We have old friends visiting this week from Europe. I encouraged them to go to Rosedown Plantation, in St. Francisville, which is one of the grandest and best preserved plantations in the South. It really is a wonder to behold. But Julie and I also suggested that they get the other side of the story by going to Whitney Plantation, down the river in St. John the Baptist Parish.
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
First there were seventeen. At length, there was one.
Donald Trump’s wildly improbable capture of the GOP nomination, therefore, is the most significant upheaval in American politics since Ronald Reagan. And the proximate cause is essentially the same. Like back then, an era of drastic bipartisan mis-governance has finally generated an electoral impulse to sweep out the stables.
It is a comparison that many are making. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, is very similar to Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States and icon of modern conservatism. While these two men share some cosmetic similarities on the surface, in reality they are very different in many ways. Thus, those that are seeking to conclude that a Trump presidency might follow a similar course to that of Reagan’s are likely to discover a much different outcome than they might expect.
The government pretends that it’s giving the surviving 9/11 masterminds a fair trial, and that justice will prevail.
The truth may be a wee bit different …
Kangaroo Court Show Trials
Buzzfeed reported yesterday:
The Defense Department has farmed out to a private company much of the criminal investigation and trials of the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to federal records and sources affiliated with the trials who spoke to BuzzFeed News.
Donald Trump may now be the presumed Republican candidate, but the party convention is not scheduled to close until July 21, and there will not be a nominee until then. Two and a half months is an eternity in this 24/7 media environment. There have been 22 contested party conventions since 1876, one lasting 103 ballots. The fat lady has not sung.
The GOP has survived Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover, Progressive Teddy, and George W. Bush—and it will survive Trump too.