A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

Let’s Go Crazy: QAnon, March 4 and Trump’s Return to the Throne

Speaking of shamans…

A Cabal

If you work overseas a lot, particularly among poorly educated populations, you sometimes learn of questionable and even dangerously uninformed beliefs in some countries. One memorable one, at the height of the AIDS crisis, involved the notion that men shouldn’t wear condoms because shamans could then retrieve their sperm and do all sorts of nefarious things with it.

Not that we’re immune to such stuff. Take QAnon, the metastasizing, hydra-headed, born-in-the-USA conspiracy theory initiated in October 2017 by “Q Clearance Patriot,” an anonymous and subsequently prolific internet message board poster. Q has ridiculously claimed to be a highly placed government official privy to classified information.  

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To Beat Trump’s Big “Stolen Election” Lie, Promote the Big Truth

Hitler, the Confederacy and today’s authoritarians show the price we could pay for not pushing back in a big way.

One Month Later

It’s been almost a month since Twitterless Donald Trump flounced down to Florida. Some hoped that, having lost his presidential and social media platforms, his Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen would flame out.

No such luck. In voting to acquit him at his impeachment trial, 43 out of 50 Republican senators yet again caved to his control. In the House, Arizona, Texas and Michigan, his loyalists keep pushing his party line or pushing out figures who don’t fall in line.

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Trial and Error

A Brief Democratic Kerfuffle. A Possible Republican Debacle.

A Jury of Our Peers

A Kerfuffle

That was fast. Five days after Donald Trump’s impeachment trial started, it ended on Saturday, as planned.

On Friday night, however, evidence from Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler and other sources kicked off a last-minute kerfuffle over extending the trial. In the wake of Beutler’s earlier statements at a town hall, they confirmed to news outlets that, amidst the Capitol riot, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had an expletive-laced shouting match over the phone with Trump. McCarthy urged presidential action to stop the attack; the president dismissively focused only on his political fortunes.

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From Russia, With Love

Lessons for the Republicans’ leadership, starting with 1917.

Adopting a policy of “no enemies to the left,” Russian prime minister Alexander Kerensky freed Vladimir Lenin from jail shortly after he tried but failed to overthrow Kerensky’s government in July of 1917.

In November, Lenin succeeded.

An excellent essay by Slate’s Fred Kaplan draws parallels between Kerensky and most of today’s Republican leaders. Kerensky thought that his greatest threat was forces seeking to return czarist rule to his country. He accordingly sought to align with the very Marxists who soon toppled him.

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Free at Last

Scattered thoughts, hopes and dreams, on a most memorable and emotional day.

Shared Sentiments

Lots of folks are sharing similar sentiments about inauguration day. A college friend emailed: “I can’t tell you how many people said to me today that it felt like the tension level just went down everywhere around them. I think we’ve all been living with the nerve endings on the outside of our bodies for four years  I look forward to better, healthier, more generous times.” Amen.

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