It’s an understatement to say that a democratic society that endures a violent mob seizing its capitol building is a society in distress. We find ourselves in the twenty-first century facing movements as malevolent and mendacious as the nineteenth century’s Confederates and Copperheads. Karen L. Cox writes What Trump Shares With the ‘Lost Cause’ of the…
History
America, Elections, History, Law, Liberty, Never Trump, Presidential race 2020, Resistance, Trump, Victory
2020: ‘But Not Just That’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Tim Miller – who is always worth reading, writes of 2020 as The Worst. But Not Just That. These paragraphs resonate: Most importantly, 2020 will always be the year that we joined together and toppled the greatest threat that our fragile union has faced in many decades. Turning out more people to vote against the president-strongman…
America, Cats, History, Military
Friday Catblogging: Heroic Military Cats
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Jackie Mead writes of 6 Heroic Military Cats. Among those admirable felines was the U.S. Navy tabby Princess Papule: Striped tabby Princess Papule was born on July 4, 1944, at the Pearl Harbor Navy Base in Hawaii. Pooli, as she was known to the sailors, was brought aboard the attack transport USS Fremont by crewman James Lynch.…
America, History, Holiday
Pres. Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not…
America, Elections, History, Law, Presidential race 2020, Voting Rights
Voting by Mail
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, History, Military, Trump, Unfit, Veterans
VoteVets.org: Pvt. Dan Crowley, Aged 98
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Culture, Documentary, Film, History, Race
A Black Cowboy’s Story
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Cowboys are among the most iconic figures of the American West. They’re mythologized as strong, independent people who live and die by their own terms on the frontier. And in movies, the people who play them are mostly white. But as with many elements of Americana, the idea of who cowboys are is actually whitewashed…
America, Elections, History, Politics
The Convention Bounce
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Equality, History, John Lewis, Justice, Law, Liberty, Race
Wake up!
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
America, Coronavirus, History, Public Health, Trump
America Behind the World
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Paul Waldman looks at covid-19 cases from Monday, 7.13.20: Let’s begin with the situation in other countries. Here are new case totals from Monday for a few of our peer countries: France: 580 UK: 564 Spain: 546 Germany: 365 Canada: 299 Japan: 259 Italy: 200 Australia: 158 South Korea: 52 And the United States? 55,300.…
America, History, Holiday
Happy Independence Day 2020
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Crime, Documentary, Drug War, History, Opioids, Public Health
The Public Health Crisis before the Public Health Crisis
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Frontline’s Opioids, Inc. (full film): Pushing opioids. Bribing doctors. Making millions. FRONTLINE and the Financial Times investigate how Insys Therapeutics profited from a fentanyl-based painkiller up to 100 times stronger than heroin — and how some Wall Street investors looked the other way. Since 2007, communities like Whitewater have faced a Great Recession, an opioid…
Authoritarianism, Books, Coronavirus, History, Libertarians, Liberty, Public Health, Reasoning, Rhetoric, Russia, Tyranny, Walworth County
An Example of Bottomless Ignorance in Walworth County
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Some residents of Walworth County, Wisconsin object to public health measures to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. So hysterical is their opposition that one reads Opponents say county’s coronavirus safeguards are ‘like Russia’: Confronted by a raucous crowd of opponents fearing government intrusion, Walworth County Board members have backed away from a measure…
History, Politics, Presidential race 2020, Trump
Trump Rallies on Juneteenth in Tulsa
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Trump is both ignorant and slow, but his aide Stephen Miller is neither. Knowing as much about these men, one reads that the Trump campaign has picked Juneteenth for a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma: How can you further inflame racial tensions? Send the president, who has called those protesting for racial equality “thugs,” to a…