Repeat Message to the Mainstream Media: Stop Serving as Trump’s Propaganda Machine I don’t usually like to repeat myself in these posts, but when it comes to the media getting suckered by Trump and serving as bots in his reelection campaign, I have to get shrill: no more headlines reporting on Trump’s tweets, taunts and tantrums! Just stop! Now! The New York Times is one of the worst, and they would do well to read their own reportage on the matter. ...
Read More »Rep Liu got Mueller to say it
https://twitter.com/pbump/status/1154042744702029824?s=20 Also the MSM noticed. Bump is a Washington Post reporter. The point is that this implies that Mueller thinks Trump was guilty and that he would have a reasonable chance of convincing a jury that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt of Trump’s guilt. The other answer was “that was a sufficient reason to not indict Trump which doesn’t imply that it was a necessary condition. As written in the...
Read More »My Favorite Conservative
Is Michael Gerson. My dad likes David Brooks (please no comments on this). I don’t, but also I am quite sure that Brooks isn’t really a conservative anymore. I think he just plays one on TV. He has a column in the New York Times based on their affirmative action conservative quota. There would be no reason to pay any attention to him if he weren’t a relatively reasonable conservative. I think he is, in fact, a remarkably vacuous centrist. It may...
Read More »How today’s Democratic ‘Squad’ is a direct ideological descendant of the original 1850s Republicans
How today’s Democratic ‘Squad’ is a direct ideological descendant of the original 1850s Republicans Nothing is ever really “new.” Today’s ‘Squad’ of young Democrats is the direct ideological descendant of the original 1850s Congressional Republicans. That is one of the important lessons of Joanne Freeman’s “The Fields of Blood,” about the increasing threats of, and actual incidents of, violence in the US Congress between the 1830s and the Civil War. Just...
Read More »From Versailles to the Euro
This month marks the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles, one of the agreements that brought World War I to a close. In a sense, the tables have turned. Whereas the treaty imposed huge reparations on Germany, today’s Germany has taken the lead in imposing a large debt obligation on its fellow eurozone member Greece. Although the creditor-debtor cards have been reshuffled since 1919, the game remains the same. Creditors want their pound of flesh, and debtors want to avoid giving it....
Read More »Bill Black says what if…
(Dan here… Via Real News Network, Bill Black discusses the what-ifs of President Trump’s policies in a spectacular contrast to current expectations…providing. a jumping off point from what we expect from the way it is framed now. I assume the complex interalationships of the wealthy elites (let us see how the Epstein case unwinds for another aspect) plays an important but not so well known role in this drama. I find his thought his conclusions dismaying...
Read More »A Half Century Since Apollo 11 Launched To The Moon
A Half Century Since Apollo 11 Launched To The Moon On July 16, 1969, a half century ago today, a Saturn 5 rocket launched from Cape Kennedy on its way to the moon, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would land on the moon on July 20 before returning successfully to earth. Recent books have made clear just how close a call it was with many things nearly going wrong that would have doomed them, including such oddities as Aldrin using a felt tipped pen...
Read More »Moon of Alabama — How The News About Italian Far-Right Fighters In Ukraine Got Confused
Informative post on what really went down in the BBC reporting "incident," along with speculation on why it happened. He is willing to cut some space. Worth a read.Moon of AlabamaHow The News About Italian Far-Right Fighters In Ukraine Got Confused
Read More »Pence’s Potemkin Village on the Mexican Border
Pence’s Potemkin Village on the Mexican Border Merriam Webster defines a Potemkin Village as: an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition Mike Pence visited a Potemkin Village in Donna, Texas: Pence also visited a tent-like temporary detention facility in Donna, Texas, that holds unaccompanied children and immigrant families. The new and mostly clean facility stood in stark contrast to the McAllen station Pence later...
Read More »Norman’s Last Day
The funeral of Norman Stone took place on Friday 28 June in the Deak Lutheran Church in Budapest. His son Rupert asked me to be a pall bearer and I followed the coffin up the aisle behind the prime minister Viktor Orban. Historians Niall Ferguson and Harold James, among others, eulogised him. My presence was in a sense accidental. I happened to be spending a month in Vienna and I had come over from to Budapest to see him the previous week: on the day, in fact, he died. I had known Norman...
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