History
America, Coronavirus, History, Public Health, Trump
America Behind the World
by JOHN ADAMS •
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 •
Crime, Documentary, Drug War, History, Opioids, Public Health
The Public Health Crisis before the Public Health Crisis
by JOHN ADAMS •
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 •
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 •
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…
America, Bigotry, History, Never Trump, Politics, Treason, Trump
The Flag of Treason
by JOHN ADAMS •
America, History, Military
Memorial Day 2020
by JOHN ADAMS •
Advertising, Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Culture, Economics, Economy, History, Poverty
Boosterism, ’30s Style
by JOHN ADAMS •
Although the Roosevelt Administration was (whatever its other mistakes) candid about the economic conditions it faced, there was in the ’30s, as there has been over the 2010s in Wisconsin, a delusional impulse to happy talk – regardless of economic conditions – among some politicians and some business groups. Margaret Bourke-White‘s Kentucky Flood depicts the…
America, Bigotry, History, Mendacity, Politics, Race, Wisconsin, WISGOP
WISGOP Treasurer Brian Westrate ‘Well Understands’ Nothing
by JOHN ADAMS •
A horde of ignorant, but racially motivated, men infest the Wisconsin GOP. Brian Westrate is a good example of playing to this bad condition: in an attempt to discourage racist Republicans from displaying Confederate banners at a protest, he erroneously (and outrageously) contended that he did “well understand that the Confederacy was more about states…