Recently, President Donald Trump was asked to comment on the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell for charges of procuring underage women for notorious sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein back in the 1990s and, more recently, in 2017, for perjuring herself when testifying about the matter. Quoth1 the Donald I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her…
Author: Alan Vanneman
The Monk Project—“Let’s Cool One”
Yeah, I have been awfully lazy when it comes to the jazz portion of Literature R Us. Well, blame it on the coronavirus, or the damn heat, or my damn laziness. This track is sans video, from an outstanding album released in 2012, The Monk Project, a session organized by Jimmy Owens. The superb lineup…
Pinch Me, I’m Dreaming! Politico runs two—two!—articles calling for REDUCED Pentagon spending!
Yes, you read that right. Middle of the road just the facts, ma’am, Politico actually ran two articles, one “liberal” and one “conservative”, calling for Congress to stop spending so gosh darn much on defense. Both pieces are waaay too timid by my standards, but to hear two voices speak up in what has been…
Of course we’re in denial! We’re REPUBLICANS!
Over at the anti-Trumpy Dispatch, Christian Schneider explains why even anti-Trump conservatives like himself would be cawazzy to wish for Republicans to lose the Senate as well as the presidency in 2020: “Why Are Some Conservatives Rooting for the GOP to Lose the Senate? Yes, many Republican politicians have behaved badly. But a Biden presidency…
When Bari Left the Times
Now that Bari Weiss has left the New York Times (“scorching” resignation letter here), the Times will almost assuredly be both woker and broker—not “broker” in the sense of financially poorer, but intellectually so. The Times is almost guaranteed to be more predictably “correct” in its coverage of the passing scene and—okay, this is going…
Daniel Drezner, you shall not escape my wrath!
Well, you won’t, Dan. Just because I’m painfully slow and stumbling off the mark, and not much better down the stretch, you thought you could slip a few fast ones by me, but nuh-uh. I’m onto your game, and you’ll pay the price. The first of Dan’s “curve balls” (to vary the metaphor) came a…
Hey! Unimportant people believe in free speech too!
Damn straight we do! Well, some of us, anyway, and some of us, like me, are very, very unimportant! I say this, of course, because there has been considerable blowback to the now notorious letter published in Harper’s magazine, signed by a large number of cultural icons and/or irritants, to the irritation of many who…
Does the New York Times Understand How the Right to Free Speech Works?
Well, not to keep you in suspense, but the answer is no. Greg Bensinger, a member of the New York Times editorial board hitherto unknown to me, has blossomed forth with an opinion piece, “Does Zuckerberg Understand How the Right to Free Speech Works?”, which, alas, only demonstrates, all too conclusively,1 that it is Mr….
Gregg Easterbrook, thou shouldst have been alive at this hour! Oh, wait, you are!
Damn straight he is, alive and kicking at the Atlantic, with an excellent article, “Smart Weapons Need to Be Smarter”, which I’ll discuss/amplify in the Afterwords, but for now what I want to talk about is some beautiful demolition work Gregg performed on racist/fascist television back in 2018, describing the unbridled power worship that was…
Clarence Thomas to Brethren: Why Can’t You Guys Listen to “Reason”?
Why indeed? The Supreme Court recently refused the opportunity to consider a raft of lower court decisions regarding both the Second Amendment and the “qualified immunity” extended to public officials—most “controversially” (that is to say, most inappropriately), as applied to the police— protecting them against law suits for their actions—like blowing someone’s head off for…