Brutal piece by Adam Davidson about the pivotal role that the takedown of Michael Cohen plays in the unraveling of this disastrous presidency.
The narrative that will become widely understood is that Donald Trump did not sit atop a global empire. He was not an intuitive genius and tough guy who created billions of dollars of wealth through fearlessness. He had a small, sad operation, mostly run by his two oldest children and Michael Cohen, a lousy lawyer who barely keeps up the pretenses of lawyering and who now faces an avalanche of charges, from taxicab-backed bank fraud to money laundering and campaign-finance violations.
A brutal piece on Trump from the New York Times.
There are plenty of examples these days, from Moscow to Budapest, of how “democracies” can be manipulated to the point where they can yield only one result. This is Trump’s objective, and for it he needs a weakened Justice Department, a weakened press and an American public that will believe anything. He has had setbacks but is stubborn.
Trump’s toolkit is familiar.
Великий Сталин — знамя дружбы народов СССР! Great Stalin - banner of friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union!
After reading about U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Number 1 fan”, Gene Huber, I was struck by the similarities between the adoration of Trump and that of Soviet leader, Josef Stalin. Throughout his tenure as General Secretary of the Communist Part of the Soviet Union, a cult of personality developed around Stalin.
Спасибо любимому Сталину - за счастливое детство! “Спасибо любимому Сталину - за счастливое детство!"
(Thank you dear Stalin for a happy childhood.)
Carl Sagan’s “Baloney detection kit” is arguably more important now than ever. His 9 rules for critical thinking work for science and they can work to detect political baloney, too.
Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
He was supposed to be a great maker of things, but he was mostly a breaker.
This is a brutal piece by Rebecca Solnit on the privilege and cravenness of Donald Trump. Should be read by all Americans.
With Trump the usual advice of “Follow the money.” doesn’t work because Congress refuses to force him to disclose his conflicts of interest. As enormous and material as those conflicts must be, I’m just going to focus on what I can see with my own eyes, the man’s apparent intent.
In his public life, Donald Trump has never done anything that did not personally and directly benefit him. Most of us, as we go through life, assemble a collection of acts that are variously self-serving and other-serving.
In an effort to strip protesters of their legitimacy, Trump and Fox News claim that protesters are simply there because they’re paid by powerful oppositional interests. Never mind that Trump has no evidence for his claim; he has no evidence for practically anything that emerges from his loud mouth. What is more interesting to me is that if money delegitimizes authenticity then presumably we can use this effect to come to additional conclusions.
Someday, when I have time to burn, I’m going to write a Twitter bot that takes all of Trump’s vacuous tweets and translate them into Russian. It’ll look like this:
There’s something ludicrous about the idea of the Trump, who is distractible, impatient, and incurious being able to learn Russian, an incredibly difficult language.
On January 1, 2016 we packed up all our earthly goods and headed south to Canada. (Yes, it’s true. When you live in Minnesota, it’s possible to move south to Canada. Look at the map!) Having lived here for a little over a year, here are some thoughts about living here, in no particular order:
“Sorry” is more of a greeting than just an apology.