Mitch McConnell Got Everything He Wanted. But at What Cost? Sections Skip to content Skip to site index Feature The president whom the Senate Republican leader helped elect has turned out to be the one thing he can’t control. Mitch McConnell in the United States Capitol in December. Credit Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times Supported by ByCharles Homans Jan. 22, 2019 At sunrise, there it was: a red-tailed hawk, its gyre widening over the United States Capitol building in the Creamsicle-colored light, like the world’s least subtle literary reference. It was still there by midafternoon, drifting on the thermals over the mostly depopulated National Mall, wheeling occasionally past the window in the hallway outside the office where the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, sat on the 20th day of what would soon become the longest government shutdown in American history. That morning, Jan. 10, … [Read more...] about Mitch McConnell Got Everything He Wanted. But at What Cost?
What do political scientists study
What’s behind the confidence of the incompetent? This suddenly popular psychological phenomenon.
Angela Fritz, The Washington Post Published 4:32 am PST, Monday, January 7, 2019 You may have witnessed this scene at work, while socializing with friends or over a holiday dinner with extended family: Someone who has very little knowledge in a subject claims to know a lot. That person might even boast about being an expert. This phenomenon has a name: the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's not a disease, syndrome or mental illness; it is present in everybody to some extent, and it's been around as long as human cognition, though only recently has it been studied and documented in social psychology. In their 1999 paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, David Dunning and Justin Kruger put data to what has been known by philosophers since Socrates, who supposedly said something along the lines of "the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing." Charles Darwin followed that up in 1871 with "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does … [Read more...] about What’s behind the confidence of the incompetent? This suddenly popular psychological phenomenon.
Voting Issues and Gerrymanders Are Now Key Political Battlegrounds
Sections SEARCH Skip to content Skip to site index Politics Subscribe Log In Log In Today’s Paper Politics | Voting Issues and Gerrymanders Are Now Key Political Battlegrounds Supported by ByTrip Gabriel Jan. 2, 2019 Voting rights and partisan gerrymandering, traditionally the preoccupation of wonky party strategists and good-government groups, have become major flash points in the debate about the integrity of American elections, signaling high stakes battles over voter suppression and politically engineered districts ahead of the 2020 presidential race. When Democrats take the majority in the House on Thursday, the first bill they plan to introduce will be broad legislation focusing on these issues. Early drafts of their proposals include automatic voter registration, public elections financing and ending gerrymandering by using independent commissions to draw voting districts. But action and anger go far … [Read more...] about Voting Issues and Gerrymanders Are Now Key Political Battlegrounds
Washington Post mocked over study claiming Trump voters could be insecure about their manhood
The Washington Post claims President Trump appeals to men who are secretly insecure about their manhood. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) If you’ve Googled “erectile dysfunction,” “how to get girls” or questioned your penis size – you might be a Trump supporter, according to The Washington Post. Critics slammed Post over a “ridiculous” analysis that suggests male Trump supporters could be insecure about their manhood and masculinity. “We call this the ‘fragile masculinity hypothesis,’” the Post study claims. Thursday’s piece, “How Donald Trump appeals to men secretly insecure about their manhood,” was written by New York University social psychologist Eric Knowles and a student, Sarah DiMuccio. It features an assortment of phrases that would make a middle schooler chuckle and points to things such as Trump “boasting about the size of his penis” as to why he -- in the eyes of the authors … [Read more...] about Washington Post mocked over study claiming Trump voters could be insecure about their manhood
Virgil: Amazon and the Geography of Plutocracy — How the Rich and Blue Get Richer and Bluer and What Red States Must Do to Protect Themselves
Amazon’s Hunger Games: Symptom, Not Cause The reviews of Amazon’s “Headquarters 2” search are in, and they’re scathing. As they should be.You probably know about the HQ2 operation, launched with great fanfare last year by the tech giant, leading hundreds of localities across the country on a wild goose chase, only to see New York City and a close-in suburb of Washington, D.C., emerge as the victors. In fact, when it turned out that Amazon had chosen two cities where CEO Jeff Bezos already owned ultra-ritzy homes, it was obvious that the whole “search” was fake news. And so the media backlash set in. Wired derided the spectacle as “Amazon’s Hunger Games.”The New York Post’s headline blared “Amazon’s HQ2 competition was a cruel bait-and-switch.” And The Wall Street Journal headlined, “How Amazon Picked HQ2 and Jilted 236 Cities.” Or as Politico bannered, “Amazon’s … [Read more...] about Virgil: Amazon and the Geography of Plutocracy — How the Rich and Blue Get Richer and Bluer and What Red States Must Do to Protect Themselves