I am just back from Europe, where the Germans are preparing to sing a Christmas favorite, the “Make America Great Again” version of which goes: O Schadenfreude, O Schadenfreude, Du bringst ein schoen November. Which means, roughly: O Schadenfreude, O Schadenfreude, Thanks, pal, for the election result.
It’s a result that has made it fun to read the New York Times—at least for a while.
After a week managing the transition, vice president-elect Mike Pence took his family out to the Broadway musical Hamilton.
As Pence entered the theater, a wave of boos swept over the audience. And at the play’s end, the Aaron Burr character, speaking for the cast and the producers, read a statement directed at Pence:
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.”—Former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg
Let’s talk about fake news stories, shall we?
Submitted by Brendan O'Neill via Reason.com,
The one good thing about Trump’s win? It shows a willingness among Americans to blaspheme against saints and reject the religion of hollow progressiveness.
If you want to see politics based on emotionalism over reason and a borderline-religious devotion to an iconic figure, forget the Trump Army; look instead to the Cult of Clinton.
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
The re-miliarization of Japan has been on my radar and caused me much concern in recent years. I’ve covered the topic on several occasions, with the most recent example published over the summer in the post, Japanese Government Shifts Further Toward Authoritarianism and Militarism. Here are the first few paragraphs: