What are you reading? Political Books

Most of those are of course casual relationships. The best kind.

I may get this. A very interesting interview where the author gets to elaborate for once.

I was thinking recently that the press is really being played during this whole impeachment thing. Smith here says that yep, that and the Intelligence Community has turned the press into the platform for conspiracy theories. And it’s worked. No one trusts the press much anymore.

I got the Lee Smith book.

I actually met a colleague the other day who still believes all the Russia collusion sh8t that DNC pumped through the media back in 2015 and 2016. It was like talking to a Flat Earther. Fascinating. I couldn’t stop smiling. :smoker: :popcorn:

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https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/12/we-now-know-devin-nunes-reflects.php

The Lee Smith book is calling attention to Nunes in a big way.

How is it?

I saw it the other day but he lied to me in the 90s.

:smoker:

If he believed it, it’s not a lie. :sunglasses:

Fukuyama is always an interesting read, even if none of his predictions materialized. :grinning:

Either way he’s full of shit.

I don’t read books by political pundits. Only professors.

I try only to read books by people who know what they’re talking about. That rules out most pundits and professors.

Anyone can research something. Anyone can pretend to have researched something. Give me an author who has lived the subject matter.

History?

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That’s increasingly getting more difficult. Especially with politics. I took a look at the Fusion GPS book out the other day as well.
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Seems to be a rebuttal to Lee Smith’s investigative reporting. Two WSJ guys who broke bad.

Thankfully there’s Junger:

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Back to Fusion GPS and Lee Smith’s book:

The battle begins. Smith says the media were gullible all along, never doing their own due diligence, repeating stories they have read, fed by dossier leaks, to corroborate their own stories:

Wemple noted all of this as he accused Maddow of “rooting” for the dossier to be true while covering Trump’s connection to Russia. As he broke down a timeline of Maddow’s dossier coverage, Wemple highlighted her commentary about its supposed substantiation before turning to how she declined to address the parts of Horowitz’s report that torpedoed the dossier’s credibility.

The case against Maddow is far stronger. When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them. At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report. She seemed to be rooting for the document.

And she had a huuuuge audience for that too.

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Eric Wemple wrote that?!

Good lord, the tectonic plates in Dem land must be grinding mightily if Eric Wemple took Rachel Maddow to task over anything. You would have to search far and wide to find a MSM reporter more pig-headedly anti-Trump than Wemple.

Sounds like a Microsoft vs Amazon “Battle for Most Woke Corporation” must be breaking out in the 30-45 age demographic of the Democrat party.

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Do not fret, horseguy, Fredo is on it!

Because there’s not a shred of evidence that the FBI used the Steele dossier to feed the media frenzy that targeted Page and Papadapalous and Flynn. :roll:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/12/24/chris_cuomo_debunking_kevin_mccarthys_claim_fbi_broke_into_trump_campaign.html

The closest we can come to experiencing long term history is to be widely traveled. You get to see different civilizations in different phases of their life.

And that teaches you everything about history that actually matters. What it doesn’t teach you, doesn’t matter.

Oh, and… there are eyewitness accounts to be had, going back thousands of years.

Fukuyama was on GW Bush’s bioethics committee.
I forgot to mention I have read some political books written by practitioners as well.

Ally by Mike Oren, who was Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. [He’s also a PhD historian.].
Audacity of Hope
From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew

I’ve experienced long term history! Who knew?