Disruptive Dissertation

Apart from my four newspaper subscriptions, TV, and radio, here are some articles about the current U.S. government that I've stumbled across online over the past month, most of which I haven't had time to read or digest in full. The headlines alone are intense. Mostly what I am learning is that it is normal to feel overwhelmed, anxious, and worn out. If you feel the same way, you are not alone. Artwork: "Collaboration between Scarlett Raven and Mind," The Mental Health Charity, April 4, 2016. Wikimedia Commons. "A display of unbelievable ignorance: In a real country with a real president, Trump’s AP interview would destroy him." Our president thinks the Pentagon is a company, terrorism was a recent invention and 9/11 was a ratings coup. Bob Cesca, Salon, April 25, 2017. "Trump’s Ignorance Is Radicalizing U.S. Historians," Graham Vyse, New Republic, May 3, 2017. "Trump's Fitness To Serve Is 'Officially Part Of The Disc

Sci-fi author David Brin suggests that both U.S. political parties seize the general opportunity of the moment to institute more checks and balances on the president. Why use up political capital merely exchanging the 45th president for his vice president, Mike Pence? Specifically, in his Facebook post, Brin proposes enabling a way to delay military orders and send them for congressional committee review; allowing for “the other party” to make the president's appointments for one afternoon a week; and creating a bipartisan "Fact Checking Institute." During his campaign for office, the 45th president selected Mike Pence to be his vice president "as impeachment insurance," in Brin's analysis. In other words, Brin believes that Pence will also pose significant troubles for Democrats and their agenda, and that Trump "knew what he was doing" in picking Pence to discourage opponents from bringing down Trump. Some of David Brin's popular book

Gay men in Chechnya already had to use assumed names to meet at cafes, but today Chechnyan police agents are leading sting operations in which they conduct online chats with gay men, arrange in-person meetings, then ambush, kidnap, and torture them and force them to inform on other gay men. A possible triggering event for the violence: "The crackdown began after GayRussia, a rights group based in Moscow, applied for permits for gay pride parades in the Caucasus region, prompting counterprotests by religious groups, the men said. In Chechnya, it became something even worse — a mass 'prophylactic' cleansing of homosexuals, the security service agents told the gay men as they rounded them up." The persecution was first reported on April 1, 2017 by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta as having resulted in over 100 arrests and three deaths up to that point. In response to these reports, the press secretary for Chechnya's leader Ramzan A. Kadyrov essentially affir