Author: Kevin Walsh
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Hawaii Just Declared War on Dark Money
THOM HARTMANN, JUN 10, 2026
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The Citizens United Pendulum Swings
Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast, June 1, 2026
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The Magic of Music
Paul McCartney is 83 and still writing songs. It’s a compulsion and a craving. “It’s a magical world, music,” McCartney told The Times. “Scientifically, even, it is just a bunch of frequencies. So how can these frequencies affect your heart?” “I get it, if it’s got a lyric, sometimes you go, oh yeah. But if it’s…
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Wagon Wheel
“Nothing connects the country like country.” The original Bank of America commercial for Ken Burns’ Country Music from Jimmy Kup Casting. Unfortunately Bank of America and Ken Burns have dropped the cast names and biographies. Thanks to a post on Banjo Hangout with their names, here’s the list in order of first apperance: Rory Hoffman…
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Bill O’Donnell
World War II High School Graduation Taunton Gazette: “After graduating from Coyle in 1943, O’Donnell enlisted in the U.S. Army as a trainee in the Army Specialized Training Program at Brooklyn College” The Army Specialized Training Program The Specialized Training Program sent 200,000 soldiers to 227 colleges for sped-up courses in engineering, medicine, dentistry, psychology,…
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RFK Jr. and the MAGA Death Trip
Paul Krugman on the GOP, Science, and Health The war on science is turning deadly PAUL KRUGMAN, FEB 6, 2025 In a better world Donald Trump’s musings about taking back the Panama Canal would lead him or people around him to study the canal’s history. They won’t, of course. But if they did they’d learn…
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The Expertise of Air Traffic Controllers
In the wake of the collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter at Washington National, and Trump’s blaming the accident on diversity hiring, I’m reminded of Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The movie left me with two impressions. First, that governments are competent to organize meeting and communicating with visitors…
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The Wisdom of Donald Trump
A collection of found items “Trump Fragrances are Here” How About in Two Weeks? Does Two Weeks Work for You? — New York Times, June 19, 2025 Donnie Brasco At the meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), a forum of democracies with advanced economies, President Donald Trump told reporters: “The UK…
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The Ten Commandments in the Classroom
The Louisiana Law Louisiana House Bill No. 71 requires the following text to be posted in all “public elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools”: “The Ten CommandmentsI AM the LORD thy God.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy…
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Alabama Declares War on In Vitro Fertilization
Roe still got it right The argument against embryo personhood takes only one sentence: The living cells that are embryos cannot survive outside the womb. Life at conception may be your religious belief, but it’s not mine. And the first clause of the First Amendment says religious belief alone isn’t law. Alabama Supreme Court On…
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Quotations from Speaker Mike
“I am a Christian” “I am a Christian, a husband, a father, a life-long conservative, constitutional law attorney and a small business owner in that order,” Louisiana state Representative Mike Johnson told the Louisiana Baptist Message in 2016, “and I think that order is important.” In 2016 when first elected to Congress Johnson, his wife Kelly, and…
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Minority Rule
Unrepresentative by Design & Neglect House of Representatives A Small and Divided Majority The House Republican majority’s failure to avoid a government shutdown has been blamed on a small group of extremists, as few as five, who would rather tear down than build or govern. But as I began to research the topic, it seems…
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Marjorie Taylor Greene Stumps for Joe Biden
President Biden posted this video on Twitter, writing “I approve this message.”
