Now, let us see whether we have a Congress and an administration of patriots or quislings, combatants or collaborators.
Now, let us see whether we have a Congress and an administration of patriots or quislings, combatants or collaborators.
Posted at 03:16 PM in American Politics, Books, Current Affairs, Foreign Policy and National Security, Music, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Television, Think Tanks, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: date that will live in infamy, DNC, Donald Trump, FDR, Helsinki, Hillary Clinton, Jonathan Lemire, POTUS, quislings, Robert Mueller, Russian Federation, servers, Vladimir Putin
Posted at 03:04 PM in American Politics, Books, Current Affairs, Foreign Policy and National Security, Music, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Television, Think Tanks, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Broadway musicals, Congressional Republicans, Donald Trump, George and Ira Gershwin, George S. Kaufman, Helsinki, Mitch McConnell, Of Me I Sing, Robert Mueller, Vladimir Putin
Posted at 04:34 PM in American Politics, Books, Current Affairs, Environmental Issues, Foreign Policy and National Security, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Television, Think Tanks, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Angela Merkel, Charlevoix, China, Chrystia Freeland, Donald Trump, DPRK, Emmanuel Macron, G-7, Heiko Maas, Iran, James Fallows, Japan, JCPOA, John McCain, Justin Trudeau, Kim Jong-un, Larry Kudlow, North Korea, Paris Accord, Peter Navarro, PRC, Shinzo Abe, Singapore Summit, South Korea, Theresa May, TPP, Xi Jinping
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Posted at 05:34 PM in American Politics, Books, Current Affairs, Foreign Policy and National Security, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Television, Think Tanks, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Betsy DeVos, CDC, Constitution , Donald Trump, FBI, James Comey, Jeff Sessions, Joe Arpaio, Presst Bharara, Recip Tayyip Erdogan, Robert Mueller, Rudy Giuliani, Ryan Zinke, Sally Yates, Scott Pruitt, Spygate
Give Roger Goodell and his brotherly band of billionaires an opportunity to come down on the side of 1st Amendment freedoms, reinforced by the Supreme Court decision of Texas v. Johnson, 1989, and again in U. S. v. Eichman, 1990 or to take an action that takes exception to it, and which would otherwise constitute an anti-trust violation (were it not for the NFL’s exemption here,) and every time they’ll go for the easy path. As no less than Walter Isaacson — a Time alum and renowned biographer — observed a few years back:
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Posted at 01:15 PM in American Politics, Current Affairs, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Policy Issues, Religion, Television, Think Tanks | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: 1st Amendment, flag-burning, Kneeling for the National Anthem, NFL, Roger Goodell, Texas v. Johnson, U. S. v. Eichmann
A thousand-year-old English castle echoed with the exhortations of a black preacher and a gospel choir on Saturday, as Prince Harry wed Meghan Markle, an American actress, nudging the British royal family into a new era.
New York Times, 19 May 2018
"Camelot, located no where in particular, can be anywhere.”
Norris J. Lacy, Arthurian Scholar
Dear Friends,
Like millions of people around the globe, I began yesterday morning at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, albeit from the comfort of a couch, not a wooden pew. I was prepared to start the morning with grim television reportage of the tragic school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, or a fresh round of conspiratorial condemnations from America’s prevaricator-in-chief, aided and abetted by his roving barrister, Rudy Giuliani.
Instead, I was transported to the wedding of Prince Harry and his bride, Meghan Markle, and for an hour or more, I watched in silence as the ceremony, whose choreography derives from centuries of custom, but which was enhanced by bold new cultural infusions, took me by total surprise. I had no expectations, nor did I anticipate that I would last long as a viewer.
It was a Proustian moment, however, without the madeleine and the tea, for the thoughts it engendered about how far we have fallen from our tradition of behaving well during moments of national ceremony. Though a royal wedding and a presidential inauguration are wholly different occasions, they are both moments in which we are expected to display our best face and to honor our common values.
To enjoy this particularly festive wedding was to be reminded of how dreadful the inaugural ceremony of the 45th President was, from the divisive, discordant presidential address about “American carnage” and the failure of all those presidents who had preceded him, to the day-after shenanigans about crowd size, climatological conditions, and the sorry spectacle of the speech at the CIA.
On the one hand, there was the joy of being present at such a moment — with its glorious assemblage of choral and musical performances, the Kingdom Choir and “Stand By Me,” the exquisite cello artistry of Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the soaring oratory of an African-American Episcopal preacher, the vibrant colors and architectural shapes of hat-fascinators, and the invigorating sense of energy and promise that all of this and the bride, Meghan, and groom, Prince Harry personify. It was a magnificent start for the day, and for that hour or more, it seemed like the brilliant blue, sunny skies of Windsor were right outside our window.
But, of course, they were not.
