right, and middle.And after...
View ArticleNuke the filibuster!
President Obama wants to do away with the filibuster as constant roadblock to progress. I guess that means that Republicans can't nuke it now. ^_^Seriously, changing Senate rules to reform or repeal...
View ArticleWhat part of Reagan's "Trust but Verify"
do today's Republicans not understand?Ronald Reagan was a terrible President, whose karma still infects every part of our governance, from his racist Southern Strategy and theocratic Religious Right...
View Article