Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
I liked The Death of Expertise but I was a bit concerned. The full title is The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters and it is by Thomas M. Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College .
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The Trump tapes. This sounds familiar but perhaps slightly different.
I was much younger when we wanted to hear the Nixon tapes. But is history repeating itself ?
President Trump tweeted
James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
Are there tapes? Do we get to hear the unedited version? How much of what goes on in the Whitehouse is taped? President Nixon had tapes but I would have thought the following Presidents would have learned.
The full title is Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice. And it is by Colum McCann one of the best writers around in my opinion.
I like Colum McCann’s writing and that is why I decided to read this book. My guess is it is not so much aimed at the young but at the new writer or anyone interested in improving their writing.
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The non-recusal recusal of Jeff Sessions makes one wonder what recusal means. I thought it meant not participating in an official action. But that is apparently not what it means in the Trump administration.
About 2 months ago Jeff Sessions said
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The Tuesday afternoon ambush was the firing of FBI Director James Comey who was conducting an investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion by the Trump administration and campaign.
Why fire FBI Director Comey now? Is this another Trump administration attempt to misdirect, mislead and cause such confusion that all probes into the Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion by the Trump administration and campaign are delayed and hindered.
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Party discipline wins, President Trump wins, Speaker Ryan wins, Republicans win, most rich people win, millions of Americans lose. In a remarkable display of party unity, House Republicans singlehandedly passed a Heath Care Bill with no democratic support.
Thus it would seem the Democrats are the losers. But in the bigger analysis, it was the American people who lost. Well, most Americans and American ideals. A few people at the top of the economic ladder do get big tax cuts if this becomes law.
It looks like we are going to have an exciting week in Washington. The looming government shutdown is the main issue. Or at least the one where the clock is ticking. Congress needs to pass (and the President needs to sign) a bill which funds the government this week. This is the only way to avoid a shutdown.
The President always likes to add a bit of drama. Chaos seems to be rampant these days. I think he hopes it will distract us from investigating his campaign’s and administration’s links to Russia. So far he has been successful.
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Trumpcare 2.0 is in the works. The first attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare with Trumpcare was so bad and so opposed that it failed before even coming to a vote.
For a short while it seemed the President had learn and would work with Democrats and moderate Republicans to find a good replacement. Then he decided to skip healthcare and move on to tax reform.
Continue reading “Trumpcare 2.0, it’s even worse”
Next week the Supreme Court will hear a major church-state case. The church in this case would like to fix-up its pre-school playground. The state of Missouri would fund this type of thing for a public playground but is prevented from funding this request because the state constitution says “no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, or denomination of religion.” The case is before the court to decide if the church can get the money.
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Trumpcare may be back and sooner than you think. The first attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare failed before even coming to a vote because of opposition by extremely conservative Republicans.
Although President Trump insisted during the campaign and again after his election that he would repeal and replace Obamacare on day 1 of his presidency.
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I started reading this 1984 anthology of essays as it seemed timely. The full title is “1984 in the 21st Century: An Anthology of Essays” and I enjoyed it very much. There is a series of essays of varying length and approaches to applying George Orwell’s 1984 to our modern society. The editor (Lori Perkins) has assembled a very interesting series of essays.
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Not a big win by any measure and very few would even call it a win. Coming in a distant second is not a win. The Republicans manage to narrowly avoid a big loss is more like it.
President Trump, or should I say the realDonaldTrump, tweeted that we had a “BIG “R” win with runoff in Georgia”. You’d think that might mean they had won the runoff in a big way. In reality it means that one of the Republican managed a distant second and qualified to be in the runoff. And this is in a very Republican district.
Democrat Jon Ossoff received 48.1% of the vote, failing to meet the 50% + 1 needed for outright victory with no runoff. Republican Karen Handel came in a distant second with 19.8% of the vote. And any second place, even a very distant second place, gets you in the runoff. Those Trump favored came in further back.
So hardly the big win the President would lead us to believe.
The climate change deniers are at it again. Some deny climate change (aka global warning) is happening at all. Other just deny that human activities are a factor or maybe that human activities are a factor but a much smaller factor than volcanoes.
This year it is Mt. Etna that erupted and released millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, supposedly dwafing the contribution of humans to the atmospheric carbon dioxide. But similar claims have been made for various volcanoes in recent years.
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I am having a bit of trouble with the idea of retroactive registration as foreign agent.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act has been a law since 1938 and modified several times since then.
This law seems to be serious business but I understand that although failure to register is a felony these cases are often not pursued by the Justice Department. If we have laws, and this seem to be an important law, why not enforce them?
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