The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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A Republic, if you can keep it

Now we know that, despite all appearances, Congress can act as one body and do what needs to be done.

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Perspective(s)

Let's be clear on this. Your blogger has a strong connection to the district Congressman Weiner represents, but he does not live or vote there. The Congressman's value to those who see the New Deal as an irrevocable compact between the government and the citizenry, has been long apparent, but his interminable press conference on Monday and its shocking revelations about him, led to this post on Daily Kos:

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Us and Them

You can feel it. The tide is turning. Heads are over the sand, and what they see is a political party that votes to continue subsidies to oil companies and rails against the concept of affordable health insurance for all. (They call it "Obamacare" which says more than its abject rudeness suggests.

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Hope

You know what hope is
Hope is a bastard
Hope is a liar
A cheat and a tease
Hope comes near you?
Kick it's backside
Got no place in days like these

Nick Hornby, as sung by Ben Folds, "Picture Window" from Lonely Avenue

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Preserve, Protect and Posture

The Washington Post, reviewing Ron Suskind's book, The One Percent Solution, described one of its anecdotes, likely from former CIA director George Tenet or one of his allies:

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Taking Our Country Back

Imagine John Adams, marked by the same man for hanging a decade earlier, for his role in the rebellion of the English colonies against the Crown. Yet now it was June, 1785 and he was presenting himself to King George III as the Ambassador of the United States to the Court of St. James. It is one of the most gripping scenes in David McCullough's magnificent book, and its dramatization in the television version was almost as good.

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Trouble in Paradise

Bob Woodward: The story is dry. All we've got are pieces. We can't seem to figure out what the puzzle is supposed to look like. John Mitchell resigns as the head of CREEP, and says that he wants to spend more time with his family. I mean, it sounds like bullshit, we don't exactly believe that...

Deep Throat: No, heh, but it's touching. Forget the myths the media's created about the White House. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
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Patriot's Day and Passover

And you know, they work together for me; born in New England of the faith that directly celebrates the exodus from Egypt.

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Visions

It was very late when the President appeared before cameras a week ago Friday and croaked out something about how great it was that people who wanted to visit national monuments would be able to do so the following day. He told us:

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Mean Girls (and Boys) and the Mean Women and Men they Have Become

So that's how it ends. As NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd told Chris Hayes last night, the "price" for keeping Congress from cutting its minimal support of Planned Parenthood, was to make further cuts in other programs so that different poor and/or elderly and/or sick people get hurt.

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The Company We Keep

None of this should have surprised anyone, particularly those who could not bring themselves to vote, or otherwise support candidates whose election would have gotten in their way. The handwriting was on the wall, plain for everyone to see or, perhaps, to read. But either the President disappointed, or did something with which the voter disagreed and they got elected.

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Opening Day

Some with whom I am very close says:

 

Rosh haShanah, Yom Kippur and Opening Day. Right? In the beginning...

 

So here we go, knowing that those to whom I send this have been unable to sleep in anticipation....

 

Boston

New York*

Baltimore

Tampa Bay

Toronto

 

Detroit

Chi(A)

Min

Cle

KC

 

Texas

Oak

LAA

Sea

 

Phi

Atl

NY(N)

Fla

Washington

 

Cin

SL*

Hou

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Perfect Timing

If he had ever heard of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, it had never made much impact on him. It was so long ago, and in New York, and the victims barely spoke English. And, anyways, what does it have to do with him?

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Eating Cake

For those who are neither economists nor actors who play them on tv, it is not as easy as it is for Paul Krugman. With a Nobel under his belt, his Princeton and New York Times credentials intact, and maybe with an eye to not having to run naked through the streets, he tells us he has

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Fingers on the Scale

Nothing in the following post is intended to or can be read to suggest that any political organization or affiliations as exist in the United States of America are offshoots, related to, intentionally emulating or seeking to impose a fascist or communist system in this country. It just seems that way sometimes.

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Dangerously Out of Touch

Go ahead. I dare you. Watch those Sunday talk shows from our nation's capitol and see how much of what passes for political discussion concerns the need for government to cut back on spending. David Gregory will almost certainly ask someone what ideas there are to get "entitlements" "under control".

Then, even if you have already seen this, listen to what those who study these things say (about halfway into this):

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Inauguration Day 1933

From the second one in 1793, until 1933, the presidential inaugurals, at least those which followed an election, were held on March 4. The last one held on that date was the day the "only thing we have to fear is fear itself" speech was delivered by our greatest president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The speech is worth listening to and reading in its entirety.  Beyond the phrase that has resounded through the years, though, remain large segments which bear repetition today. Such as:

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Awakening from a deep sleep

With no time for a second post this weekend, your inveterate correspondent respectfully refers you to a surprisingly spot on New York Times editorial yesterday, the Goldman Sachs report to which it refers (as reported by Jonathan Karl of ABC News, but which, of course, all viewers of Rachel Maddow heard

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