Gongol.com Archives: June 2018
June 20, 2018
Handing over the keys to the GOP
Absent a change like fusion voting or ranked-preference ballots, a two-party system is basically inevitable under America's first-past-the-post electoral system. So while it may be a respectable choice for people to resign from their parties in protest, whoever remains tends to get control of the infrastructure that's generally necessary to win elections. It's time for people who have historically been aligned with the Republican Party to think hard (and speak up) about what the party should stand for. The utter vacuity of the man in the Oval Office and the shapelessness of whatever Trumpism is conspire to make it insufficient to be just "Never Trump" or "Anti-Trump". Necessary, maybe. But insufficient. He is a void, so what follows must not also be a void.
Atul Gawande picked to head up Berkshire Hathaway/Amazon/JP Morgan health company
His book "The Checklist Manifesto" is one of the best books on cognition. He's tackling a giant project here, but possesses a well-qualified mindset for the job.
Being serious about immigration doesn't require being cruel or indifferent
A lucid, temperate, and humane opinion on immigration from Jonah Goldberg that ought to occupy the mainstream of public opinion: "[S]o long as there are very poor countries, very poor people will understandably want to move here."
An 8-month-old baby taken from his parents
An utterly breathtaking account of what kind of stress the family-separation approach places on children. An 8-month-old infant is utterly helpless -- and anyone who would bend over backwards to defend a bad policy instead of defending the child is a scoundrel. As the Bloomberg editorial board opined, "The cause of better policy, and the reputation of the United States, aren't served by willful cruelty directed at innocent children. This deplorable strategy should end immediately. Trump started it, and Trump can stop it."
Business can be a guardian of a free and open society
United Airlines says it won't fly separated children for the government
Worthy causes on this day: Catholic Relief Services and the UN High Commission for Refugees
"We're Generation X, and we've had it up to here with your attitude."
Emmanuel Macron castigates a punk kid who got a little too familiar
