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Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 23:00
Trump, Trumpism and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 “It ends with me.” Contemplating generations of family dysfunction that damaged him as a child and haunted his adulthood, a friend once vowed he would not pass “it” on to his children. America has yet to make that commitment and keep it. Donald Trump was formally charged in Washington, D.C. on Thursday with four federal crimes stemming from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Those efforts did not culminate with the violent insurrection he inspired at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump and his co-conspirators worked to subvert democracy that evening, even as police cleared the complex of rioters, and as hospitals treated the hundreds injured and processed the dead. The last of the charges special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment levied against Trump dates from the Reconstruction era. Will Bunch reminds Philadelphia Inquirer readers that President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 in response to a similar post-election riot in South Carolina the year before.
Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 22:30

In his indictment of Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the special counsel Jack Smith makes a glancing reference to the Gettysburg Address. It is not, however, the one delivered by Abraham Lincoln on the Pennsylvania battlefield in 1863. Smith cites, rather, a public event in the ballroom […]

The post Invasion of the Democracy Snatchers appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 22:00

Skittles: “Taste the Rainbow”

Red, orange, yellow, and so forth. Finally, a candy fit for the whole spectrum. With this deliciously bold tagline, Skittles promises a sensory adventure of unparalleled dimension. Time to sweeten things up, stretch your palate, and lick the sky. All of this quite plainly has nothing to do with oral sex.

Nike: “Just Do It”

Admittedly, I am not a sportsman. But I am friends with a few athletes, and I know their penchant for victory. How brilliant, then, that Nike should fly this winning banner. (Obviously, “do” is intended in a platonic sense. Nike is suggesting you do something not someone.)

Gatorade: “Is It in You?”

Frankly, I blame the schools. Filth, filth, and more filth—that’s what’s being force-fed to today’s youth. This tagline concerns the supreme pleasure of hydration, nothing more. And really, what could be better? What could be more satisfying than finishing off a sweaty act of physical exertion with a big, hearty swallow?

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 21:24
“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” It was a poet who said that, exercising occupational license. Some sage, it may have been I, declared in similar vein: “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—or crafts its advanced treaties—if I can write its economic textbooks.” The first lick is the privileged one, impinging … Continue reading "The Day I Pranked Paul Samuelson"
Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 17:00
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August 4th, 2023next

August 4th, 2023: My new book

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 09:30
Hell hath no fury… ICYMI: Regular readers know very well what I think about this guy. He is as responsible for Trump’s degradation of democracy as anyone. But I am going to enjoy watching him needling Trump in interviews like this. If there are any normie Republicans left who haven’t been totally brainwashed, someone like Barr still probably has some juice.
Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 08:47
A Basic Buddhist Meditation Synthesis

I’ve meditated a lot. Thousands of hours. And I’ve done a lot of different types of meditation. There are hundreds of different types, and in principle one could easily come up with thousands once one understand how meditation works.

I had no teacher and was learning from books and I made a lot of mistakes. Some of them were damaging mistakes.

Like exercise, meditation is good for you, if done right, and can hurt or injure you if done wrong.

What I’m going to write about today is the basic Buddhist meditation synthesis. It consists of three parts: concentration, loving-kindness and insight. All of these styles of meditation date back to the Buddha, and in the case of case of concentration and loving kindness, pre-date him.

Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 08:00
CNN has a new poll out showing that almost 70% of Republicans believe that Biden is not a legitimate president. That’s 69% up from 63% for the last year. WTF is wrong with these people??? It’s good to look at the bigger picture, however and recognize that while this does represent tens of millions of our fellow Americans, it’s far from a majority: Overall, 61% of Americans say Biden did legitimately win enough votes to win the presidency, and 38% believe that he did not. Among registered voters who say they cast a ballot for Trump in 2020, 75% say they have doubts about Biden’s legitimacy. That says more about them than it does about Trump.
Created
Fri, 04/08/2023 - 06:30
Here on planet earth it was the opposite The transcript of the testimony earlier this week from Devon Archer has been released and Philip Bump has the details: Soon after Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer finished testifying before investigators working for the House Oversight Committee, two top House Republicans joined Sean Hannity’s Fox News program in prime time. Archer’s testimony was enormously damaging to President Biden, they suggested, with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) insisting that Archer’s testimony made the bribery allegation he’d first introduced two months ago “more credible.” That allegation centered on the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter Biden and Archer once sat on its board. Archer “said that Hunter Biden was under immense pressure while they both served on the Burisma board to call Washington, D.C., immediately and try to get Shokin fired,” Comer told Hannity. “That’s the Ukrainian prosecutor. And not many days later, Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine” — a trip in which he called for Shokin’s ouster.