The Angry Bear

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic: part 4 of 4: the Empire as hegemonic “Banana Republic” ruled by caudillos As we have seen, the Roman Republic was brought down by an escalating series of acts of political violence, from murders to organized political mobs, to private legions, to four military marches over a period of 40 years on a Rome which had no permanent  defense force whose loyalty was to the Republic. The violence and military takeovers...

EM: The Repubs have a difficult time blocking national and state wide elections for Pres and Senators in Michigan. It is only when they pack a district or parcel a majority into several districts are they able to achieve a win in places where a fair election will contest who does win. In any case, the 11,000 difference between Trump and Clinton was due to record turnout in voting for “others” in 2016 as compared to 2012. I would attribute this to lies...

by New Deal democrat The divergent nowcast and one model’s forecast at Seeking Alpha Over 10 years ago I found a good, quick-and-dirty way of looking at the Index of Leading Indicators. It only matters at turning points, which means, for the first time since the 2015-16 “shallow industrial recession,” it’s worth looking at now. That, plus a concise look at the bifurcation in the producer vs. consumer economy as it stands now, is a post I’ve put up over...

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic: part 3 of 4: the final hammer-blows “The Republic is nothing, a mere name without body or form.” – Julius Caesar This is part 3 of my four part look at why the Roman Republic, which was successful and stable for nearly 4 centuries, ultimately fell into tyranny. In part 1 I described the structure of the Republic and the underlying reasons for its fall. In part 2 I described the first 4 episodes of civil war that...

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic: part 2 of 4: the first hammer-blows This is part 2 of my four part look at the Roman Republic and subsequent Empire. In part 1, I described the structure of the Republic, and its several centuries of stability and success, as well as the underlying causes of its ultimate downfall. The hammer-blows that rained down on the Republic from the existential dispute between Senatorial oligarchs on the one hand, and Roman...

The rise and fall of the Roman Republic: part 1 of 4: Structure and Background “Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny,” by Edward J. Watts“The Storm Before the Storm,: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic” by Mike Duncan“Ten Emperors: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine,” by Barry Strauss I’ve recently mentioned that lately I’ve been unable to read most American history books, with their currently unwarranted chipper optimism....

David Axelrod interviewing former Senator Harry Reid on the Axe Files There is too much going on with Trump and I believe he is purposely doing much of this as a distraction and also to antagonize Democrats. Abandoning the Kurds certainly draws a response from Democrats and most of the Republicans remain silent on things they know to be wrong. For some reason I believe he is setting the stage for something else to occur. If we as Democrats are wrong, all...

The Ultimate Solution Yes, Trump really said that.  The Syrian Kurds, who have been where they are about to be ethnically cleansed out of, are welcoming “the ultimate solution,” just like Jews in you know where were welcoming “the final solution.”  Of course they must accept this because they are “no angels,” “communists,” and “worse then ISIL.” So much for a “post-socialist” Bookchinite cooperative system.  But, hey, they are all so fortunate to have...

Mike Pompeo Reminds Me of Al Capone How to say in Latin that our Secretary of State is pompous and dishonest as it gets? Oh yea – if one says “quid pro quo” in English, it never happened. These unbelievable stupid excuses for denying what is plainly true – that Trump extorted dirt on Democrats from Ukraine by withholding military aid – is insulting as they are treating us like “chumps” to paraphrase Leon Penatta. But even more insulting is this:...