Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Why Trump's Evocation of Executive Privilege is a Doomed Act of Desperation

by Nomad



Trump's decision to use executive privilege to defy Congress is a last ditch effort to escape accountability. If history is any guide, it is unlikely to succeed.


Contempt

This week, Attorney General William Barr joined the list of Trump administration officials who have thumbed their noses at Congress by threatening to stonewall House committee oversight.

After a disastrous testimony before Congress, the House Judiciary Committee threatened to hold Barr in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena for special counsel Robert Mueller’s unredacted report. Said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the committee.
“Yes, we will continue to negotiate for access to the full report. And yes, we will have no choice but to move quickly to hold the attorney general in contempt if he stalls or fails to negotiate in good faith."
Good faith was clearly in short supply.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

Sanity Sunday - Nomad's Chill Mix No. 2

by Nomad


No doubt about it: for anybody following US politics, this has been an exhausting and demoralizing week. We have had front row seats to the dismantling of institutions that we once believed were the safeguards to the American Republic.
And next week is not likely to be any better.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Why the Trump Administration Threatened to Veto a UN Resolution on Wartime Rape

by Nomad



Ever since the human species climbed out of the jungle trees and began throwing rocks at one another, one of the recognized spoils of war was pillaging of the villages, the looting of the valuables and the raping of the women.
For those who subscribed to the adage that might makes right, it was only logical that the weakest should pay the price of the barbarian conquest. 
Throughout our history, women were always at particular risk of sexual victimization during conflict. "To the victor go the spoils" has long been a war cry, and female bodies generally have been classified as part of those spoils of war.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

Sanity Sunday - The Music of Schubert and Brahms

by Nomad


For this Sanity Sunday, I want to go back to the Romantic period which is always good for a little mental palate cleansing.

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Dying at the age of 31, his musical career was short and yet he left the world with quite a legacy. That included "more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphoniessacred musicoperasincidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music."