Tag: Issues

Conflict Of Interests

+++Warning:  This is a personal opinion piece and because of my frustration I will be using some colorful language….so if you are offended by such words then I suggest that you forego this post and move on….You have been warned+++

I have been writing about the antics of Donny and his merry band of goons and it amazes me to see how many people either are fucking ignorant or just do not care as long as he, Donny, is not a Democrat that they would allow these offenses to go unchallenged.

Before I get some lame ass comments about the antics of Dems in the past, which I am sure someone will just have to show their hatred for the party…..let me say address the subject of this post if they cannot fucking do that then please go back top sitting around in your MAGA hat drinking cheap beer and hating everything that is not Trumpian.

Since January Donny has been doing nothing that does not personally benefit him or the Trump Organization which is shit….for until dipshit showed up and conned the idiot voters his personal finances were put into blind trust until he left office….which in my opinion is one fucking good idea.  Donny is in pursuit of personal enrichment at the expense of the rest of us poor fucking peons.

But that fucking said let’s look at the conflict of interests that this ‘person’ is doing almost daily.

This list was compiled by the magazine the Week….and please no one in their right fucki8njg mind could accuse this publicat6ioon of being Leftist….if you do then you are illustrating your goddamn ignorance.

President Donald Trump has been at the center of ethics concerns going all the way back to his 2016 candidacy, largely as a result of his strong business ties that critics say could represent significant conflicts of interest. These conflicts, many of which have to do with his Middle East dealings, have continued to cast a shadow over his presidency amid his second term in the White House.

Middle East dealings

https://theweek.com/politics/trumps-conflicts-of-interest&logo=logo_6

+++Please read the entire article before you think you can counter the accusations….if you cannot do that then stay out of the comments.++

If someone wants to give me some stupidity like a ‘what about’ let me say right here and now….I have NO love for the Dems and it has been that way since 1992 and the voter sent that idiot Bubba Clinton to the White House and because of him and his bunch of Fat Cats we have this absolutely worthless party in Congress….they are a boated piece of shit that deserves NO praise from anyone.

Reality shows that if this was a Dem president pulling this breech of the ethics the GOP would be having a fucking stroke and screaming louder than a pig at slaughter….but since it is Donny then all is quiet on the ethics front all because of hatred and biases and lies and the idiot loyal eat up all the while they are being fucked and they smile and buy some lame hat for $50 to illustrate what fucking morons they truly have become.

I think if one votes for someone simply because they are not someone else is the height of fucking stupidity.

Not to worry the unit that investigates corruption and breach of ethics has been disbanded thus making these self centered assholes free to self enrich at the cost of the nation as a whole.

To pick a single topic or issue to place your vote on is once the fucking stupidest thing I have ever seen in my many years.  You are placing the future of this country in jeopardy because you hate immigrants or gays or women or whatever single issue invades your tiny mind….in other words as long as your chosen leader feeds your biases then the rest of the country can go fuck itself.

If that is you then you are a fucking idiot.

An d that is the way I feel about these douche bags.

+++If this post offended then I apologize but you were warned.+++

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–13Aug21

I have been watching our politics and the whole silly process for decades…..and in that time I have noticed just how prevalent lies and silliness the whole process has become.

Today the silliness has gone from true concern for the nation to a dialogue on issues that do not exist….all in all a waste of time and a policy of obstruction…..leading the way in this stupidity is the GOP…..

How can this be?

Political misinformation — whether “fake news,” conspiracy theories or outright lying — has often been attributed to widespread ignorance, even though there are numerous examples of 20th-century propaganda aimed at those most attentive to politics. Books like Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” began to challenge that notion, as did the 1991 study of media coverage of the first Gulf War with the memorable bottom line, “the more you watch, the less you know.” In the age of social media, scholarly explanations have shifted to discussions of “motivated reasoning,” which could be defined by Paul Simon’s line from “The Boxer”: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

But the ignorance perspective has a deep hold on us because it appeals to the Enlightenment notion that we are motivated to pursue truth. We are “the thinking animal,” right? The important part of that expression may be “animal.” Human beings have an evolutionary history, and deception is commonplace in the animal world because it confers evolutionary advantage. There’s good reason to believe we’re not so different, other than the fact that humans are ultra-social creatures. In ancestral and evolutionary terms, being part of a successful social group was every bit as essential as food and water. So deception among humans evolved from group conflicts. That’s the thesis of a recent paper called “The Evolutionary Psychology of Conflict and the Functions of Falsehood” by the Danish political scientists Michael Bang Petersen and Mathias Osmundsen and American anthropologist John Tooby.

