Tag: politics
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TAPA # 153 I HATE THOSE BRIDGES TOO FAR!!!
A friend recently sent me an essay about how to hold fast to one’s values while engaging pragmatically with people who hold deeply opposed views. My takeaway was a reminder to try to remove the “edge” from my writing and from how I engage others. That is easier said than done. It is difficult not…
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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 # 150 TRUMP TRUTH II
As a sequel to “Trump Truth,” this is a useful piece to read. Bloomberg Surveillance reported this morning that since Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day”, when his new tariff regime was impose, the economy has deteriorated. Trump, as always, says the opposite. But his claims contradict both the data and reality. This contradiction is not accidental. It is…
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TAPA # 149 TRUMP TRUTH
The Authoritarian Playbook 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 into a single warning: “Post-truth is pre-fascism. “Once truth collapses, tyranny follows. If I didn’t know better, I would think…
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TAPA # 148 FASCISM COMEMS TO AMERICA
The murder of Rene Good has exposed the true character of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. It is one of depraved indifference. What, exactly, has Trump done for ordinary Americans, the middle class and working poor? He is obsessed with building ballrooms, redecorating the White House, plastering his name on once-respected institutions, and rebuilding golf…
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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…
THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE 