March 11, 2018

The World at War HD (1080p) - Ep. 11 - Red Star: The Soviet Union (19411943)

They fought the Nazis with a very high price. They had no choice.

March 10, 2018

Stockman on Trump's Tariffs: Dumbest Thing He's Has Done Yet

Trump really taken to the woodshed!

March 4, 2018

Neighbors from Hell

Noisy rock music 3 nights a week, target practice on many weekends, afraid to complain, townships don't enforce zoning anyway.

Music's been going on a year, other issues 5-10

All I want to do is move, but how do you sell a property with neighbors like these?

Surely I'm not the only one with neighbors from hell

March 1, 2018

Thomas Friedman: 'Code Red' The Last Word MSNBC

February 28, 2018

Hey Look! On CNBC, tomorrow is March already!!!

After a rough February, stocks are entering what are typically two of the best months of the year for the market.

The S&P 500 closed out the final day of February with a 1.3 percent loss to 2,744. For the month of February, it was down about 2.8 percent, relatively modest after the gut-wrenching decline of 10 percent from January's highs in the first nine days of the month. Since Feb. 9, the S&P has sprang back 8.4 percent.

"March is actually a pretty good month. February on average is the third worst performing month for the S&P 500 going back to 1945," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/why-march-could-be-a-better-month-for-stocks-but-there-is-a-warning.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

February 27, 2018

Cryptic, Ominous, and yet Hopeful

https://twitter.com/20committee/status/968298332933296128

February 15, 2018

Last February, Trump signed a bill making it easier for people with mental illness to buy guns

It did not attract a ton of attention at the time (nothing does these days) but about a year ago on February 28, 2017, Congress passed and Donald Trump signed a law revoking an Obama-era regulatory initiative that made it harder for people with mental illness to buy a gun.

Yet despite this effort to roll back even a very modest effort to restrain the ability of seriously incapacitated people from obtaining deadly weapons, this morning Trump tweeted that there were “so many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed,” implying that someone should have done something to report him.

So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2018

But it’s Trump’s party — and Trump himself — who have consistently prevented the federal government from doing anything about this kind of situation. The Obama-era gun regulation wouldn’t have had a massive impact on gun violence in the US since it’s estimated that it would only affect about 75,000 people. And disability rights groups had their own objections to the bill so some liberal groups joined with the National Rifle Association in urging Trump to reverse it.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/15/17016036/trump-guns-mental-illness

February 13, 2018

"Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst"

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/mass-propaganda-discovered-that-its.html

The autocratic leader lies and then falsely charges his opponents with lying. He politicizes institutions that are supposed to be free of politics by falsely accusing his foes of politicizing them. He victimizes others by falsely claiming they are victimizing him.

The autocrat also counts on spineless politicians to cave in to his demands. And as they destroy governmental institutions at his bidding, they insist they are defending them.

In her classic 1951 book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” the philosopher Hannah Arendt offered two observations that help us understand the assumptions and purposes behind the memo created by the staff of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee turned propagandist for President Trump.

The totalitarian method of the 1920s and 1930s, she noted, was to “dissolve every statement of fact into a declaration of purpose.”

She also said this: “Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.”

More at the above link.

We have big problems.

February 9, 2018

Book: Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life - Robert Dallek

https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-D-Roosevelt-Political-Life/dp/0525427902

Amazing that biographers and historians are still pumping out new biographies of FDR. I've read Doris Kearns Goodwin's "No Ordinary Time" and Jean Edward Smith's "FDR" and this volume compares favorably. Dallek gives extensive chapter references, and relies heavily on on private letters, notes, and diaries of those surrounding Roosevelt. This gives a more complex reading of the decisions, dilemmas, and ups-and-downs of Roosevelt's reasoning and judgment as he navigated through the political landscape. Many many nuances emerge that I was unaware of, such as his strategy to purge the party of conservative Democrats in 1938, and the frequent vacations he enjoyed at sea on various yachts and ships. He was able to escape the whirlwind of Washington and only be in touch by twice daily radio and letters, sometimes for 2-3 weeks. Did you know Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as President, visited the Galapagos Islands? It was news to me.

The book may not be the smoothest wordsmith of several biographies, yet it is rather deep in perspective. Amazing also is the panoply of issues that liberals and conservatives fought over in the 1930s, all of them being repeated again today in the Trump year and a half in office - on steroids! Conservatives have been brewing this witch's cauldron for many decades, is Trump just the front man?

February 6, 2018

GOP-allied groups heavily outspend Democrats in special Pennsylvania election

Republican-allied groups have dramatically outspent their Democratic rivals 17-to-1 in the first congressional race of 2018, a special election in Pennsylvania that both parties cast as a potential bellwether for the November midterms. Four conservative groups have purchased $4.7 million in television and radio ads to help state Rep. Rick Saccone, their candidate for the Pittsburgh-area seat held until last year by disgraced former GOP Rep. Tim Murphy, according to Feb. 2 numbers provided by strategists involved in the race.

http://www.topix.com/us/politics/2018/02/gop-allied-groups-heavily-outspend-democrats-in-special-pennsylvania-election

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In a special election we can blitz with activists from all over the country, though how you overcome 17 to 1 remains to be seen.

In a general election, anything competitive needs local people for the blitz, so we can only flood to a lesser extent.