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/08/a-terrifying-new-theory-fake-news-and-conspiracy-theories-as-an-evolutionary-strategy/

For some the “need for chaos” and the desire to watch the country “burn” are driving forces…..

Sadly NOTHING will change before I take a dirt nap…..and the country will be the victim of it’s own stupidity.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

agitator populus scriptor

Our 51st State Or is it the 52nd State?

I recently wrote about the attempt to get the District of Columbia the representation that deserve….https://lobotero.com/2021/01/28/our-51st-state/

DC is the only part of this great country that does not have representation in Congress…there are about 700,000 people in the District that has NO representation…that is more than the whole state of Wyoming.

Now there is an attempt to make Puerto Rico a state as well…..yet another region that is part of the US and they have NO representation….

Two Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday announced they will be introducing legislation to make Puerto Rico a state. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Rep. Darren Soto of Florida say the bill has around 50 co-sponsors, CBS News reports. It would set up a process for the US territory to become the 51st state if the majority of its citizens vote for that outcome in a referendum, the Hill reports. Axios reports the outline it offers is similar to that undertaken by Alaska and Hawaii when they became states. Republicans will likely not be in favor: “After they change the filibuster, they’re going to admit the District [of Columbia] as a state,” Mitch McConnell said last September. “They’re going to admit Puerto Rico as a state. That’s four new Democratic senators in perpetuity.” Those working for statehood in Puerto Rico push back on that, noting the island often votes for conservative leaders.

Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi and Jenniffer González-Colón, the island’s resident commissioner and nonvoting member in the US House, back the legislation. Supporters of the bill say the federal government treats Puerto Rico, which does not have full voting representation in Congress and whose citizens cannot vote for president, unfairly, and that this inequity was laid bare during Hurricane Maria in 2017, when it became clear Puerto Rico lacked necessary resources and is not provided with adequate funding. Yet 47% of Puerto Rican citizens opposed statehood in a November referendum, with some preferring independence and others worrying Puerto Rico will lose its identity. “You cannot compare statehood for DC and statehood for Puerto Rico,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who is Puerto Rican, has said. “DC is not a colony, Puerto Rico is a colony.”

This is a tenuous issue…..but in my mind that should be up to the people of Puerto Rico to decide their future….

Any thoughts?

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The American Right

Let me start by stating that in the past, in my younger days, I was an uber-radical…..I protested and I Worked for radical change for America. Never in our radicalized dreams that we ever considered doing what was done by the Right on 06 January….NEVER!

Since 1980 I have been saying and writing that the rise of certain groups would not end well for the country……I said then that the Right was a simmering stew of far Right leaning supporters and that it would only get worse if things did not change.

It seem that my fears were well founded.

Social scientists have long warned about the problem of “asymmetric polarization” in the United States, with the bulk of growing political extremism happening on the American right, rather than on the left. This one-sided polarization is observed in numerous academic studies, documenting the concentration of authoritarianism on the American right, via rising extremism in Republican Party politics, and related to the growing propensity of the right to use violence. My own research utilizing public opinion surveys reinforces the asymmetric polarization finding, as consumption of right-wing media is far more strongly associated with pulling Americans news consumers to the right than consumption of liberal media content is in pulling Americans to the left.

The large majority of mainstream journalists, public intellectuals, and scholars working in the field of fascism studies, have all been careful over the years to avoid characterizing Trump or U.S. politics as fascistic. Only a handful of scholars and other intellectuals, for example Henry Giroux, Jason Stanley, Carl Boggs, Paul Street, and a few others, have been sounding the fascism alarm bell for the last few years. These people were largely ignored by mainstream public intellectuals and scholars, despite recognizing the dangers of what’s been happening in real time.

