July 4, 2021 - President Trump will add two new Gerald Ford Class nuclear aircraft carriers to the Chesapeake Bay Fleet, the premier eastern Navy group which replaced the Atlantic Fleet. CINCLantFleet, the Atlantic Fleet, was mothballed after the demise of NATO in 2019. The Chesapeake Bay fleet, in Navy parlance, CINCPeakeFleet, has 5 nuclear carriers and 165 other warships which patrol the Chesapeake Bay between Virginia and Maryland. Occasional operations in the Atlantic seaboard are carried out in conjunction, and with the approval, of the Russian Navy.  President Putin asked for that gesture, and said he considers use of the CINCPeakeFleet resources beyond 10 miles from the US shore to be a serious and unnecessary provocation. An annual Fleet regatta within that 10 miles occurs off the coast of Florida at the President's resort at Mar-a-Lago every year on June 14, the President's birthday.

Among the several crimes against intelligence that adorn the record of the post invasion imperium in Iraq, the attempt to prosecute frame the son of an Ayatollah (himself martyred by Saddam) for the murder of a collaborating Mullah stands out...

Moqtada al-Sadr was not only an aspiring Ayatollah in his own right, he was also commander of one of the two or three most powerful militias in Baghdad--they call part of Baghdad Sadr City.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.

As Trump in Singapore bids fair to fulfill the mandate to provide his reality show with an audience pleasing finale, may we friends of humanity argue that no downside lurks in the prospect of a supine Trump, albeit producing a Potemkin peace?

What I mean is this: Granting that Trump, by definition, understands nothing, what's the worst that could happen?

The fear seems to be that Trump will "give away" too much in his zeal for a chance to sample the golden shower culture of Oslo. That is obviously bullshit.

Fifty years ago today, Ted Kennedy delivered a eulogy for his brother Bobby considered by some to be the most profound speech of his career.  Katie Mettler at WaPo today offered an excellent writeup of that moment.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/06/08/those-he-to...

July 4, 2115 - Geraldine Lopez, the last known so-called Dreamer, died of natural causes at age 108 in Virginia. She was the last of the so-called Dreamers, who signed up in a program set up by Barack Obama, President from 2009-2016. The program was intended to create a path to citizenship for children brought to the United States illegally by their parents, and who grew up in the US knowing no other country. Over the decades it has remained in effect due to a mutiplicity of court cases, decisions, edicts and appeals, but just for those who were in up to 2018. Republicans have used the issue over and over in campaigns, to motivate their dwindling, mostly white rural, base to show up at the polls. Over many, many campaigns, Republicans have cast the aging, and over recent decades diminishing in numbers, Dreamers as everything from dangerous terrorists to lazy moochers.  Most notably, Republicans cast Dreamers, who were never eligible for federal programs, as "abusing freeloaders", and the reason the Republicans, who controlled Congress and the Presidency those years, claimed they "had no choice" but to "reluctantly" end Medicaid and Medicare in 2038, and Social Security in 2040. 

The debate about the events in Israel/Palestine in 1948 will be going on at least until there is an Arab-Israeli peace, and maybe longer than that.  But I think humane, reasonable people who know the history will agree that what Jews did to Arabs in 1948 was very bad indeed. There were about a dozen massacres, many expulsions, and 700,000 people exiled and dispossessed.(If you need sources, check Benny Morris' The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem and Walid Khalidi's All That Remains).

Nicholas Kristof yesterday had a roughly 3000 word essay with loads of data titled "How to Reduce Shootings". The word "Republican" does not appear at all in it. "NRA" - uh, no mention of it.  "Liberal" appears twice, as in "Frankly, liberal opposition to guns has often been ineffective, and sometimes counterproductive. The 10-year ban on assault weapons accomplished little...." Nick, the careful sincere liberal, being very politically correct, gives reams of data, never mentions Republicans, so as not to upset Republicans, as he just gives them..the GOP....the cold hard facts...!! Don't laugh, please.  There are eight dead students, and two teachers, whose lives have just been ended, and survivors, some gravely wounded, facing years of pain. Kristof means well, but as has been abundantly clear on many issues, facts do not matter to the Republican Party.

I have reached the nadir.

How much more can I fall?

And yet, according to Wiki, even the nadir is relative at best.

We have a potus who lies.

He lies about his height.

He lies about his weight.

He lies about his net assets.

He lies about his previous statements.

He lies about his current statements.