caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

I was born in 1954 and began observing politics in the mid 60s. Even though politics has always been contentious the current level of vitriol is over the top. I'm well aware of how volatile various periods of US history were, to the point of violence, but in my lifetime, current politics have reached a crescendo of hate that I think may end up with bad consequences.

Thinking back on it all, I believe the recent trend started back in the Clinton and Gingrich era and has steadily grown ever since. That's when the impeachment tit for tat began and has become a feature of modern politics. It didn't use to be this way. Members of both houses of Congress used to work across the aisle, oh sure they had their differences but at the end of the day they'd go out together and have dinner and drinks and were friendly towards one another. It's quite different today.

Acting as Our Russian historian and war correspondent, Dmitry Orlov, is writing today from St Petersburg, Russia, to give interested Westerners a recap of the communications and activities surrounding the conclusion of both the Russian SMO, and the US Proxy War, both taking place in Ukraine. The battles and fighting have entered their final weeks; the only possible outcome has long been known. The terms and conditions for a stable and peaceful future between the two Superpowers are now being discussed, defined, and drawn up by the United States and Russia — the Superpowers that represent and control the two principal sides of the conflict.

Special Military Operation Progress Report

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This is just a progress report, for it is still too early to tell what the ultimate conclusion of Russia's SMO in the former Ukraine will look like and, most importantly, where Russia will choose to draw the line between the Russian World it holds sacred and the Wild Field to the west of it, which it will decide to be of no interest. But it is not too early to say that the operation appears to be a success.

The main goal of the SMO was to protect Russian people on former Ukrainian territory, who had no wish to accept neo-Nazi ideology of the Banderite junta.

Dear David,

Diocletian Sez!

In 301 AD (1700 or so years ago), the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an edict in an attempt to control inflation in the price of just about everything sold in the Empire. I ran across a quote from the edict* and found it appropriate to our times too. Maybe our inflation isn't that high, and maybe the powers that be have learned, with repeated lessons over and over again through time, that they can't rob the common people of everything, but, I dunno, it still seems appropriate.

By User:MatthiasKabel - Photographed by myself in Pergamonmuseum Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Part of the Edict's list of maximum prices from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin

So you have all sorts of speculation about what is coming out of the Trump administration, including the attack on the Deep State and the jettisoning of Ukraine. Chris Hedges gives us the pessimistic view: Trump aims at personal dictatorship.

From the shitlib media:

Trump calls Zelensky a "dictator."