The problem with American denialism is that it’s meant the circumvention of an important and necessary discussion about rising fascism that needed to happen following Trump’s rise to power, and in the wake of the terrorist white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, El Paso, and elsewhere. Now that Americans are finally waking up from their slumber regarding the threat of rightwing extremism, we find ourselves in the uncomfortable position of rushing from fascism denialism, to rapidly mobilizing law enforcement to disrupt, combat, and dismantle that fascist threat. This dramatically shifting reality speaks to the wholesale failure of American political discourse. This discussion should have been taking place in a very open and visible way over the last four years, before we reached a full-on crisis involving American fascistic violence.

A (Not-So-New) Profile of the American Right: On the Authoritarian-Fascist Crisis

This chapter in American history is not concluded….I believe it is far from over.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Final Thoughts On Trump

Closing Thought–21Jan21

Some final thoughts on the Trump presidency and the people he had around him……

First something positive…..

Trump attempted to cease those endless wars and bring troops out of harms way…..he was unsuccessful.

Now for what I really feel…..

Raising middle finger relays information, judge rules in case of man accused of breaching no-contact order | National Post

Good-bye Pres. Trump….you will definitely not be forgotten.

“lego ergo scribo”

 

A Biden 2021 To Do List

AS 2020 comes to an end let us look ahead to issues that need addressing by the new president…..

Soon our new president Joe Biden, will be taking the oath of office and there are things that this country needs and he should focus on the greatest needs and leave the crap for the donors for later.

First, Biden needs to spend and spend big…

Expec­ta­tions are high for the incom­ing Joe Biden admin­is­tra­tion, not because the polit­i­cal cir­cum­stances are advan­ta­geous, nor because of Biden him­self, but because our trou­bles are so great. 

Tens of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans are unem­ployed. The death toll from Covid-19 in the Unit­ed States now tops 300,000. An avalanche of evic­tions and fore­clo­sures is on its way. And this is on top of our ongo­ing polit­i­cal cri­sis: A stub­born minor­i­ty of vot­ers refuse to rec­og­nize the results of the elec­tion, while many of Pres­i­dent Trump’s sup­port­ers remain unwill­ing to observe ele­men­tary safe­ty mea­sures to reduce the fur­ther spread of the virus. In Wash­ing­ton, D.C. last week, a ram­pag­ing mob of fas­cist goons assault­ed ran­dom passers-by and van­dal­ized black church­es — osten­si­bly as a way to show feal­ty to Trump. To put it mild­ly, Amer­i­ca is in bad shape.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/12/20/biden-needs-spend-big-and-fast-here-are-4-immediate-priorities

Next he should repair the voting rights in this country….

Manufactured claims of fraud to explain away Trump’s loss of the popular vote in the 2016 election led to the creation of a sham commission that eventually disbanded after failing to provide any factual evidence to support Trump’s preposterous statements that millions of people had voted illegally. And following his loss of the 2020 presidential election, Trump has led a rabid assault on American democracy, which has eroded the public’s faith in the outcome of the election and catapulted efforts to subvert the will of voters by overturning the results of the election.

Undeniably, there are problems with our democracy that must be fixed. But these issues do not arise from purported voter fraud. Rather, they are the legacy problems of our republic: systematic efforts by politicians to erect voting barriers and to discriminate against voters of color to tip the balance of power. These problems are enduring, persistent, and verifiable.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/12/20/president-elect-bidens-voting-rights-do-list

This should definitely be a priority because the GOP are looking for ways to limit voter participation….

Changes to the way millions of Americans voted this year contributed to record turnout, but that’s no guarantee the measures making it easier to cast ballots will stick around for future elections.

Republicans in key states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden already are pushing for new restrictions, especially to absentee voting. It’s an option many states expanded amid the coronavirus outbreak that proved hugely popular and helped ensure one of the smoothest election days in recent years.

