Thoughts of a Board Man

The makings of a third party are here.  It could shape the landscape of American politics for the foreseeable future, if it becomes reality.

Recently I had a dream that some friends of mine and I were visiting the State Capitol together.  While we were in the cafeteria getting lunch, the cashier and I engaged in idle chit-chat about how I was going to pay for the food.  He made a joke about how he'd make sure my payment was enforced by the state.  I ended this exchange with the following joke: "I could get away with not paying because this state doesn't have a Governor anyways." See, because the Governor ensures the enforcement of the state's laws...  Anyway, it was then that I saw the cashier's face for the first time.  It was Bruce Rauner, and he was giving me a very sour look.  I woke up before he could send me away to one of his neglectful nursing homes . During last week's state budget crisis , I saw an opinion piece from the Chicago Tribune  make the rounds on Facebook.  It was supposed to be in the vein of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal,"  wherein the author fa...

The freak-out du jour among Democrats is that we've lost 4 of the 5 special elections that have been held since Donald Trump moved into the White House.  Blame is being thrown every which-way, from our lack of a message, to our inability to court the white working class, to our leadership - either in the House or as a whole. Regarding how these elections were managed, I understand the party leadership's reasoning, even though it hasn't been winning.  First of all, let's list the seats we're talking about here: Montana as a whole, southern Kansas including Wichita, portions of Los Angeles, South Carolina farm country, and Atlanta's affluent suburbs.  How many of those areas sound "traditionally Democratic" to you, just right off the bat?  Just the L.A. district, right?  Well, in that contest, the Republicans didn't even make a showing (their candidate, in fact, secured less votes than the Green Party nominee ).  It fell to a contest between ...

Not all traditions are good ones.  I can think of hereditary rule, female genital mutilation, fraternity hazing, and bullfighting, for starters.  Saying “bless you” after someone sneezes may count, too.  It implies that the person who sneezed needs some sort of divine intervention in their sinuses.  A sneeze is just an involuntary expulsion of air; as with many other involuntary expulsions, perhaps we should just start saying “excuse me” after we sneeze. Mid-way through this month, Mr. Trump floated the idea of canceling another tradition, the daily White House Press Briefing.  Is this briefing a bad tradition?  Sadly enough, many people in the press itself seem to think so.  But let's examine how it came about in the first place. Like many things in our modern government, the position of White House Press Secretary, the White House Press Corps, and the daily briefings all did not suddenly appear under the leadership of one particular Presid...