In the March 21st, 2021 Washington Post story “The rioter next door: How the Dallas suburbs spawned domestic extremists," Annie Gowen writes of a Texas pastor who claimed prophecy that Trump would remain in office: Shortly before Biden’s inauguration, Pastor Brandon Burden of the KingdomLife church — a boxy, largely windowless sanctuary in Frisco — mounted the pulpit and gave a stemwinder of a sermon that went viral. ...
In the 1980s, Trump was concerned about nuclear proliferation and thought that he could do a better job negotiating a nuclear deal with the Soviets. In a 1984 Washington Post interview (which I believe you can see excerpts from in the film "Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn" about his mentor, Roy Cohn), he said: "Some people have an ability to negotiate," he says. "It's an art you're basically born with. You either have it or you don't." ...
Not much blogging going on here still, but here's my annual list of books read for 2020.Nicholson Baker, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information ActJohn Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House MemoirBen Buchanan, The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics Susannah Cahalan, The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of MadnessMichael Cohen, Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. TrumpMyke Cole, Legion versus Phalanx: The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World Libby Copeland, The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are Barton Gellman, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the Surveillance StateFiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (2012)James W. Johnson, Arizona Politicians: The Noble and the Notorious (2002) Gene Kim, The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and WinTalia Lavin, Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker, A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America Ben Macintyre, The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War (2018) Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (2017)H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace, with Henry R. Schlesinger, Spy Sites of New York City: A Guide to the Region's Secret History (2020)Jefferson Morley, Morley v. CIA: My Unfinished JFK InvestigationBastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier, The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich & Powerful Hide Their Money Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare Brad Smith and Carol Anne Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital AgeMary Trump, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton with Henry R. Schesinger, Spy Sites of Washington, DC: A Guide to the Capital Region's Secret History (2017) Anna Wiener, Uncanny Valley: A MemoirIsabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents Top for 2020: Copeland, Macintyre, Cahalan, Smith and Browne, Buchanan, Obermayer and Obermaier, Gellman, Rid. I started the following books I expect to finish in 2021 (yes, I also said that about LeFeber and Wilson last year--I'm well in to LaFeber's book and thought I might finish before the end of the year, but had only read Wilson's intro so it's barely started): William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (2nd edition) Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History I've also pre-ordered and am looking forward to reading: Nicole Perlroth, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapon Arms Race (due to be published on February 9) (Previously: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005.)
I received the following spam email today (a link on the email claims, falsely, that I opted in for it in October 2013) from the Christine Jones for governor campaign. Jones is a former GoDaddy executive who looks like a terrible candidate for governor of Arizona. Dear James, As a Republican candidate for Governor, I am frequently asked where I stand on the issues important to our state-issues ranging from immigration and education to economic development and healthcare. At a recent forum I was asked one of the single-most important questions that a candidate for political office can face. The question was, "Where does your moral compass come from?" At three years old, I climbed onto the Sunday School bus that drove the neighborhood kids to the local evangelical church. It was there that I learned about God and His Son, Jesus. Since then, I have let my personal relationship with Him be my moral compass. One of my life phrases is, "Do the right thing because it's the right thing to do." I am not interested in making excuses or politicizing important issues. I am interested in doing things based on conviction and personal belief. As Governor, I can promise you that I will adhere to my moral compass. If you would like to hear more about my story and why I am running for Governor, I invite you to join me Tuesday, April 29th, from 6:30-8:00pm at New Life Community Church of the Nazarene in Show Low. I hope you can make it! Best, Jones for Governor, Inc · Primary PO Box 13087 Phoenix, AZ 85002-3087, United States ...
Here’s a famous photograph of pulp fiction author and Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard holding a tomato plant connected to an E-Meter. Hubbard claimed in 1968 that tomatoes would “scream when sliced," as detected by the E-Meter. [UPDATE: The photo appeared in “30 Dumb Inventions” on Life magazine’s website, attributed to the Evening Standard of January 1, 1968, but the claims and the photo appear to be from 1959, see below.] ...
Yesterday I received an email that contained yet another argument that Obama’s birth certificate (the PDF’d scan of the “long form” certificate) was a fake, based on erroneous claims about the name of Kenya in 1961 and the name of the hospital which were already debunked at Snopes.com four months ago. But this prompted me to see if there were any more advocates of wild claims about the birth certificate, and I came across Douglas Vogt’s alleged analysis of the birth certificate and, more importantly, a very well-done, detailed debunking of that analysis by Kevin Davidson (known on his blog as “Dr. Conspiracy”), who has done a great job of responding to numerous Obama conspiracy claims. Check out his “The Debunker’s Guide to Obama Conspiracy Theories." Vogt, the author of the analysis which Dr. Conspiracy debunks, is also an example of “crank magnetism”–he is the author of Reality Revealed: The Theory of Multidimensional Reality, a 1978 book which looks like a classic work of crackpottery. Vogt bills himself as a “geologist and science philosopher” who: ...
Former Arizona State Representative Pamela Gorman, whose promo video proudly proclaims her to be a gun-toting Bible thumper, spent some of her time in the Arizona legislature supporting Scientology front groups and denying the existence of human-caused global warming through her affiliation with the sleazy Heartland Institute. Here’s her video:
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars points out an account of a 15-year-old kidnapped from his grandmother’s house at the request of his parents, and taken to the Utah Boys Ranch, then run by Utah Senator Chris Buttars. Apparently the mind-control treatment didn’t take, and he started the Utah Boys Ranch Network to expose the abuse. DFV (2009-02-19): Sorry to bother you, but...This is now Feb. 19th - why can't I find ONE DAMNED THING on the Mormon Gulag in major papers, TV, blogs, etc. after January? E.G.: was West Ridge Academy's license renewed? Why wasn't any of this covered by mainstream media?Dan [email protected] ...
Two ex-employees of Diskeeper Corporation have filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court after being fired, charging that the company makes Scientology training a mandatory condition of employment. Diskeeper founder and CEO Craig Jensen is a high-level Scientologist (OT VIII) and member of the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE), which means that he follows Hubbard “management technology” in how he runs his businesses and donates a portion of revenues to the Church of Scientology. UPDATE (December 25, 2008): Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has more. ...
If there was any doubt that the SkyMall catalog is full of bogus products that are complete ripoffs for idiots, that should be removed by this product–a “wine and liquor accelerator” that “surrounds the beverage with a powerful triangular-shaped magnetic field, and in just 10 seconds, you’ll taste a premium drink’s smooth, mellow flavor equal to years of traditional slow aging." And here, Alex Chiu has been telling us that magnetic devices slow aging, not speed it up. Not to mention that aging is not something that tends to improve the quality of wine. ...