President Donald Trump has been unrelenting in his attacks on mail voting as he continues to challenge the legitimacy of an election he lost. Despite a lack of evidence and dozens of losses in the courts, his claims of widespread voter fraud have gained traction with some Republican elected officials.

They are vowing to crack down on mail ballots and threatening to roll back other steps that have made it easier for people to vote.

Republicans Plotting New Ways To Make It Harder To Vote

What about the massive student debt?

Do not look to Biden for much help on this front.

A coalition of 236 mostly progressive groups, including close allies like the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, called on the president-elect on Wednesday to cancel student debt using his executive powers on the first day he takes office.

In a letter to Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, the groups did not specify how much debt they’re asking to be canceled. But they noted that Biden pledged during the campaign to cancel $10,000 of each borrowers’ debt “immediately” as part of his response to the coronavirus epidemic.

“Before the COVID-19 public health crisis began, student debt was already a drag on the national economy, weighing heaviest on Black and Latinx communities, as well as women. That weight is likely to be exponentially magnified given the disproportionate toll that COVID-19 is taking on both the health and economic security of people of color and women,” the groups wrote, saying “bold action is needed.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/11/19/biden-urged-cancel-student-debt

More on this issue…..https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/24/unacceptable-and-immoral-say-progressives-after-biden-admits-he-will-be-unlikely

These are not all the situations that a Biden presidency will face but they are some of the most pressing and the ones that will help the people….again leave to donors until all else is done.

The big question….who Biden really be working for?  I have an answer and Biden supporters do not like it.  Something Biden said recently says it all for me….” Biden proclaimed that, as a president who wants to “avoid inflaming a closely divided Congress,” he plans to “tread lightly when it comes to using his executive power.” Biden seems very confident that his passivity won’t “inflame” any of the remaining progressives in a “closely divided Congress.” Biden’s been on or around Capitol Hill for 45 years and he hasn’t witnessed any uprising from the Congressional left yet. He must feel he’s on pretty safe ground.”

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The Issues That Divide

Tomorrow is the big day…will it be Trump or will it be Biden?

There are those issues that divide our people….but in reality those issues are not all that ….

Here is a look at some of the more pressing issues and the so-called “divide”…..the site fivethirtyeight.com takes a look at the divisions….

  • A public health insurance option: 45 percent of Republicans supported a government-operated health insurance plan that all Americans could enroll in, while 47 percent opposed this idea, according to the New York Times/Siena poll. This was also a popular idea overall — 67 percent of Americans, including 87 percent of Democrats, supported a public option.
  • State and local government policies to limit the spread of COVID-19, such as requirements to wear masks: 56 percent of Republicans said state and local governments are taking “reasonable steps to protect people,” while 43 percent said those moves are “unreasonable attempts to control people,” per PRRI. These policies were broadly popular — 76 percent of Americans, including 94 percent of Democrats, said state and local governments were taking reasonable steps.
  • A mini-Green New Deal: 46 percent of Republicans opposed a “$2 trillion plan to increase the use of renewable energy and build energy-efficient infrastructure,” and 45 percent of Republicans supported it, according to the New York Times/Siena survey. The question referred neither to Biden nor to the “Green New Deal.” (The former vice president has a $2 trillion proposal that focuses on both improving America’s infrastructure and reducing the nation’s use of fossil fuels. It’s basically a shrunken-down version of the Green New Deal.) It’s quite possible that support for this proposal would be much lower among Republicans if the question cast it as, say, “Joe Biden’s version of the Green New Deal.” But it’s interesting that the concept of a more modest Green New Deal is not that unpopular with Republicans. Sixty-six percent of Americans, including 89 percent of Democrats, supported this idea.
  • Getting a COVID-19 vaccine: 54 percent of Republicans said they would “probably” or “definitely” get a vaccine for COVID-19 if it were approved by the FDA, and 40 percent said they “probably” or “definitely” would not get it, per the New York Times/Siena survey. Sixty-one percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Democrats, said they would “probably” or “definitely” get the vaccine.
  • The levels of discrimination Black and Hispanic Americans face: About half of Republicans (52 percent) said that Black Americans face “a lot” of discrimation, and about half (47 percent) said that they don’t, per PRRI. Forty-five percent of Republicans agreed that Hispanic Americans face a lot of discrimation, compared to 53 percent who disagreed. Most Americans overall (75 percent) and Democrats (92 percent) said that Black Americans face a lot of discrimination. The numbers were similar but slightly lower for discrimination against Hispanic Americans: 69 percent of Americans and 86 percent of Democrats said that they face a lot of discrimination.
  • Immigration policy: Republicans are about equally split on allowing the separation of families at the border (45 percent supported, 53 percent opposed), protecting people who were brought to the U.S. as children but are not citizens from deportation (45 percent supported, 54 percent opposed) and creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (48 percent supported such a pathway, 38 percent said they should be deported, and 14 percent said they should be allowed to become legal residents but not become citizens). A clear majority of Americans overall opposed separating families at the border (76 percent) and supported a pathway to citizenship (64 percent), as well as granting legal resident status to immigrants who would benefit from either the DREAM Act or DACA, commonly referred to as “Dreamers” (66 percent).
  • A universal basic income: 52 percent of Republicans supported guaranteeing all Americans a minimum income, compared to 48 percent who opposed such an idea, per PRRI. Seventy percent of Americans overall, including 88 percent of Democrats, supported a UBI.

