«Britain chiefly wanted a market in China for her textiles, and all ships sailing from England had to carry a quota of cotton cloth….»
Man. Everywhere you look.
And where did the cotton come from? WHERE DID THE COTTON COME FROM, MOTHERFUCKER?
“The cost of maintaining this [Roman imperial] force, dispersed across millions of square miles from the North Sea to the Caspian Sea, gobbled between 2 and 4 percent of the empire’s entire GDP every year; well over half the state budget was spent on defense.” – Powers and Thrones (Dan Jones)
https://bookshop.org/ebooks/quotes/d107da99-9b5a-4b61-a9e7-07dbdbdcc4b1
So… he used the word “defense”, and that popped out at me. That word has really wormed its way in to our vocabulary. Not “spent on war” or “spent on the military” but “spent on the noble and peaceful cause of defense.”
Ministry of Truth!
«A recent study by political scientist Larry M. Bartels found that Republicans who score high in what he calls “ethnic antagonism”—who are worried about a perceived loss of political and cultural power for white people in the United States—are much more likely to espouse antidemocratic, authoritarian ideas such as “The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it,” [emphasis mine — John L.]and “Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules to get things done.”»
21% through “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (One World Essentials)” by Heather McGhee.
I’m going through this book at a glacial pace. Every time I pick it back up, I find something like this. Which probably explains the glacial pace — I need to process.
Really, conservative white person who says America is great because democracy and don’t tread on me? Really??
I really expected so much better of you.
Nice job, Romania, congratulations. I hope at least the Trump victory here made some things clear.
«In a setback for Europe’s surging nationalist forces, Nicusor Dan, a centrist mayor and former mathematics professor, on Sunday won the presidential election in Romania, defeating a hard-right candidate who is aligned with President Trump and has opposed military aid to Ukraine.
With more than 98 percent of ballots counted, preliminary official results gave 54 percent of the vote in the presidential runoff to Mr. Dan, 55, the mayor of Romania’s capital, Bucharest. His opponent, George Simion, a nationalist and fervent admirer of Mr. Trump who had been widely seen as the front-runner, drew only 46 percent.»
Blah, blah, blah. Young, Black, and Latino Trump voters changing their minds. Big surprise.
Everybody else still loves him.
For those who are interested, gCaptain generally has the goods on maritime accidents.
https://newrepublic.com/post/195324/trump-administration-crimes-jail-time
«Even among the gravely worried, there is this sense that the “rule of law” is like a machine someone turned on at some point in the past, which runs in the background of American life like some sort of ambient presence. What the rule of law really is, it turns out, is the sum total of our deeds—and our inaction. The rule of law lives or dies on our willingness to act….»
The *New Yorker* has a PERL script that puts a diaresis above the second of every doubled vowel, and they are *very* proud of it.
«When it came time for the reëlection campaign,»
…
«Coördinating it all was wildly complicated. ≥
Istg, I’m gonna learn how to write brower plugins just to get rid of this shit.
https://apnews.com/article/medicaid-cuts-trump-tax-cuts-bill-1e2b12a91a3d12ceb0420ce7053de58e
I wonder if even the low-info non-voting people know that “waste, fraud and abuse” is just a Republican lie.
«While Republicans insist they are simply rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” to generate savings with new work and eligibility requirements, Democrats warn that millions of Americans will lose coverage.»
…
«The preliminary CBO analysis said the committee’s proposals would reduce the deficit by $912 billion over the decade — with at least $715 billion coming from the health provisions.
Central to the savings are changes to Medicaid, which provides almost free health care to more than 70 million Americans, and the Affordable Care Act, which has expanded in the 15 years since it was first approved to cover millions more.»
Here, Read This 