Tag: politics

  • Where’s My (State) Stimulus?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Here’s an interesting post from FiveThirtyEight. The article explores where different states have spent their pandemic relief funding from the federal government. The nearly $2 trillion dollar relief included a $350 billion block grant given to the states, to do with as they saw fit. After all, every state has different needs and priorities. Huzzah…

  • Colours for Maps

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Today we have an interesting little post, a choropleth map in a BBC article examining the changes occurring in the voting systems throughout the United States. Broadly speaking, we see two trends in the American political system when it comes to voting: make it easier because democracy; make it more restrictive because voter fraud/illegitimacy. The…

  • Slaveholders in the Halls of Congress

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Taking a break from going through the old articles and things I’ve saved, let’s turn to a an article from the Washington Post published earlier this week. As the title indicates, the Post’s article explores slaveholders in Congress. Many of us know that the vast majority of antebellum presidents at one point or another owned…

  • Germany’s Political Coalitions

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Two weekends ago, Germany went to the polls for their federal election in which they chose their representatives in the Bundestag, or legislature. Germany, however, is not a two-party system and no single party won a majority of seats. Consequently, the parties need to negotiate and form a coalition government. That could take a number…

  • Covid Vaccination and Political Polarisation

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    I will try to get to my weekly Covid-19 post tomorrow, but today I want to take a brief look at a graphic from the New York Times that sat above the fold outside my door yesterday morning. And those who have been following the blog know that I love print graphics above the fold.…

  • Misleading Graphics Aren’t Limited to US Elections

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in , ,

    Last week I wrote about how CBS News’ coverage of the California recall election featured a misleading graphic. In particular, the graphic created the appearance that the results were closer than they really were. This week we had another election and, sadly, I find that I have to write the same sort of piece again.…

  • 2020 Census Apportionment

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Every ten years the United States conducts a census of the entire population living within the United States. My genealogy self uses the federal census as the backbone of my research. But that’s not what it’s really there for. No, it exists to count the people to apportion representation at the federal level (among other…

  • Can We Pop Our Political Bubbles?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in , ,

    It’s no secret that Americans—and likely at least Western communities more broadly—live in bubbles, one of which being our political bubbles. And so I want to thank one of my mates for sending me the link to this opinion piece about political bubbles from the New York Times. The piece is fairly short, but begins…

  • Politicising Vaccinations

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Yesterday I wrote my usual weekly piece about the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic in the five states I cover. At the end I discussed the progress of vaccinations and how Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Illinois all sit around 25% fully vaccinated. Of course, I leave my write-up at that. But not everyone does. This past…

  • Biden’s Cabinet

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Note: I wanted this to go up on Inauguration Day, but I had some server issues last week. And while I got everything back for Friday and Monday, I didn’t want to wait too long to post this. You’ll note at the end that I have questions about General Austin and whether he could be…