Michael Fletcher

I had a run-in with him years ago. He is the very model of the stereotype of the thin-skinned arrogant condescending academic; a man convinced of his rightness and that anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot.
Academia has some great people, but, sadly, a measurable percentage of such types.

You could read one book from the Library of Congress per second for your entire life and there would be millions of unread books, periodicals and other publications left to read.

Confused as to what a competitive authoritarian government looks like and what strategies they use to rig elections in order to virtually guarantee they win?

You don't have to look far. We already have one in the State of Texas, with several GOP dominated States not far behind.

Yes, management can squash things with amazing ease, but that would have been an even bigger indictment of the organization than simple incompetence. /3

I worked warning and watch operations for several years during my career. Nobody, not even the most block-headed analyst, is going to miss that amount and level of threat info without raising the alarm against a target of that magnitude. That's what they're trained to look for and warn about./2

The FBI failures over the last 10 years have been epic. It's
questionable whether their counter intelligence division ever got past the cipherlock. A deeply comprised man who couldn't have passed a basic background check got into the presidency. Then, there was "missing" 1/6. /1

Giving the authoritarian and dominionist state of the American wingnut right, it is difficult to see a quorum for something even remotely
resembling a functional democracy emerging from our current Charlie Foxtrot.
I am wrong on rare occasions. There is that.

Also, the old quote,"The greatest illusion of mankind is the illusion of a short victorious war," applies double to civil wars. /2

I always hesitate to predict civil war for a couple of reasons. I don't want to join some chorus, and then by doing so, help to bring one about. Also, when they happen, they are really bad; generally far worse than those who glibly called for them can even imagine. /1

We also had States jealous of their power and prerogatives. So, we got that bastion of the power status quo called the Senate. We also got one of the worst pieces of process design I've run across called the Electoral College. Arguably, the whole thing needs a massive refresh. /2

No matter how well a constitution is written, unscrupulous, and ambitious, people can still undo it with sufficient effort. There is no denying that there's always been deep flaws in our ancient text. It was written to be a democracy for landed white males. /1

It's worth noting Diamond's comment about the ending stages of a civilization. The elite take up their time, building pointless huge monuments to their greatness while the society around them suffers from neglect and decay.

Sound familiar?

And I thought AI was going to make truncheons, black bags, and unmarked vans obsolete?

I suppose the bottom of the American barrel that Trump and Noem's goons are recruited from isn't going to be smart enough to use more sophisticated methods.

three men in suits and ties are standing in front of a field and the word politic is on the bottom right Alt: three men in suits and ties are standing in front of a field and the word politic is on the bottom right

"I love the sucking sound of the wealth siphon on the morning."

Unfortunately, yes, when she announces that Democrats in Congress are under investigation for treasonous jaywalking or the most unforgivable crime of taking twelve items through the ten item check out.

Bibi's band of war criminals made the rubble bounce and stacked 10s of 1000s of civilian dead. They have gone to considerable lengths to keep the truth from coming out.

Some intelligent heavy hitters are coming around to this position. As i've said, in normal times, this would be a very bad idea, but these are extraordinary times.

The GOP Congress is a rubber stamp to a budding dictator. It reminds me that Stalin had a ringer installed to tell people when to stop clapping because everyone was afraid of being the first person to stop clapping.
Cruel ideologues, sycophants, and cowards. How utterly pathetic these people are.

Yes,actually. 😎

Forecasting the behavior of Mob Trump would be harder if these asshats weren't so damn predictable.

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

Harsh but fair. It also lines up with what I've learned studying the dynamics of collapse over the years.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

It is American bombs and shells that flattened Gaza. It started with a Biden hug and continued with secret agreements at the infamous Bibi-Don meeting at MAL.
The Biden-Blinken-Sullivan team and Trump's team willingly and knowingly dipped their hands into buckets of blood. No excuses.

Trump’s Domestic Use of Military Set to Get Worse, Leaked Memo Shows A Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by TNR signals top-level discussions about a potential escalation of the Pentagon’s domestic anti-immigration role, and lays out new details.

NEWS --> An internal Homeland Security memo suggests Trump's use of military for domestic enforcement is about to get worse. It details top-level talks between Defense Department and DHS on what this should look like. Experts say it's alarming.

We obtained the memo:
newrepublic.com/article/1987...

An excellent plan.😎

The net benefit curve ultimately sloped down and went negative for both carbon and plastics because Donella Meadows' dictum always holds. There is no "away" to throw things to.
In english, a small dose of medicine can cure, but an overdose could kill you. /2

I should have added that the problem in plastics is quite similar. In systems parlance, we failed to manage both effectively due to our inability to accept that problems with scale and accumulation could lead to severe harm. /1

Add to that, being led around by people associated with the only one side of any conflict practically guaranteed to possess a particular bias and have axes to grind isn't going to lead to a balanced view of the issues at hand. /2

It was well understood in the intelligence community that when policymakers went jetting off for some factfinding mission, they often came back with a very limited view of what was happening. Unfortunately, they often came back thinking they understood everything and had all the answers. /1

I live with the philosophy of the insurgent. We don't have to win all the battles.We just have to survive in battles. As long as some of us still live who believe in the fundamental dignity of all persons, we aren't defeated. /2

Knowing that we will outlast him. I've been visiting my children in Maryland, and I stopped by the Washington and Lincoln Memorials. One thing I realized is that there would never be such memorials for Donald Trump. Any statues of him will ultimately be torn down just like Saddam Hussein's were. /1