Finally done, I hope. Sorry if people had trouble reaching Three String Raconteur over the past day or so. Migration had some odd twists and turns, but the third (or fourth) try was the charm.
As much as I lament that Democrats are the new party of “Not being Republicans” — and yes, it still drives me nuts — now it feels like the Republicans can’t see any action of their own beyond tearing down whatever the Democrats did. Think about the Republican agenda. First priority was easy: beat the Democrats. That’s become their overriding, first priority, dishonest, eye-gouging, “we […]
Administrative Change
You’ve been redirected to our new digs! Don’t freak out. We’ve moved the website to its (hopefully) permanent location: ThreeStringRaconteur.com. I’ve even bought a real SSL certificate and everything. It’s like I’m a grown-up or something. The Three-String Raconteur blog is now at https://threestringraconteur.com. Tell all your friends Please update any saved links.  Your browser should automatically redirect you there for the next few weeks, but […]
Still haven’t decided if this is just an accident, or amazingly good planning. I swear, I’m trying not to wear out “Orwellian’, but it’s hard.  I’m watching Trump yank the US out of our leadership on every front he can — military, social, ecological, economic, moral, et al — all while regularly butt-dialing another Make America Great Again tweet.  Doublethink is such an obvious metaphor, but I can’t call […]
I admit, I do the David Brooks dance now and then. Â In my version, I see how many paragraphs I can read from a Brooks column before he simply asserts something that’s more than mildly dubious, completely undefended, and yet essential to his argument. Â (Evidence isn’t really his gig.) Â No point in reading on after that. Â He’ll keep building something gossamer from personal anecdotes and […]
Yes, Trump is a Republican. So Trump decided that America wouldn’t be a world leader anymore. He already ditched the EU and NATO, and now he’s repudiated the Paris agreement. He’s finally convinced everyone that the US is no longer a world power. Nobody’s surprised that Trump’s empty justifications clearly show he hasn’t a clue how the whole thing works. Come on: complain about how […]
Ethical consistency is so 80’s. This is one of the pictures that got Kathy Griffin in trouble. I’m wondering about our reaction. Do I find the image offensive? No. But it wasn’t especially funny, either. Mimicking a President’s death is uncomfortable, so for this to work, she’d need a better payoff than we got. Overall 3SR evaluation? Meh. That’s as much ire as I can […]
Just so we don’t forget. The office of the President of the United States is many things, but at its core, the job is mostly an executive position. The President has to run the Executive branch of the government, an enterprise bigger than any other on the planet. Complicating that, the U.S. President is popularly seen as the embodiment of many ideals: patriotism, honor, and […]

