A former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been indicted on the direct order of the President of the United States.
Let that sink in. I’m sure that this thing happens all the time in Russia. Or China. Or North Korea. Or Iran. But I can’t think of anything comparable ever happening in the United States of America.
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Free speech is a pain in the rear. Always has been. Always will be.
It is a nice idea. If you have freedom of speech, you have the right to say whatever is on your mind without fear of repercussions. But there is a rub. It also means the guy standing next to you has freedom of speech. That means he can say whatever is on his mind, even if you find it to be abhorrent, disgusting, threatening and maybe even dangerous.
The men who designed our government met in secret and wrote a historic document detailing the structure of the national state and enumerating the powers and responsibilities of its parts. When the document was made public, the people were not pleased. They demanded a guarantee of their rights be written into the document.
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I am in shock. OMG. I find myself agreeing with Ted Cruz, Republican, Senator from Texas, in his takedown of Tim Kaine, Democrat, Senator from Virginia.
In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Kaine took issue with the opening statement of Riley Barnes, who has been nominated to serve as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.
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It is hard to believe it is 24 years since the 9-11 attack. In many ways, it seems to be ancient history. Many of my students were not yet born on that day. But in other ways, it seems like just yesterday.
I have written about my experience on that day before, and I will not repeat that lengthy reflection now.
But I will share, I think for the first time, the video of my interview that day which appeared on public television. I apologize. The video is a little choppy and grainy.
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The world lost one of its greatest space explorers with the passing of James Arthur “Jim” Lovell Jr., who died peacefully on this week at the age of 97. Lovell embodied the spirit of American exploration and the courage to venture into the unknown that defined the golden age of space exploration.
Lovell’s extraordinary career spanned four spaceflights that helped write the early chapters of humans in space. He was among the first three men to leave Earth’s orbit and journey to the moon as command module pilot of Apollo 8 in December 1968, a mission that gave humanity its first close-up view of the lunar surface and the iconic “Earthrise” photograph that forever changed how we see our home planet.
It has become routine. Every two- or three-days Donald Trump does something more atrocious than before and it interrupts whatever I was doing and prompts a cycle of disgust, fear, and rage and often provokes one of these blogs, forcing me to put side something I thought was more interesting. I have come to hate the fact that he sucks all the oxygen out of the room.
But despite that, I find myself unable to get upset about Trump’s recent decision to bomb Iran‘s nuclear facilities. In fact, my initial thought was simply, why did it take so long?
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Take a good look at the picture above. We have never seen anything like it.
It comes from the web site of the British news service Reuters. It is a still image taken from about a minute of video. The video and the accompanying reporting should set off warning alarms across the United States. Read the Reuters article and see the full video here. I’m ready to nominate the Reuters’ team for a Pulitzer Prize.
Reuters says the video shows U.S. Marines deployed to Los Angeles detaining an American citizen. This, it is believed, has never happened before.
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