Stephen Bannon, close advisor and confidante of Donald Trump, has been fired. Rumors of changes in White House personnel seem to be part of the daily news cycle but his position seemed secure, despite some stories claiming that Trump, egotist and narcissist that he is, felt resentful that Bannon was getting too much credit for his election victory and that he was some kind of Rasputin manipulating his boss.
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Seth Meyers looks at how Republican leaders, White House officials, and Trump’s daughter and son-in-law are trying desperately to shield themselves from criticisms for Trump’s actions and comments without repudiating him or quitting. He ends by focusing on Steve Bannon’s role. This episode aired last night before the announcement today of Bannon’s ouster.
There is an interesting development in Australia where there is a raging scandal involving pedophilia in the Catholic church. A high-ranking Vatican official cardinal George Pell has returned to Australia to face sex abuse charges and will be going on trial.
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This may seem like a strange question because of course the Nazis hated Jews, enough that they set about systematically trying to exterminate all of them. But the anti-Jewish racism of Nazi Germany had a plausible explanation. Demagogues always face a particular problem. Part of their appeal is to pander to their followers by telling them how great their race is. This message resonates especially when they are not doing so well, as was the case in pre-war Germany. But then you have the problem of explaining why, if they are so great, their country and their lives are not wonderful.
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There seems to be a lot of excitement about the solar eclipse that will pass over the US on Monday and many people are making plans to go to places where they can get the best view. You can see those locations here. The path of the total eclipse goes quite close to me, just south of where I live but I will not bother to make even that small effort.
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Now that Donald Trump has openly showed his neo-Nazi and white supremacist sympathies, this has put the Republican leadership in a bind. They know that they should repudiate his comments but they also fear Trump and his rabid supporters. So now we see the familiar game of some leaders staying publicly silent and privately leaking to reporters that they are furious.
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HBO showed a tightly edited video by Vice News of the sequence of events that unfolded at Charlottesville over the past weekend starting on Friday at 10:00pm. It makes for gripping but disturbing viewing.
I have been busy these last few days with having family members as houseguests and also doing some traveling with them and that has kept me from blogging. But I have been following the news sporadically and it has been depressing to say the least. What has become very clear in the last couple of days is that Donald Trump is a Nazi sympathizer. It is incredible to think that one could say this of any leader of a country but there is no denying the fact anymore.
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There are two vignettes that capture some of the qualities that make rich people different from you and me. First there is the story of billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla who bought a piece of beachfront property and promptly declared that the beach was his private property, fenced it off, and hired private security to throw out any peons who dared to encroach on his sacred land.
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