In the video above, Morgan Freeman reminds Americans that Russian interference in our electoral process is ‘no movie script’; Vladimir Putin is a dictator, murderer, and inveterate enemy of America and our democratic traditions. The newly-formed Committee to Investigate Russia (https://investigaterussia.org) made its début yesterday. The CIR is a nonpartisan group – with both conservative, liberal,…
America
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Resistance, Trump
Truths About Trump
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, Art, City, Culture, League of Women Voters, Liberty, Local Government
‘Fortunate’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Norman Rockwell wasn’t the finest painter of the twentieth century (to express the matter gently), but at least when he created a painting capturing the spirit of free speech as one of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, he understood speech as a right, not a privilege, lucky break, or favor from government. So it is with government,…
Alt-Right, America, Federal Government
The United States Senate Joint Resolution Condemning White Nationalists, Neo Nazis, KKK, and Other Hate Groups
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, the United States Senate unanimously approved a resolution condemning white nationalists, neo-Nazis, KKK, and other hate groups. It was the right decision, of course, and the resolution now goes to the House, and to the president if it passes both chambers. It’s more than regrettable – it’s a disgrace, truly – that this president…
Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Politics, Trump, Trump-Russia
The Premature Question
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Daily Beast, Joy Reid asks What’s Going to Happen When the Trumpists Realize the America They Yearn for Is Gone? It’s an interesting question, perhaps, but more importantly it’s a premature one. We’ve a long road ahead before Trumpism is finished, and you’ll excuse me if the time for pondering life after…
America, Economics, Economy, Education, Labor, Newspapers
A Telling Comparison
by JOHN ADAMS •
People in small towns, nearly everywhere in this country, have access to national programming & news on television and online. As easily as one could subscribe online to something like the Janesville Gazette, one could subscribe to the Chicago Tribune or Washington Post. Imagine, then, a choice between editorials in the Gazette and the Post…
Alt-Right, America, Babbittry, Bigotry, City, Culture, Liberty, Local Government, Politics
The Existential (Imagined and Real)
by JOHN ADAMS •
It was Michael Anton (writing as Publius Decius Mus) who exactly one year ago famously declared that 2016 was “The Flight 93 Election,” an existential fight for survival for state-loving conservatives: 2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it…
America, City, Culture, History, School District
For Your Consideration, Dr. Jonas Salk
by JOHN ADAMS •
Each year, newcomers arrive in Whitewater to take positions of one kind or another. Two weeks ago, in Welcome to Whitewater, I posed this question to new residents: “If Whitewater were perfect – that is, complete and lacking nothing – would anyone have needed you?” Beyond that question, with its interpretation and answer left to…
America, Bigotry, Federal Government, Television, Trump
Sec. of State Tillerson Distances America from Trump
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’m no fan of Rex Tillerson, an American Secretary of State who is a recipient — from dictator Vladimir Putin — of the Russian Order of Friendship, but even Tillerson had the sense to disclaim the stain that Trump has spread over this country. In the clip below, on Fox News, Tillerson makes clear that…
Alt-Right, America, Film, History, Liberty, Trump
Don’t Be a Sucker
by JOHN ADAMS •
In 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, the United States Government, fighting on both sides of the world, commissioned a short film about fascism entitled Don’t Be a Sucker. The film describes the fight in which America was embroiled in the style and vernacular of that time; it’s even more compelling to me…
America, Liberty, Politics
‘Pick a torch, America’
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, Liberty, Putin
Tracking Putin’s Propaganda on Twitter
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, they’ve a Dashboard for Tracking Russian Propaganda on Twitter. It’s called Hamilton 68, after No. 68 of the Federalist Papers, in which Hamilton (writing pseudonymously as Publius) considers the danger of foreign interference in American elections (“These most deadly adversaries of republican government, might naturally have been expected to…
Alt-Right, America, City, Liberty, Putin, Russia, Trump
‘What Putin’s team is probably telling him about Trump’
by JOHN ADAMS •
Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA from 2010 to 2013 and twice acting director, and Samantha Vinograd of the National Security Council staff from 2009 to 2013, speculate from experience on What Putin’s team is probably telling him about Trump: This is a speculative account of a memo that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s national…