Trump, et at.

Jeffry Tucker, a conservative libertarian, thinks that Trump's not just a clown, that he's a dangerous demagogue, that he's a fascist for this new century. The piece is worth a read. (H/T)

I don't believe that this is Trump's time. Maybe if the election had been in 2010, in the midst of the Great Recession, maybe more people would have been open to his xenophobic/racist platform.

But for the sake of discussion: What if Trump won? Trump's not a politician, he's an egomanical businessman who has no tolerance for those who disagree with him. I don't know how he'd handle dissent, but I suspect that Trump would end up making Dick Cheney look like a member of the ACLU.

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Probably the most corrupt cops can be found in Florida, where in two departments, the cops helped themselves to large amounts of supposed drug-money without any oversight or accountability. As in, possibly, many millions of dollars. (H/T)

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I am so going to read Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South. Robert Bunch was the British consul in Charleston from 1853 into 1863; his reports to London may have been key in the refusal of the British to recognize the Confederacy. The Brits were willing to tolerate American slavery, so long as they got cotton in the bargain. But the slave-owners were eager to re-open importation of slaves, which the British couldn't tolerate. And even if they might have been inclined to, Bunch's dispatches tore the bark off any fig-leaf of denial.

Long article here about the book, worth a read.