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The Doctrine of Discovery
Christopher Columbus’s first landing in America on October 12, 1492 by Dióscoro Puebla, 1862 (Wikimedia Commons) and White Christian Nationalism Doctrine of Discovery It all began with the Doctrine of Discovery. Before the Spanish started the oldest permanent settlement in North America, St. Augustine in 1565. Before the English arrived in Jamestown in 1607. Before…
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Prager University on Slavery
Slave Owners Were Democrats PragerU The Prager University Foundation, or PragerU, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that promotes conservative views. Despite its name it is not an academic institution and does not offer degrees. PragerU has been accused of publishing misleading or false content on climate change, slavery, racism, immigration, and fascism, and promoting anti-LGBT politics. With this reputation to uphold, Candace…
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Rules to Retire By
Educate yourself for a job that pays a decent income. Morgan Housel points out that “a job you merely like that pays a decent income can eventually offer a level of financial flexibility that lets you pursue passions.” Save 10 to 15% of your income for retirement. Live below your means. Andrew Tobias says there is someone making 10% less…
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Republican Authoritarianism and Fascism
President Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 rally before the White House. Three large screens show a close-up of Trump’s face, looking like Big Brother from Orwell’s “1984.” (John Minchillo, Associated Press) Author, historian, and culture critic Ruth Ben Ghiat was on The New Abnormal to answer the question nobody is asking: What stage of the fascist…
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Read a Slave Code
Because History Makes Ron DeSantis Feel Bad Slave Codes The transcript of the South Carolina Negro Act of 1740 that used to be online at South Carolina Educational Television is now on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. It’s a sign of the times. Slavery in the United States was governed by laws that developed from…
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Investing for Retirement
and the Time Value of Money My Portfolio I spent more than half my working life saving in whatever guaranteed pension plan my employer offered, but a change to a 401(k) plan finally forced me into making my own investment decisions. After a lot of reading and some false starts, I retired with these assets:…
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Disinformation and the Internet
Section 230 permits moderation Internet statistics are amazing, even when 7 years old. 700,000 hours of YouTube videos watched in 60 seconds. It sounds like a time warp, but all it takes is 42 million users online. There are over 5 billion internet users in the world today. How much of this is disinformation? Disinformation…
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Abortion as a Civil Right
Demonstrators protest outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 in Washington. (JOSE LUIS MAGANA / AP) Roe v. Wade got it right Legal History The Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade (1973) examined in depth the legal history of abortion. “It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion…
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Masks Are Routine
Airborne Covid Requires Them Wearing Masks Masks are routine protection against airborne infections in hospitals in the United States. Other countries like Japan have used them in public for to prevent illnesses as common as colds. “I think there are cultural differences in Asia as a whole. Mask use in Korea, in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore…
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Elon Blocks Blocking
Image: The Verge and other free speech offenses Elon Musk has said that he will delete account blocking on X: The X Help Center says Block helps people in restricting specific accounts from contacting them, seeing their Tweets, and following them. . . Blocked accounts do not receive a notification alerting them that their account…
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Free Speech on Social Media
Background The Biden administration has asked the Supreme Court to hear two cases on Florida and Texas laws preventing removal of social media posts. They were passed in response to conservative complaints that censorship by internet platforms violated the First Amendment freedom of speech. The laws’ supporters said the measures were needed to address “Silicon…
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We Can Raise Taxes
The Politics and Economy are Aligned A survey of tax history, arguments for and against raising taxes, and an exhortation to tax the rich. Why We Need Taxes Unless you’re a disciple of Grover Norquist and want to drown government in a bathtub, you might see taxes as necessary for certain community needs like law and order,…
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An Accounting for Religion
What is Religion? Religion is mostly prehistoric: “The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history.” 30,000 years of pre-history versus 7,000 years written. Prehistoric religious beliefs are credited since 35,000 BC, when burials began to include decoration of the body and accompanying artifacts.[1] Britannica describes religion generally as organized beliefs that guide a relationship…
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Black Veterans Denied Benefits
UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/GETTY IMAGES Education and Homes One of the greatest benefits from ongoing versions of the GI Bill has been support for college and vocational school enrollment. “As a result, almost 49 percent of college admissions in 1947 were veterans. The GI Bill opened the door of higher education to the working…
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Lost Generational Wealth
The growing gap between worker productivity and pay has been a new source of wealth since the early 1970’s. A much older but similar source of wealth was pocketed by slave owners. A Citigroup historical review of ties to slavery shows at least indirect profits. The company acknowledged that slavery and slave labor “most likely”…
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Adjusting the Race Lottery
