syncpol.bsky.social

Image is everything, as you can see from the one on top of this essay for 3Quarksdaily.com Thomas Jefferson, the complex, and sometimes disappointing. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

More on Jefferson, a touch of Rubicon crossing, and...the Midterms: 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

78 Years OTD, Harry Truman on his tireless whistle-stop campaign. "I am the servant of the people of the United States. They are not my servants. I can’t order you around, or send you to labor camps, or have your heads cut off if you don’t agree with me politically 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

The great Amy Howe on SCOTUS' gift to Trump. She plays it straight. www.scotusblog.com/2026/08/supr...

So what did Thomas Jefferson and John Adams do after they left office? 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Bygone era, August 9, 1974. "There stood Richard Nixon, less than two years after a smashing landslide of a reelection victory, a solitary figure on a helicopter’s steps, his hands outstretched for last time, to be carried away to political oblivion." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

[M]en by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties. 1. those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2dly those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them cherish and consider them. Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, towards the end of his remarkable life: "When I look back to the days of my youth, it is like looking over a field of battle. All, all dead! and ourselves left alone amidst a new generation whom we know not, and who know not us." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

On this day, July 8, 1896, William Jennings Bryan gave his "Cross of Gold" speech. It was a bit downhill after that. Bryan's message was durable, but didn't travel particularly well that year. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Tall ship....

Tall Ship (Second Class)

@hcrichardson.bsky.social..."Best 4th of July Speech Contest (Besides Frederick Douglass). My entry, JQ Adams "swept away all the rubbish of accumulated centuries of servitude--proved that the social compact was no figment of the imagination; but a real, solid, and sacred bond of the social union."

This guy, in all his flawed brilliance. Metaphor for a country?

On this day in 1948, Thomas E. Dewey was nominated by the Republican Party. He was considered a lock to beat incumbent President Harry S. Truman. But Truman had other ideas... 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

A few thoughts about bedrock American values, as we approach the 4th of July. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

D-Day, and a reminder that true heroism consists of acts, and not words. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

RFK assassinated June 5, 1968. "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it" Ted Kennedy

If you want to know about politics without the froth... centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

Some thoughts about what we might need to offset some of the damage Trump is doing. And from whom. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

SCOTUS fulfills the wildest dreams of GOP, blessing Alabama's racially discriminatory map. I was too soon with this--three weeks is a long time when you want to reward your ideological soulmates. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

It seems to be a good day to post about the Supreme Court and Justice Roberts. Of course, it's almost never a good day to post about them... 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

April 15, 1865. Lincoln succumbs. The following day is Easter Sunday+New Testament allusions could not be overlooked. Nor the confluence with the Passover seder: Destined to lead the slaves out of bondage and to see the Promised Land, but not permitted to enter. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

For the Lincoln men and women among us, including @hcrichardson.bsky.social and @jbf1755.bsky.social As April 14 turns to April 15 Special War Correspondent and Britannia consoles Columbia.

It ends for Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia

This is just for fun. Nothing deep, political, etc. If you read and you like it, that's pleasure enough for me. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/c...

February 27th, 1860, Abraham Lincoln travels to Cooper Union to introduce himself. “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. ”https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2019/02/radical-centrism-lincoln-at-cooper-union.html

FDR's first crisis, resolved. "The effect was remarkable. The following day, Monday, March 13th, hundreds, perhaps thousands of customers returned to their banks—to put their cash and gold in, not take it out. Roosevelt had turned them around, given them confidence." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

227th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. Let's remember what might be his greatest speech. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

76 years ago... Wheeling, West Virginia, a "star" is born. "The speech itself is neither eloquent nor subtle. The former amateur boxer wades in with both fists. It’s likely even built on a lie—there was no list—at least not one McCarthy would let people look at." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

One of the great pictures of the last century, unattributed, with an uncertain ID of the men pictured: My review of Christine Roussel's "Lunch On A Beam" 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, must spring up amongst us. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Tens of thousands of hungry desperate people arrive in DC to ask for relief. Waiting for them, Hoover, MacArthur, Ike, and, ready to lead a cavalry charge, George Patton. "If the Army must be called out to make war on unarmed citizens, this is no longer America." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Watching Trump struggle, his constant assurances that everything is much better, remind us Herbert Hoover. "More Dickensian is Hoover’s insistence that the Federal Government should play little or no role in aiding the individual who falls into destitution." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

With tomorrow the 84th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, hoping @hcrichardson.bsky.social might add some context to what a great nation does when faced with an existential challenge--and leadership needs to step up.

So, he begins to fail, becomes a man apart, so committed to his credo, so dismissive of alternatives, that he appears detached and unfeeling, and finally tone-deaf. All he has left is the authority of his office and his sense of virtue mixed with grievance. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

As the anniversary of the Gettysburg address approaches, the cause of the war remains relevant. Lincoln's election triggered secession, but what options did he have besides either surrendering his Presidency or surrendering the principles that got him elected? 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

What can happen when institutions (and people) fail to foresee/adapt/take seriously 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

"It was crazy. Republicans had some hard-boiled talkers amongst them—shock-jocks like Rush, serious men like Pat Buchanan, but this was the team that usually nominated accomplished, mainstream adults. That fling with Goldwater in 1964 was … a summer thing..." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

"Trump I was gaudy and messy, but until January 6th...didn’t seem to be life-altering. Trump II, well, “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.” 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

"Trump I was gaudy and messy, but until January 6th (soon to be a major motion picture with a semi-fictional Horst Wessel figure) didn’t seem to be life-altering. Trump II, well, “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.” 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

A few thoughts about certain level of courage. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

"That people lust for the Presidency, that they reach as hard as they can for it, doesn’t necessarily make them able, or the better choice—even if they take the prize. The responsibilities of the office come at you fast." 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

A word (or three) from the author of the Declaration 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

One more....John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, President and Vice-President, have reasons to disagree 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

A few words from Thomas Jefferson. Not always a Unionist. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

What do you do after the parades are over? 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/o...

Eighty-one years ago today. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

When too much power is welded to too little common sense. 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...