We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York is 14 years older than our country, dating to 1762. The parade’s line of march is traditionally led by the honor guard of the 69th Regiment of the New York State National Guard, the storied “Fighting 69th.” And therein lies a tale.
Democrats, who are all over Twitter at the moment defending McCabe, are making a huge mistake. They will be embarrassed when the details come out. The Office of Professional Responsibility is not a partisan adjunct of the Republican Party or anything close. Furthermore, it was the Democratic Party that called for the Inspector General to investigate. He was appointed by Obama. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
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The real draining of the Swamp has finally begun. Jeff Sessions may have quietly been engineering it in ways his critics, even Trump himself, didn't realize. It is time for every concerned citizen to keep up the pressure. At moments like this, it's easy to be cynical and think, oh, this is a good moment, but it will go back to business as usual soon.
The guy lied to government officials. Regular people would be jailed for that - see Martha Stewart. Anyway, he's too young for retirement.
In the Mueller sham investigation, now that it has all but fallen apart, Mueller is now crossing a red line by digging into the President's business dealings as far back as 20 or more years ago in an effort to ruin him financially and thus force him from office. At least Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds Grassley, Graham Cornyn and Tillis are calling for a special counsel to investigate the investigation. I think it's time for PDT to shut this down, before it gets any closer to the midterms.
Your Right to Free Speech, Like My Right to Self-Defense, Isn’t Open to Debate - Rallying to call for restrictive laws is a whole lot easier than getting people to submit to them.
Regardless of the reasons (calling Trump a moron probably didn't help), the firing of Tillerson was done in a shameful and appalling way. Tillerson is a far better man than Trump. Maybe not the right guy for the job, but Trump picked him.
If you work for Trump, do not expect to be treated in a civil manner.
Crazy. Guys need to hang out with guys. Now, no doubt guys will make unofficial secret clubs to smoke cigars and tell lies and dirty jokes, to plan hunting outings, and to mock their castrati administrators
To be cast out and shunned as an academic is not only to lose your identity but also to lose your entire way of life, from your social circles, your sense of intellectual accomplishment, and even your ability to provide for yourself and your family. Once you are shunned from an academic institution there is little chance you will ever make it back in. The University system is too competitive for second chances.
Is Prof. Peterson the only brave and manly professor in the USA? (Correction: in North America)
If you think Russiagate is real, then you will probably conclude that Sessions, Prince, and Page are all part of a single, monstrous criminal conspiracy—and that Adam Entous is one of the most important journalists in American history, an indefatigable shoe-leather reporter who helped whistleblowers inside the federal government put the truth before the American public, like Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Neil Sheehan combined. If you think the collusion story is nonsense, then Entous is just a political operative with a convenient byline. And if you think Russiagate is a campaign of political warfare waged in the shadows by bureaucrats who violated the privacy of American citizens in order to undo election results they disagreed with, then Entous is something worse—an asset whom sectors of the intelligence community have come to rely on in order to manipulate the public.
My theory is that the "deep state" and "inside Washington" were determined to save the country and their careers from the lunatic Trump who obviously had no clue about how "inside Washington" works - and didn't even care. In many ways, Trump had lived in a bigger world than they ever had, a world of national and international commerce, media, sports, beautiful girls, and real estate. He took the blows, was knocked down many times, always got back up - and knew how to manage media. He always knew that politicians were low, devious people like him, but easily manipulated.
I believe that many laws were broken in the process of preventing Trump, in the confidence that they could drag Hillary across the finish line. That did not happen, and Freak-out ensued. However, blowing up "Inside Washington" is part of why Trump was elected.
The "Imperial City" is elite, arrogant, ingrown, bien-pansant, too social, and too wealthy. They only talk to each other, and they are all dependent on highly-paid government jobs. Had I the power, I would move every federal agency to a different middle-sized city, and just keep State and Defense in the DC area. DC was built on a Potomac swamp, is a swamp entirely disconnected from regular people.
Trump, with his countless flaws, was the only answer for us peasants. He had to be knee-capped at least. And there we find ourselves.
Snowy day here in Yankeeland. They used to call it "snow", but now they call them "Snowstorms" and give them names. Dramatizing ordinary weather. What's the matter with Yankee people these days? The timidity. Mrs. BD ain't askeered. She's off to Philly this morning, weather be damned.
If it means letting males off the hook for the arduous task of becoming manly gentlemen with the accompanying virtues that the world (and women) expect, then I would see it differently. Developmental arrest is not a thing to encourage.
I suspect those Czechs and Slovaks would understand very well the mentality that got those two food service workers at NYU fired. We don’t even know if those fired workers were conservatives or not. All we know is that they were denounced by this middle-class black daughter of a Chicago administrative judge, and now they are jobless, with the scarlet letter of Racism staining their resumés forever.
It's actually "middle-class privilege", if you need to call it "privilege." From a reader's comment on Wednesday:
Concepts like self actualization, self discipline, fairness, loyalty (though not blind loyalty), valuing individual lives, integrity, rectitude, civic mindedness, reliability and accountability, courage, autonomy, problem solving, saving and postponement of gratification, being productive and contributing to the community and the economic pie. This is privilege?
Wherever men and women are in routine contact (and I suppose, any place where gays are in routine contact), biology requires that there will be some sex and/or romance in the air. Office romance and attraction is, and historically has been, so common as to be a cliche.
With far more women in the workplace than a generation or two ago, what are the rules for men and for women? And what about dress and make-up? And why do most discussions ignore women's sexual and romantic interests? How is it different from college, or high school for that matter?
Peterson is an expert at saying "I don't know." We can all learn from that.
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