Affirmative Action and Legacy Admissions Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life. ― Cecil Rhodes, 1853-1902 While reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2016 I thought about the advantages of being born in America and not a third world country, and being born white.…
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Productivity, Inequality, and a New Gilded Age
©2002 Ted Rall, Universal Press Syndicate This Ted Rall cartoon of business malfeasance was written after the Enron scandal and the Dot-com market crash, but there has also been quieter profiteering before and since from lagging wages in the entire economy. When I look at the productivity and pay chart below, I see my working…
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Lincoln and Slavery
It sounds ridiculous and unnecessary, researching Lincoln and slavery. But I’m vetting American heroes with an emphasis on racism, and finding surprises and a slow evolution in Lincoln’s words and actions. Lincoln served in the Illinois Assembly and U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the Whig Party from 1834 to 1849. He opposed both…
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Voting in the Time of Corona
Absentee Ballots are the Future The first warning was the March 17 training video for the April 7 Spring Election. Hand sanitizer would be provided, but the supply was limited, and poll workers “should bring their own.” The Election Official Newsletter covered the initial public health recommendations that did not yet include masks. In-person training sessions…
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Social Security Retirement Application
First monthly Social Security check recipient Ida May Fuller, January 31, 1940 The online form in 2020 Overview You can apply online for Retirement and Spouse benefits, but spouses who have already applied or are currently receiving benefits on their own earnings cannot apply online. You should already have a my Social Security account. Social Security recommends the…
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Social Security Retirement
Old-Age and Survivors Insurance for retired workers The Social Security Administration manages three programs under the Social Security Act: This article covers only Retirement. Financial Outlook The Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust fund is predicted in the 2019 Trustees Report to run out in 2034, but this hasn’t changed since 2016. In 2017 there were…
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My Father’s Dragon
This is not that story.1 This is a story about another dragon, who looked like this: It’s a story about two Komodo Dragons that President Sukarno of Indonesia gave to America in 1964. They were in return for a pair of trumpeter swans that the United States gave to him.2 The Komodo Dragon is now the…
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Savings & Withdrawals
A Savings Model Instead of using ballpark numbers like 25 times your annual expenses, or 8 times your annual salary, a better approach to estimate retirement savings needed is to use your personal history of income and expenses, adjusted for changes in retirement. You can do this with a program called FIRECalc. This chart shows my actual balance history, predicted…
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Taxes in Retirement ⚖
Goodbye Withholding, Hello Estimated Taxes Home Sales 🏠 The details are in IRS Publication 523, Selling Your Home. The summary is that there are exclusions from capital gains of up to $250,000 for single or $500,000 for joint returns for your primary residence. In general, there are three qualifying tests: There are other exceptions that may…
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Changing Medicare Plans 🔁
Original, Advantage, Drug Advantage to Original During the Medicare annual enrollment period from October 15 to December 7 you can change from a Medicare Advantage plan (Part C) to Original Medicare. There is also a specific Medicare Advantage enrollment period from January 1 to March 31 in which you can return to Original Medicare. Changes…
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A History of U.S. Immigration Laws
A History of Racism, Jobs, and Resistance to Change Recent debate over immigration and closed versus open borders raises questions about the American history of immigration. It seems that every native-born citizen is descended from immigrants; even the first Native Americans were new arrivals at some point.2 This article looks at tightening restrictions on immigration after…
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Second Class Citizens
Legal Discrimination against Palestinian Israelis Americans are too willing to assume that the only democracy in the Middle East has a written Constitution and Bill of Rights like theirs. The examples below are legal discrimination by the Israeli government. This unequal treatment under the law applies to over 1.7 million Israeli citizens in Israel, more than…
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Is Trump a Fourth-Grader?
Newsweek’s “Trump Speaks At Fourth-Grade Level, Lowest Of Last 15 U.S. Presidents, New Analysis Finds” 1 and its source, FactSquared’s “’Stable Genius’ – Let’s Go to the Data,” 2 are fun to read because everyone has been dumbfounded by one of Donald Trump’s incoherent tweets. But no tweets were used in the making of this chart. “The website excluded communiques issued…
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Continual and Fearless Sifting and Winnowing
By which alone the truth can be found Sifting and winnowing is a metaphor for the academic pursuit of truth associated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison, coined by University President Charles Kendall Adams. Professor Richard T. Ely was known to be liberal and pro-union, having published a book on socialism. In 1894 Superintendent of Public Instruction…
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Madison’s Confederate Memorials
This 1981 memorial at Forest Hill Cemetery was removed August 16, 2017. (Patrick Mack/Wisconsin State Journal) A Timeline of Civil War Memorials United States 1857 In Dred Scott v. Sanford the Supreme Court rules that a slave, or a descendant of slaves, is not an American citizen and has no standing to sue in federal court for…
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Types of Medicare Coverage
