Showing all posts in Afterthought

The Moore-Franken scandal may have been the last. I lump them together for obvious reasons of partisan hypocrisy and, “more frankly”, outright fatigue. Republican voters are sick of “scandal” meaning a Democrat must replace a Republican seat, but never a Republican replace a Democratic seat.

But, then people are just tired of scandals altogether. We’re tired of seeing it. We’re tired of reading it. And “more frankly”, I’m tired of writing about it. The week of Thanksgiving, almost every headline was about some perverse scandal—at least in most American news headlines.

It’s all the same. Ever since 9/11—when we got addicted to having the news on 24-7—it seems we’ve been willing to act like a battle over this year’s tax bill is something to read about every morning. Maybe some people aren’t aware of the last 200 years, but Americans have been fighting about taxes since before the country was founded.  · · · →

Milo’s store is still running, today at dangerousboutique.com. November 14, Think Progress had posted a story The walls are closing in on Milo Yiannopoulos, but they don’t seem to be. He is still giving speeches. Another site, dangerous.com, shows signs that it’s still turning into something. So, are the walls closing in or not? What gives?

Milo supposedly breaks the mold: He’s a Conservative homosexual. But, anyone who knows anyone who has known anyone in the last ten years knows that Milo isn’t breaking any mold by being a Conservative and a homosexual. The mold he broke is to be famous while being normal. Personalities and self-important big shots only seem to like homosexuals and Black people if they agree with their politics, Conservative or Liberal.

There’s no reason for Milo to fail in his business. He was a leader at Breitbart—a news site with a very interesting history, one that had a starting similar to Drudge.  · · · →

Trump’s visit to China was remarkably friendly. He did not demonstrate any of the bombastic rhetoric that was both celebrated and despised during the 2016 election. He did not have any of the authoritarian, autocratic manner demonstrated by the star of The Apprentice. He never made any concessions, only friendly gestures. He was largely silent on policy and quite loud about his desire for cooperation.

This was a very different side of Trump. Those familiar with him were not surprised. Those who fear him might believe it was fake. But, it was a very different side Trump who went to China and, yet, he is still the same Donald Trump.

This does not speak about Trump himself. It says much more about China—or, perhaps better and more specifically, it will say much more about China in the months ahead.

China maintains disputes with a vast number of nations. It would be interesting to see a budget report on how much money China spends by not abandoning its overlapping claims to various lands and islands across its surrounding borders and seas.  · · · →