Tag: news
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TAPA # 152 TRUTH WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES
Today I watched the compilation of videos assembled by The New York Times. Their frame-by-frame analysis, slowed and synchronized across multiple angles, makes one thing unmistakably clear: this incident demands a serious, independent investigation. What the videos reveal explains precisely why President Trump, Secretary Noem, and Attorney General Bondi have worked to block any comprehensive inquiry.…
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TAPA # 151 THE USE OF FARCE
There has been a great deal of talk about “respect” in the aftermath of the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. Before returning to that, however, we need to examine what “respect” looks like coming from the top of our government. Yesterday, while touring a Ford plant in Michigan, the President of the…
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TAPA # 149 TRUMP TRUTH
The Authoritarian Playbook Rewrite history Collapse truth into propaganda Replace facts with emotionally satisfying myths so followers will accept crimes as necessary These are the defining features of a totalitarian system, according to Hannah Arendt, the political philosopher who fled Nazi Germany in 1933. Timothy Snyder, former Yale historian and author of On Tyranny, distilled the same danger…
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TAPA # 146 THEY SHOOT MOMS – DONT’T THEY!!!
In TAPA #145 Baloney Not Oil, I laid out why the only people who will ever see a financial return from the Venezuelan incursion, an operation that cost American taxpayers an estimated $500 million, are the oil barons. Because of the massive tax breaks Trump handed the industry, any profits will never reach the “regular” American who works…
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TAPA # 145 BALONEY NOT OIL
As I have said before, the use of force may at times be necessary. Nicolás Maduro is a bad actor; no argument there. Venezuela is a nation under severe political and economic stress; again, no dispute. Its democracy is effectively defunct after the sitting president suppressed free and fair elections. Maduro’s regime is responsible for…
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TAPA # 144 NO RESPECT
What the Trump administration is doing to Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona is shameful. Sen. Kelly is a decorated U.S. Navy aviator who flew combat missions and later commanded NASA Space Shuttle missions. He is a national hero, someone who repeatedly risked his life in service to the United States, now being targeted by a cowardly five-time…
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TAPA # 143 WAGGING THE DOG
I often refer to the “shiny thing”, the object Trump dangles to distract from who he really is and what he is actually doing. It’s a familiar tactic: divert attention from the predator, the draft dodger, the serially failed businessman whose father gave him so much money that he became too rich to fail. We all…
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TAPA # 142 NEANDERTHAL THINKING
I’m sharing this article from The Atlantic because it helps explain the core motivation behind the Trump administration. Trump promised to be our “retribution,” and his entire playbook is rooted in getting even; taking advantage whenever possible, especially when the “other” is weaker. By hook or by crook, he has lied his way to the top of…
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TAPA # 141 ADVICE FOR MADURO
I am not opposed to the use of force when it is genuinely necessary to protect people. But Trump’s press conference on the Venezuelan action was a tour de money. If you listened carefully, references to wealth and resources “out of the ground” were central to his rationale. Nearly everything was framed in transactional terms; what…
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TAPA # 124 A SOPHIE’S CHOICE
This morning, as markets jump in anticipation of an interest rate change, the newspapers carry a very different story: a potential disaster if the government is not reopened by Saturday.As Paul Krugman reports, suspension of the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) is scheduled for Saturday, November 1st. It could be delayed only if Trump authorizes the…
