American conservatism is a broad system of political beliefs in the United States that is characterized by respect for American traditions, republicanism, support for Judeo-Christian values,[1] moral absolutism,[2] free markets and free trade,[3][4] anti-communism,[4][5] individualism,[4] advocacy of American exceptionalism,[6] and a defense of Western culture from the perceived threats posed by socialism, authoritarianism, and moral relativism.[7] Wikipedia entry on Conservatism in the United States I […]
We all know that Three String Raconteur has been horribly slow. Loading times were so bad, our fans were asking why the site was offline. Ouch. But yeah, we know. It took more than 30 seconds for some pages. Absolutely awful. We’ve been working on it for a while, I swear. Hours on the phone, chats, research, and experiments. Thankfully, we finally found some of […]
We were wondering whether Trump would pardon Paul Manafort. And while he isn’t yet, Trump may be trying an end run. Instead of pardoning Manafort, Trump may be trying to buy Manafort’s debt. That would target the one person who scares Manafort more than Special Counsel Robert Mueller. And it might work. Let’s get all these colorful characters on the page. First, of course, is […]
This is very bad. The White House is scrubbing embarrassing information from official US records. They took the time to alter a transcript, deleting a critical question. It’s time for us to pay special attention. Remember last week’s horrific press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin? Yes, it’s only been a week. We saw terrible moments, but along with Trump […]
We keep calling Trumpland the new Bizzaro world, but it’s more literally true than we admit. It doesn’t just appear that Trump does the opposite of everything sensible. Trump attacks the American democracy, complaining about how unfair it is that its… um, fair, and might target him or people he likes. (Donald would prefer the law, like the IRS, be his attack dog.) As head […]
OK, this is crazy enough. Nobody (or so we’re told by Republicans, Democrats, and the media) knows what happened during Trump’s private meeting with Vladimir Putin. How could we know? Trump made sure there weren’t any staffers or stenographers in the room. Trump deliberately eliminated every person who would normally be a witness. No American recordings, either. So, they all say, nobody knows what was […]
This’ll be short. The indictment of Maria Butina outlines ties between Russia, the NRA, and the GOP. That goes along with recently disclosed ties between Russia, Evangelical leaders, and the GOP. If true, it helps explain the multi-million dollar surge in NRA political funding. Is this really the criminal enterprise it looks like? The NRA is the biggest Republican political contributor. Evangelicals and gun rights […]
A Question of Loyalty
I I’ve been reading too many pundits who lament, “What do Democrats want when they talk about Supreme Court nominees?” The question puzzles me. We live in a country almost equally into Democrats and Republicans with a smattering of smaller groups. And we want a Supreme Court nominee that represents the consensus of the nation. That is, someone who’s (again, roughly) in the middle of […]

