With Emmanuel Macron’s election in France and the rejection of the far-right Marine Le Pen, the neoliberal establishment breathed a sigh of relief. The populist backlash was "over". It was time to crank out more privatization, austerity, and increased military spending.

There's no longer any point debating the liberals or their glorious Democratic Party. They're not a serious bunch, though they mask their unseriousness by the vehemence with which they argue stuff that's of no consequence.

Quick hit.

Went to a fairly large T-day gathering yesterday, met a dude who was the grandpa of some kids there. I had decided prior to going to the dinner that I would not get involved in any political discussions because, well you know.

*I urge folks to read gjohnsit essay regarding Americans and "freedoms".

America is a nation of slaves.

Not in the past -- right now.

America, right now, has hundreds of millions of slaves.

I have even begun to forget where I came in. Depending on how old you are this might make sense to you. When I was a kid they ran movies over and over and you could come in at any point in the film. It was a long time until we evolved into the present mode.

So that means that people my age can identify with the news and political theater in a different way than those too young to have experienced this.

The majority of content is about IT; but after 20 years, the political/economic corpus of the site is very large.

A tip o' the hat to Naked Capitalism's Lambert Strether today for including a link to

I’m as liberal as all of you put together. Go to the mystical core of almost every religion and you get this: Help the poor; the suffering. Conduct yourself fairly and graciously.