Comparing Typical Bundles There are two typical approaches for complete coverage under Medicare: These are some of the differences between the two bundles: Medicare Enrollment Original Medicare with Medigap and Drugs1• 40 quarters of employment with Medicare payroll deductions automatically qualifies you for Medicare Part A (Hospital) with no monthly premium.• Medicare Part B (Doctor)…
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The Effects of Asset Allocation
Stock funds for growth, bond funds for stability The Vanguard Total Bond Fund VBTLX passed through the Great Recession in good shape, even though it typically holds about 25% mortgage-backed securities. First and foremost, it’s a bond fund with low stock market correlation. But it also held higher quality bonds and more U.S. Government securities than other…
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Cardinal Bernard Law is Dead
It wasn’t that he was a pedophile. He found himself having to manage a difficult situation. It’s not that he himself behaved badly. In my times, there was a different instruction. If something happened in a family, it was the role of the father of a family to hide it. Now it is all about…
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The Great Recession, Condensed
and with Glossary Subprime mortgages, side bets, greed, and fraud. The causes of the Great Recession were subprime adjustable-rate mortgages, and speculation using financial instruments that leveraged the actual market a thousandfold. In other words, greed and fraud. This is a bare-boned explanation of the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression. The housing bubble that preceded…
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John Bogle on Corporations
From “The Modern Corporation and the Public Interest,” a speech by John C. Bogle, Founder of the Vanguard Group, to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, December 7, 2017, pp. 13-14 “. . . The enterprises that will endure are those that generate growing profits for their owners, something they do best only when they take…
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El-a-noy
Then move your family westward,Good health you will enjoy,And rise to wealth and honourIn the state of El-a-noy. — The Folk Songs of North America, Alan Lomax, 1960 13 In 1819 Patrick Walsh is born in the village of Cooleyhune, rural County Carlow, Ireland. Twelve years later Bridget Brennan is born in the Carlow village of…
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Medicare Application
Corey Brickley, New York Times The 2015 online form Overview You will be automatically enrolled in Medicare by applying for Social Security Retirement before age 65. If not, you must apply for Medicare yourself during the initial enrollment period of three months before to four months after the month you turn 65. (You might want…
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Life, for a Limited Time Only
Collected Quotes All my life, I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific. ― Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985) LifeAvailable for a limited time only.Limit one per person.Subject to change without notice.Provided as is.Enjoy! ― “Sometimes Why?” on The Second Album of…
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Madison, Wisconsin
Collected Quotes This is Madison. —Mayor-for-Life Paul Soglin, July 12, 2013. Actually, every third Mayor since 1973. The Earth as seen from Madison, Wisconsin— Caption on a postcard c. 1977 30 square miles surrounded by reality— Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus in 1978.1 The land area was 77 sq mi by 2010, with an additional 17 sq mi of water.2,3…
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Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Speech, Norman Rockwell©1943 SEPS, Curtis Publishing Collected Quotes March 27, 2005 In 1912, feminist Margaret Sanger was arrested for giving a lecture on birth control. Trade union meetings were banned. Peaceful protesters opposing U. S. entry into World War I were jailed. In 1923, author Upton Sinclair was arrested for trying to read the…
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Palestine & Israel
Collected Quotes “If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention” January 22, 2004 Rachel Corrie, 23, before she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza Strip, March 16, 2003. ( REUTERS) The driver dragged his blade over her a second time while reversing back over her body. Corrie died of skull and chest fractures. (International…
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Bush and the Iraq War
Collected Quotes July 2, 2003 If you’re interested in peace, if you want people to grow up in a peaceful world, all parties must do everything they can to reject and stop violence. 53In response to a Tel Aviv bus bombing (September 19, 2002) If you want to keep the peace, you’ve got to have the…
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The Middle East and Islam
11th Air Defense Brigade, Bahrain Collected Quotes June 26, 2003 We must not deceive ourselves or the Iraqis or the Palestinians about the joint Arab capabilities to support them or to defend them. 66Sheik Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, king of Bahrain, speaking to his people of defending Iraq, while providing a home port for the U.S.…
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Political Science
Collected Quotes Can Science Conquer Kansas? Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment. — Example of changes to an Environmental Protection Agency report made by White House officials under George W. Bush, June 19, 2003 Political staff are becoming increasingly bold in forcing agency officials to endorse junk science. — Jeremy Symons, a…
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Patriotic Ceremonies
Students pledging to the flag with the Bellamy salute, March 1941 Collected Quotes Exceptions to Majority Rule “No official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion . . . To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead…
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Enron and Others
Collected Quotes The genius of capitalism December 28, 2002 I want to assure you that I have never felt better about the prospects for the company. 1— Enron CEO Ken Lay, after selling $160 million of his own company stock (August 14, 2001) Enron used its political clout to create what one of its own executives…
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Malefactors of Great Wealth
Collected Quotes The Genius Of Capitalism Andrew Jackson on the Rich and Powerful It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be…