All of that was thousands of miles away, across an ocean, and in a country where the monarchy is the institutional rock upon which is anchored the nation’s solidity, continuity, and tradition. Meanwhile, England’s Brexit-stained political landscape is buffeted by the ill winds of nativism, faux-nationalism, and fear of the foreigner.
Here at home, we have the ill winds, but no rock.
Where once we could believe that a President could be the standard-bearer of our best traditions — not unfailingly, but when kismet came calling — and the White House the repository of our Constitutional bedrock, today we are bereft, bankrupt at the very top.
Instead of a paragon or even a journeyman, we have a grifter, an habitual fabricator and fabulist, a malignant presence who delights in the dismantling of existing relationships, partnerships, and alliances, and who has assembled through a mixture of cunning and crass communications tactics and techniques, an army that wears red hats, cheers wildly at his attacks on the ‘deep state,’ and which delights in his stentorian denigration of the institutions upon which this democracy was built — the judiciary, the press, and the exercise of First Amendment rights.
His former opponent called these people ‘deplorables,,’ which placed the name tag on the wrong party. Instead, it’s an apt characterization for the President himself and the corps of collaborators who are his lieutenants, enablers, and proxies, and who participate in the boorish, vindictive behaviors that are at the core of the Trump disposition.
But for ‘one brief, shining moment’ yesterday, we were with Harry and Meghan, their family, friends, and supporters around the globe in celebration of their marriage. It was a moment of unexpected exuberance, genuine glee, and a nourishing vacation from the vulgarity that is our lot for the nonce.
We may not have our Camelot, but we can surely set our sights on ridding ourselves of this Babylonian dominion and America’s Nebuchadnezzar.
Posted at 09:56 AM in American Politics, Current Affairs, Film, Foreign Policy and National Security, Music, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Religion, Television, Think Tanks | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Brexit, British monarchy, Donald Trump, Kingdom Choir, Meghan Markle, Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Queen Elizabeth II, Rudy Giuliani, Santa Fe, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, St. George's Chapel, Stand By Me, TX, Windsor Castle
“And I was explaining about the numbers. We did a thing yesterday at the speech. Did everybody like the speech? I’ve been given good reviews. But we had a massive field of people. You saw them. Packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I say, wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, the field was -- it looked like a million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there. And they said, Donald Trump did not draw well. I said, it was almost raining, the rain should have scared them away, but God looked down and he said, we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.
“In fact, when I first started, I said, oh, no. The first line, I got hit by a couple of drops. And I said, oh, this is too bad, but we’ll go right through it. But the truth is that it stopped immediately. It was amazing. And then it became really sunny. And then I walked off and it poured right after I left. It poured. But, you know, we have something that’s amazing because we had -- it looked -- honestly, it looked like a million and a half people. Whatever it was, it was. But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument. And I turn on -- and by mistake I get this network, and it showed an empty field. And it said we drew 250,000 people. Now, that’s not bad, but it’s a lie. We had 250,000 people literally around -- you know, in the little bowl that we constructed. That was 250,000 people. The rest of the 20-block area, all the way back to the Washington Monument, was packed. So we caught them, and we caught them in a beauty. And I think they’re going to pay a big price.”
“With just 18 days before President Trump completes his first year as president, he is now on track to exceed 2,000 false or misleading claims, according to our database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.
“As of Monday, the total stood at 1,950 claims in 347 days, or an average of 5.6 claims a day.” (Washington Post, Fact Checker, 1/2/2018)
In a comprehensive review of the Trump falsehood phenomenon and its comparison to others, the New York Times made this report:
Posted at 07:58 AM in American Politics, Current Affairs, Foreign Policy and National Security, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Religion, Television, Think Tanks | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tags: Andrew McCabe, Christopher Wray, Devin Nunes, Donald Trump, FBI, House Select Committee on Intelligence, John Kelly, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, SOYU, State of the Union
Posted at 07:10 AM in American Politics, Books, Current Affairs, Foreign Policy and National Security, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Religion, Television, Think Tanks, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Anthony Scaramucci, chief of staff, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Louis XIV, New York Times, POTUS, press secretary, Washington Post
Posted at 12:45 PM in American Politics, Books, Current Affairs, Environmental Issues, Foreign Policy and National Security, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Religion, Science, Television, Think Tanks, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: 2016 election, adverbs, Department of Justice, FBI, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, President Bill Clinton, Senate Judiciary Committee, syntax
Posted at 11:19 AM in American Politics, Books, Current Affairs, Environmental Issues, Foreign Policy and National Security, Political Commentary and Analysis, Public Diplomacy, Public Policy Issues, Religion, Television, Think Tanks, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tags: Can't anybody here play this game? FISA Court, Casey Stengel, CIA, Donald Trump, FBI, foreign policy, James Comey, narcissistic personality disorder, national security, Sebastian Gurka, Steve Bannon, Trump Tower, wiretaps
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