Podcasts of the week

John Bachelor has a discussion of Trumpie boy's business connections with Russia, and notes that working with business there means working with the Russian mafia (which supports the government).



Of course, as I have pointed out in many previous posts, this is how business is done all over the world: check my previous post that mentions Brazil

If you check out TrumpJr's Trump tower in Manila, I'm sure you will find lots of connections with crooked Pinoy politicians and businessmen who work in manila, including the crooked Chinese businessmen who run the economy here.





but Hillary's slights of hand with the Clinton foundation quid pro quos, her connections with Wall street,  (not to mention Chelsey's husband's shenannigans) suggest she knows how to make money from corruption, but not necessarily make money, start a business that gives people jobs, or construct a building by managing the corrupt you have to work with.


This is one reason that the "Hillary's emails", which were mainly about her dirty tricks, is a nothing burger, as the meme on the internet says.

If "collusion with Russia" just translates to "showing the dirty tricks by your opponant", then a lot of us wonder: Where the fuck was the press in digging up the dirty tricks? Wasn't that supposed to be their job?

Hillary's contempt for ordinary folks was one reason she lost. The press acts as if these "deplorables" were bigoted rednecks from Alabama, but what tipped the scales was the Catholic union workers in the Midwest.

and the anti religion meme of the elite (one reason I avoid reading facebook) who backed Hillary was another problem.
The courts who were busy whittling down freedom of religion (i.e. freedom to live your life according to your conscience) to "freedom of worship" (freedom to go to church one hour a week). This was a big issue with the Catholics, outweighing the immigration issues and even the opinion of the Pope.

Of course, the Pope is popular in the polls because he winks at sins, but most Catholic know he also hates the deplorables who are so "rigid" that they think schtumping altar boys and corruption are bigger sins than using an air conditioner.

Many did not approve of Trumpie boy, but they knew that the kleptocracy and maybe even a low grade persecution of non PC churches and those who believe in old fashioned morality would continue under Hillary.

And then there is this:

The Trump “base” knew the 2016 presidential election—the contest between Mr. Obama’s successor and whoever would run against her—wasn’t just another election. It was a crucial event, deciding whether America would go on in the Western tradition as it had developed in the U.S. or continue its steady drift away from those ideas.
Progressives have an interest in ridiculing the Trump speech (in Poland) as a stalking horse for the heretofore obscure and microscopic alt-right because it deflects from their own political values—on view and in power the past eight years.
If there is one controlling Western idea developed across centuries in Europe, including by resort to war, it is that the individual person deserves formalized protection from the weight of arbitrary political authority, whether kings, clergy or dictators.

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update: Read discussion at GetReligion blog, which notes the passing of Peter Berger and his work.

Modernity is not creating secularization, Berger concluded, but, rather, pluralism, in which adherents of different religions increasingly live side by side. That led to one of his final essays a year ago, contending that pluralism carries great value for religious faith. Reasons: it enhances human freedom, assures faith is no longer taken for granted, strengthens churches because they’re truly “voluntary associations,” and helps distinguish between core beliefs and less important matters.