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Shaun Dakin's avatar

I appreciate the section on Peter Pomerantsev. Personally I remember having a discussion with my Father after the 2008 crash and after no bankers were held responsible. I asked him. 'how can I tell my son (then 4) to work hard, follow the rules, and be truthful when the lessons learned were that those who cheat, lie, and plunder win and the Avg voter will lose everything? ". He had no answer. Trump, of course, is 100x all that.

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Diane Matza's avatar

Responsiveness to public opinion? What a novel idea! Something to wish for. Too many of the Republicans in Congress, all of them perhaps, sign onto Elon Musk's idea that there is no such thing as the public good. Democracy, they say, what's that? All too true here in New York State as the governor lacks political courage (as do too many Democrats)and fails to support any significant environmental legislation this year. And support for Cuomo, as you explain so well, is just bizarre

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Stan Nadel's avatar

The evidence about Iran's nuclear weapons program is far more robust that the Iraq example. The IAEA has determined that they have a large stockpile of 60% pure uranium--which has zero use other than for nuclear weapons and they have repeatedly confirmed their intent to eliminate the "cancer" that is Israel.

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Micah L. Sifry's avatar

But the question is how to stop their program, right? Will bombing alone work? Not very likely. Are you advocating the US and Israel go invade? Good luck with that. The only choice is negotiation, and then you have to ask why Israel gets to have nukes, no? My personal view has been that even if Iran got a few nukes they'd never use them, because of Israel's deterrent.

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Stan Nadel's avatar

Well negotiations and failed sanctions alone certainly didn't work. Maybe some negotiation carrots might have more appeal to the Mllahs after the Israeli and American stick.

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Judy Fletcher's avatar

My favorite metaphors of the day:"Mad King Trump....and Prince of Darkness Andrew Cuomo..."

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Dave's avatar

“The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

I am truly curious to see if NYC will follow Chicago down the self destructive path of electing a far, far left fruitcake. Chicago’s mayor Johnson has quickly become one of the most unpopular mayors of the city in history. He openly panders to unruly gangs of black teens who are terrorizing the city by recently vetoing a very reasonable curfew ordinance. The once safe near north side neighborhoods no longer exist.

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Micah L. Sifry's avatar

It's true that Johnson is very unpopular and struggling to govern. But unlike Johnson, Mamdani isn't a creature of any big unions. I don't think socialist ideology precludes good local government--Bernie Sanders proved that as mayor of Burlington and socialists ran several larger American cities back mid-last-century, building public goods and getting re-elected for doing a good job.

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