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Steve Hochstadt

Steve Hochstadt is a writer and an emeritus professor of history at Illinois College.

  • Oct 7, 2015

    Bugs in the Volkswagen System

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Cheating on an unprecedented scale was a simple business decision. Volkswagen executives had spent billions to develop a new diesel engine, but executives realized it could not meet the pollution standards of many nations, including the US and Germany. They could have scrapped the new model. Instead they put a software “bug” into the cars’ computers.

  • Sep 29, 2015

    Ben Carson’s Religious Tests for Candidates

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Carson applies his tests of religious suitability only to Islam. He does not advocate that a Christian specifically renounce the Biblical passages which violate our Constitution, such as approving discussions of slavery and of stoning women accused of adultery.
  • Sep 22, 2015

    What Do Republican Voters Want?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Republican voters want a confrontational outsider. Not necessarily a belligerent lover of personal confrontations like Trump. Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson act more decorously, but their policies are belligerent.
  • Sep 16, 2015

    When Religion and Politics Collide

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Conservative Christians claim that they are only defending freedom of religion, but there is no attack on their freedom to worship and believe as they like. They want more. They want laws which apply to all Americans to reflect their religious beliefs. They demand the right to disregard laws they don’t like. They want their religion to be our politics.
  • Sep 2, 2015

    Science, Averages and Hokum

    by Steve Hochstadt

    When you take the claims of global warming deniers, such as the so-called pause in warming, or the number of scientists who are skeptics, or the lack of consensus of the world’s scientists, and investigate the footnotes or check the math, you see that they are not doing science. Their work cannot stand peer review, so it is published on the internet, where they get maximum readership with minimal credibility.

  • Aug 26, 2015

    How Do We See the Poor?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    It doesn’t do Democrats any good to advocate for the poor. They don’t make the giant political contributions that keep the Republican machine going. They don’t vote as often as the people who make those contributions. They don’t staff the offices of lobbyists in Washington. They don’t hobnob with candidates at fancy dinners. There is no quid pro quo for helping “the most vulnerable”, except the feeling that it’s the right thing to do.

  • Jul 25, 2015

    The Meaning of Donald Trump

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Trump is just riding a wave. Soon he'll go down. What matters is what other Republicans do with their most vocal and extreme voters.
  • Jul 16, 2015

    The Myth of Liberal Media

    by Steve Hochstadt

    One of the most significant political myths is about the “liberal media”, the supposed tilt of American public media to the left. This claim by Republicans is nearly as old as I am. It was false when it began, and it still is, although less so.
  • Jul 8, 2015

    Bad Wars and Their Consequences

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The political leaders who now demand that we commit more people and money to these mistaken incursions into other people’s lands are the same ones who say we don’t have enough resources to pay for schools or poverty programs or museums.
  • Jun 30, 2015

    That Was The Week That Was

    by Steve Hochstadt

    June 2015 will be remembered by us and by tomorrow’s historians as a moment of profound cultural and political change.
  • Jun 18, 2015

    Bernie Sanders for President?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    It’s too early to say who will win the Democratic nomination. But it’s never too early to think about how we can win back our country from the billionaires and their political buddies.
  • Apr 29, 2015

    Let's Kill the Unions

    by Steve Hochstadt

    It’s been a bit more than 100 days since Republican Bruce Rauner became Governor of Illinois. Despite the enormous financial problems facing our state, he has yet to propose specific methods of dealing with our deficit and our debt. He has yet to propose any tax reform. But he has been very active on one of his pet projects – killing unions.

  • Mar 31, 2015

    Hippies Were Happy

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Hippies have a bad reputation, especially among conservatives.
  • Mar 17, 2015

    Butting In and Screwing Up

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The GOP Senate let a freshman with no foreign policy experience mess up foreign policy with Iran? 
  • Feb 20, 2015

    Israeli Settler Violence

    by Steve Hochstadt

    In January, a man carrying an automatic rifle entered a market in Jerusalem’s Old City, cursed the local merchants, assaulted a young man, and began shooting. Israeli soldiers arrived and protected Jewish citizens, and arrested a Palestinian man. The soldiers then created roadblocks at the gates to the City and interrogated many young Palestinian men.

  • Feb 12, 2015

    A Rocky Separation

    by Steve Hochstadt

    Recently a new type of wall has appeared in the West Bank. Twenty feet high, sunk deep into the ground, topped with barbed wire, the Israeli walls of separation prevent movement, separate people and interrupt that very life.
  • Jul 30, 2013

    Why the Hell is Anthony Weiner Still Running for Mayor?

    by Steve Hochstadt

    The latest royal birth makes great news for tabloid journalism, but even better is the latest sex message sent by Anthony Weiner to a woman who is not his wife. Weiner was not yet a household name when he was a Congressional representative from New York, or even when he began talking a lot on MSNBC, but now he has become famous for the crotch shots he sends all over the country.

    Can he parlay his name recognition into a successful campaign for mayor of New York? Until recently Weiner was leading his main opponent, Christine Quinn, current Speaker of the NY City Council, despite the scandal that made him resign from Congress in 2011. But in the last week we have learned that long after his resignation Weiner continued to send sexual messages and explicit photos to women he had never met. He is now reported to have initiated three new online sexual relationships and maintained them more than a year after resigning. There may have been contacts even after Weiner began his campaign for mayor.