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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If you want to take a master class in film, you need only watch the movies of Robert Redford. Redford passed away peacefully on September 16, at the age of 89, at his beloved home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah. He was more than a Hollywood icon. He was a visionary who reshaped American cinema and left an indelible mark on the cultural landscape.
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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 post above was made on his personal social media account by the man 77 million Americans sent back to the Oval Office. It was repeated by the official account of the White House. It is literally a declaration of war by Donald Trump on a major America City. MAGA apologists have been scrambling to pass it off as a joke, a cute and meaningless quip. It is not.
This is simply disgusting.
The meme Trump posts is a take on a scene from the movie Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s epic set during the war in Vietnam. That’s the war Trump sat out, having found a doctor to write him a medical excuse saying he could not serve because he had “bone spurs.” Fifty-Eight thousand Americans died in that war. Most had been involuntarily drafted.
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The charts above are certainly things Donald Trump did not want to see. Unemployment rate up. Total employment down. They come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ report on employment in the United States for August. Just last month the July report, showing a slowing economy, led Trump to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. I wrote a few weeks ago that it was a case of shooting the messenger. Trump falsely claimed downward revisions in the August report were “rigged” to make Republicans look bad. BLS revisions are routine and based on updated employer data. It would be nearly impossible to “rig.”
Just 22,000 nonfarm payroll jobs were added in August. That was below expectations and continued the summer slowdown. The Unemployment Rate rose slightly to 4.3%, up from 4.2% in July. Long-Term Unemployment held steady at 1.93 million, now representing over 25% of all unemployed individuals.
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