6.30 Bill Cosby‘s conviction was overturned. 6.30 Donald Rumsfeld dies at 88. George Packer in The Atlantic: “Rumsfeld was the worst secretary of defense in American history. Being newly dead shouldn’t spare him this distinction. He was worse than the closest contender, Robert McNamara, and that is not a competition to judge lightly. McNamara’s folly …

JUNE 2021: “EVERY GENERATION HAS TO REESTABLISH THE BASIS OF ITS FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY” Read More »

5.26 A Dutch court mandated that Shell reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement. 5.26 Ginny and I have dinner at the Albany Pump Station. Not good. 5.23 Lunch with Paul and Anne in New Paltz. 5.21 Marjorie Taylor Green: “You know, we can look back in a time …

MAY 2021: “EVERY DAY’ Read More »

4.28 Biden: “Twenty million Americans lost their job in the pandemic — working- and middle-class Americans.  At the same time, roughly 650 billionaires in America saw their net worth increase by more than $1 trillion — in the same exact period.  Let me say it again: 650 people increased their wealth by more than $1 …

APRIL 2021: “OUR SYSTEM IS SET UP TO MAKE US NOT LIKE EACH OTHER” Read More »

3.31 Michael Grunwald in Politico: Democrats and Republicans now have very different ideas of what counts as infrastructure, not only because of their very different political philosophies and policy goals, but because they now live in very different places with very different needs. . . .As the GOP has increasingly become a party of white families …

MARCH 2021: “JUST BEING PLAYFUL” Read More »

2.28 A six foot plus tall gold fiberglass statue of Trump was on sale at CPAC for $100,000. 2.28 EJ Dionne Jr. in the Post: “Trump’s takeover of the party in 2016 was undeniably built on long-standing habits of opposition to immigration, the courting of racial backlash and the waging of culture wars. But Trump …

FEBRUARY 2021: “AND BASICALLY, WE FROZE” Read More »

1.30 Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post: Going forward, not only will House Republicans be associated with a colleague who “liked” a Twitter post calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s murder. They’ll be attached to QAnon, which promotes the extraordinary fiction that Trump was leading a war against Satan-worshiping pedophiles and cannibals, whose leadership includes Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, …

JANUARY 2021: “THIS IS WORSE THAN WATERGATE” Read More »

2020 has been the Year of the Great Unmooring. Covid took away the future—not only the comfortable familiarity of enjoying regular events and occasions, but the ability to plan, to anticipate, to build towards a goal. The protests against racism took away the past. If so much (if not everything) has diseased roots, then are …

2020: THE GREAT UNMOORING Read More »

12.31 Michael Gerson in the Post: “We must ensure that the aspirations of people such as Hawley — who has made the madness more mainstream — come to nothing. This begins with a simple and sad recognition: The ambitions of this knowledgeable, talented young man are now a threat to the republic. 12.31 Washington Post: Sen. …

DECEMBER 2020: “WE DIDN’T LOSE” Read More »