Recent Comments

1. 9 months ago on Arlo and Janis

   I’m from Indiana. The Indiana KKK was the most powerful Klan chapter in the US, in the 1920’s. D. C. Stephenson was in charge. He started his political life as a Democrat, lost his first election in 1922, and immediately switched to the Republican Party. He then grew the KKK to the point it ran the State of Indiana. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C.Stephenson The success of the Klan in the 1920’s was a boon to the Republican Party.

2. about 1 year ago on Lisa Benson

   If you are suggesting that you earned your wealth, consider this: “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, not the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

3. about 1 year ago on Lisa Benson

   Why? The general infrastructure that enables you to work and earn, the benefits of a society that protects you, the education of masses of future employees: all paid for by taxes. The wealthy can well afford to pay generous taxes to support governmental services.

4. over 1 year ago on Dana Summers

   The trend towards fewer births in the US is not the product of abortion. Abortions in the US have been declining for years, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/, yet the number of births each year has also been declining. The reason is birth control. Ever since the Supreme Court declared that women had a Constitutional right to use birth control methods, the use of ills and procedures to control births has skyrocketed in the US.

5. over 1 year ago on Lisa Benson

   Most of the wealth transfers from father to son avoided estate taxes, by making inter vivos transfers using shell corporations. https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-ap-top-news-tax-evasion-politics-0452d29cd2564eaf97605ab90acc3a67

6. almost 2 years ago on Michael Ramirez

   The natural result of freemarket capitalism is monopoly. Are you saying you prefer the government to control mergers and acquisitions using antitrust laws?

7. almost 2 years ago on Doonesbury

   No, that case doesn’t say that’s. It says that Congress (federal legislation) may not infringe whatever rights are granted by the respective states to their citizens to own and bear arms. This was an 1886 decision, at a time when it was believed that the federal government possessed limited authority. If a man had the right to own and bear arms, it was a right that arose under state law, not the national Constitution. Illinois law recognized such a right. Congress couldn’t infringe that right. Of course, such power of a state to determine the rights of its citizens has been overruled by the “conservative” Supreme Court: N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, 2022.

8. almost 2 years ago on Gary Varvel

   Saying that a zygote is part of the human species is a stretch. To confirm its existence as part of a species, a zygote must survive post-zygotic barriers to development. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/natural-selection/speciation/a/species-speciation Since half (or more) of “human” zygotes don’t succeed in developing, it’s really unknown if a particular zygote is “human” as a species.

9. almost 2 years ago on Gary Varvel

   Declaring a fertilized egg to be “human” is a religious determination, not a scientific determination. Some religions declare that a human exists upon its first breath. Others look to “ensoulment,” perhaps three months into the pregnancy. A few declare that a human being exists right from conception. Since more than half of these “humans” die through miscarriage, declaring a zygote to be a human being is quite a stretch. “Around half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among women who know they are pregnant, about 10% to 25% will have a miscarriage. Most miscarriages occur during the first 7 weeks of pregnancy. The rate of miscarriage drops after the baby’s heartbeat is detected.”

10. almost 2 years ago on Henry Payne

    How so? A statement heard out-of-court and repeated in court is “hearsay” only if the in-court testimony is offered to prove the truth of the out-of-court statement. You heard John cry out “Fire” in a crowded theater. Your testimony to that effect in court isn’t hearsay: it’s not offered for the proposition that there was a fire; rather, it is offered to prove that John said it.