Take a closer look….there is more room for compromise than you are lead to believe by the MSM…..

The next question is…..if the two political philosophies are that close together then why is the stupid allowed to continue?

Time for the parties that depend on donors cash and not the people to find their inner decency and start working for the people that they pretend to care about…..if they cannot do that then it is time to send them into retirement…..permanently!

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Biden Stuff

Soon the doors to polling stations will be thrown open and some of us will head in to cast our cherished vote…..I think most voters know all they need to know about Donald the Orange….but what do they know about his opponent, Joe Biden other than he was VP under Obama?

Is that enough?

What is his stand on foreign policy or taxes or trade or criminal justice on and on…..?

This is my attempt to help those few people that are struggling with their vote…..hopefully this will help them in some small way….

These are previous posts on IST about the Biden agenda….

https://lobotero.com/2020/10/13/biden-harris-financial-policies/

https://lobotero.com/2020/06/18/biden-and-criminal-justice/

https://lobotero.com/2020/05/27/biden-on-trade/

Since trade was a big issue in 2016 and Trump probably won because of his stands….let’s look at Biden’s…..

Trade policy, however, plays no big role in Biden’s campaign and economic plan. So what can we expect in US trade policy under a President Biden? On the one hand, it can be assumed that he would reverse some of Trump’s shifts in trade policy. First, even if Biden would not just rejoin the TPP as it was signed, he promised to renegotiate the deal to improve labor and environmental standards and counter-balance China. Second, it is likely that a Biden administration would drop imposed tariffs against allies such as the European Union (EU). To what extent a Biden administration would push forward a trade deal with the EU is hard to predict. While Biden highlights in his campaign that he plans to ‘lead the democratic world’, trade policy is no priority for him.

Opinion – Bidenomics: US Trade Policy under a Biden Presidency

Let’s move on…..

https://lobotero.com/2020/05/26/biden-and-taxes/

https://lobotero.com/2020/04/23/bidens-foreign-policy/

The Center For American Progress has offered up a plan for Biden in National Security…..https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2020/10/19/491715/first-100-days-toward-sustainable-values-based-national-security-approach/

If Biden wins will he step up and do what is needed for the country and our issues?  Or will he just be a repeat of the Obama years and the wars…

Joe Biden might be elected president next week. What would that mean for U.S. foreign policy? President Donald Trump’s failings are many and obvious. Unfortunately, Biden’s assumptions and plans, though different, are equally flawed.

Almost certainly there would be more pervasive intervention, ceaseless meddling, self-serving demands, economic sanctions, deadly drones, intermittent bombing, continuing occupation, and endless war. More lives and wealth wasted. More foreign societies ruined. More world problems created and seeds of future crises planted. Rather like the last two decades.

