I want to share some links to some very interesting articles that I have come across recently which document the Bizarro World we now live in
Bernie Sanders brand of economic populism has great appeal, even across the blue/red divide.
Women have less protection under the constitution than guns.
Phase two of tax cuts – GOP now wants Dems to help make the middle class tax cuts permanent before the midterm elections. Do you think Dems should help because this policy would be good for “we the people”? Do you think they should refuse to help with this fix because Republicans are only interested in doing this in order to change the 2018 election?
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/378861-gop-pushes-for-phase-two-of-tax-cuts
Trump is an un-American president. Is lying to an ally like Trudeau of Canada the last straw, is it the huge deficit that will accrue if the new GOP spending bill passes? What will be the last straw?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/opinion/trudeau-trump-deficit.html
The alt-right is in disarray but their ideology has moved left into the mainstream Republican policy agenda.
I don’t find the current incarnation of the GOP very funny but apparently the trending meme about the Meat Loaf dialogue in the Senate suggests that humor is not completely dead.
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/08/569365614/lawmakers-start-quoting-meat-loaf-lyrics-just-because
Both parties have used a strategy that this author calls “constitutional hardball” (I call it sedition) – but the data suggests that this has been practiced more often on the right in asymmetric fashion.
Hillary was right, Trump is backward
Mississippi is trying to pass a new law that bans abortions after 15 weeks. Is this against the letter of Roe v Wade or just the spirit of Roe v Wade and why can’t men leave women’s reproductive rights for women to decide? When men decide what women can and cannot do this smacks of regression and undermines women’s rights in general.
Twitter fight on Bernie Sanders reveals an on-going troll operation.
Koch is sending teachers free lesson plans in social studies. You can just imagine what deficiencies might be contained in this material (a lot of important -isms). And teachers have been using these materials for quite some time.
https://www.theroot.com/millions-of-students-are-quietly-being-taught-the-koch-1823742091
Rising seas threaten Easter Island antiquities
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/14/climate/easter-island-erosion.html
Trump’s war on the press – by Thomas Edsall who always gives lots of backup data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/opinion/trump-press-freedom-fake-news.html
An all-expense paid trip to Europe for a blogger – hurry the deadline is soon.
An ex-CIA agent opines about Trump’s guilt, danger to democracy, etc.
https://www.salon.com/2018/03/12/veteran-cia-agent-on-trump-corruption-like-weve-never-seen-before/
Constitutional Rot
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/555860/
Did Cambridge Analytica have any effect on the 2016 election? Do they still have the data they “stole” from 50 million Facebook users, data which showed what they like and post and what their friends also like and post? Obviously people who are selling things that are not products find value in the same algorithms retailers use.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/opinion/facebook-cambridge-analytica.html
Cambridge Analytica also offered to try to use the Russian strategy of “kompramat” to get something to hold over the heads of politicians if that might help Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/cambridge-analytica-alexander-nix.html
Trump has staff sign nondisclosure agreements.
ACLU says NDA’s are unconstitutional.
Feel free to read the articles that interest you and to capture the “url” if you wish.
Armchair Observer Two 