Candidates for state superintendent participate in virtual forumThe candidates will face voters in a primary election Feb. 16. ….. Read More.JOURNAL SENTINEL – General News | United States NewsWed, January 20, 20214 hours ago
Donald Trump Is Out. Are We Ready to Talk About How He Got In?I’ve been thinking about Barbara Tuchman’s medieval history, A Distant Mirror, over the past couple of weeks. The book is a masterful work of anti-romance, a cold-eyed look at how generations of aristocrats and royalty waged one of the longest wars in recorded history, all while claiming the mantle of a benevolent God. The disabusing begins early. In the introduction, Tuchman examines the ideal of chivalry and finds, beneath the poetry and codes of honor, little more than myth and delusion.Knights “were supposed, in theory, to serve as defenders of the Faith, upholders of justice, champions of the oppressed,” Tuchman writes. “In practice, they were themselves the oppressors, and by the 14th century, the violence and lawlessness of men of the sword had become a major agency of disorder.”The chasm between professed ideal and actual practice is…
MAGA-land’s Favorite NewspaperPhoto-illustrations by Kibele Yarman*The rural hamlet of Cuddebackville, New York, is home to a guru named Li Hongzhi, who calls his 427-acre compound Dragon Springs. At the center of the compound—a kind of timber frame Shangri-la—stands a massive replica of a Tang Dynasty temple. On March 19, 2020, Li wrote a message to his disciples titled “Rationality.” The message was about COVID-19, which was by then crippling New York City, 80 miles to the southeast. “Plagues and pestilence, by their very nature, are arranged by the Gods,” Li began. “When humans become corrupt in their hearts, they will generate karma, fall sick, and suffer calamities.”Li gradually worked up to his point, referring to the Chinese Communist Party by its initials: The pandemic “has come with a purpose and with a target. It has come to eliminate the followers of the evil Party and those who go along with…
Saying Trump ‘Provoked’ the Capitol Riot With ‘Lies,’ Mitch McConnell Tries …Confirming his decisive break with Donald Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) yesterday said the “violent criminals who tried to stop Congress from doing our duty” by invading the Capitol on January 6 were “fed lies” and “provoked by the president and other powerful people.” That characterization, which McConnell offered in a speech on the Senate floor, jibes with the charges in the article of impeachment against Trump that the House of Representatives approved a week after the riot. It therefore suggests that McConnell is open to convicting Trump in the Senate, which would be a strong signal to his fellow Republicans. The House noted that Trump “repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people or certified by State or Federal…
The Attacks on Biden’s Civil Rights Division Nominee Have Already StartedOn January 6, the fateful day that insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, President-elect Joe Biden announced his nominees to lead the Department of Justice. That is perhaps why the news of those nominees hasn’t gotten the attention they usually garner. But that was also the day we learned that Democrats won the two Georgia run-off elections, giving them a bare majority in the Senate. Source ….. Read More.Washington Monthly – General Political | Politics & GovernmentSat, January 16, 20215 days ago
3 new Democratic senators sworn in, flipping control of the SenateVice President Kamala Harris formally swore in three new, barrier-breaking Democratic senators on Wednesday afternoon following her own inauguration, officially giving Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since they lost the chamber in the 2014 elections. ….. Read More.CNN – Politics | Politics & GovernmentWed, January 20, 202110 hours ago