President Joe Biden Plans a World of Endless Intervention and Probably War

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Trump’s Family Attacks

The final push for the vote in 2020 and I want to just help the info out if you are still trying to decide which old fart gets your vote.

Let’s look at Trump policies toward families and then you tell me where he has done a good job…..we all have heard the horror story about the missing children from the border….545 to be honest….probably more…..but here is what Trump has had to say about this situation….

In response to a question about the more than 500 parents who have yet to be found after they were separated from their children under Trump administration’s “zero tolerance policy”—which forcibly broke up thousands of families before it was halted in June of 2018—President Donald Trump said that “children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels,” a claim immigrant rights groups rejected.

“Fact check: Migrant children separated by the Trump administration during Zero Tolerance came with their families, not coyotes,” the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services tweeted. “We know. We worked with the children who were sent to shelters after being separated. Facts matter.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/23/cruelty-was-always-plan-pressed-mass-family-separations-final-debate-trump-smears

Center for American Progress has done a look around at the Trump family policies…..

The long-term well-being of the United States is rooted in how well we invest in young children and prepare them to lead the country, drive economic growth, and build strong families. This requires children to have their basic needs met: food, housing, safe caregiving, and adequate medical care. Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s policies have undone many of these goals.

For the past four years, the administration has undermined basic supports—in particular, targeting Black families, Indigenous families, and other families of color, as well as families with low incomes and immigrant families. Now, as the nation faces a pandemic that is disproportionately affecting these same communities, the administration’s unique failure to respond to the coronavirus crisis is exacerbating existing harms that will negatively impact a generation of children.

Here are five ways that the Trump administration’s policies are harming children:

5 Ways the Trump Administration’s Policies Have Harmed Children

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The 2020 Vote

NOTE:  This is an old draft but the thoughts are still valid.

There are a few things we need to look at before the big day when we Americans decide who will lead the country in the next 4 years.

First let’s look at the last couple elections…..and the candidates…..

Al Gore (centrist) – lost, John Kerry (centrist) – lost,  Hillary Clinton (centrist) – lost…… While also a centrist, Barack Obama campaigned as a progressive and won handily in 2008….then reverted back to the centrist he truly was.

Just a thought

There are issues that have never made the debate stage and I feel that they should be discussed so the voter knows where these people stand.

Remember several years ago, I know that is hard in the trials and tribulations of a Trump presidency, the main thing we all were writing about was the discovery of the NSA’s spying on us mere mortals.

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden said Tuesday that 2020 White House candidates should publicly declare their stance on the U.S. government’s “unconstitutional mass surveillance program.”

Snowden made the comments following a New York Times report showing the agency’s sprawling photo data collection effort was hugely expensive and largely useless.

Charlie Savage’s reporting on the program under the USA Freedom Act of 2015, which is set to expire March 15, showed the suspended call records program “cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019” and produced “a single significant investigation.” The Times report cited a declassified, partly censored version of a report from the congressionally-created Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

The NSA shut down the program—initially exposed by Snowden in 2013 and then modified in 2015—last year.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/26/presidential-candidates-should-declare-their-stance-costly-failure-nsas

There are only a couple of candidates left…..so they should go on the record about the NSA programs.

Just one of those situations that the next president needs to handle….I am not all that confident that this one will do anything but throw words at it.

I realize that the normal American has the attention span of a goldfish so this needs to refresh their meager minds on the violations of our right to privacy.

But the elections have become high entertainment….Voters need to take voting seriously…..instead of a hobby they delve into every few years…..

Has politics become a form of entertainment? With debates every week, opinion polls every day, the insatiable appetite of 24/7 cable news for fresh “content,” heated arguments online around the clock, and the clickbait casting of heroes and villains, politics may indeed be America’s new national pastime. 

We know the names of all the players. We know the odds, the delegate counts, and the morning line.

That’s what this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast guest, professor Eitan Hersh, calls “political hobbyism” — another shallow, home-based, and technology-driven activity that takes us out of our community and away from personal engagement. In his view, it runs counter to the very idea of what politics should be.

Political Hobbyism Is Not Politics

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