The Far-Right Revolution Was Waiting for an Opportunity—Now, It’s Here

AT THIS POINT, it’s become a staple of dark humor to observe that 2020 has been the year in which the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse seemingly decided to descend on the United States. Yet even before our fears of war, pestilence, and economic collapse began taking physical form, one could already observe morbid symptoms spreading within the extremities of our body politic. The strongest sign of a looming social illness has been the rebirth and spread of extremist ideologies — beliefs not long ago dismissed by liberal triumphalists as relics of historical memory.
Mutated through new information technologies and drawing strength from feelings of economic and demographic dislocation, fascist and sectarian ideologies have found a home in the hearts of members of a new generation of Americans.

Whether most people have connected the dots or not, a violent struggle is already playing out. Over the past few years, a steady drumbeat of massacres has been carried out by extremists associated with the new far-right. These attacks have targeted synagogues, mosques, and communities where immigrants are concentrated. In their wake, the shooters left behind manifestos damning a world that they claimed was shrinking in space for people like them.

What these ideologues drifting within the currents of this movement have really been waiting for, however, is a real crisis, one that would give them an opportunity to put their ideas of racial warfare and ethnic purification into full effect. That crisis is here.

Patriotism Is Becoming ‘White Supremacy’

Never before has a speech extolling America’s virtues and the marvels or the nation’s heroes played to such poor — and completely dishonest — reviews.

At Mount Rushmore on Friday night, Donald Trump gave a speech that was very tough on the woke Left, while largely celebrating America — its Founders, its ideals and freedom, its capacity for self-renewal, its astonishing variety of geniuses, adventurers, warriors, inventors, and great musicians and athletes.

Then, his speech ended, and the press piled on with one of its most unhinged and dishonest performances of his presidency, which is saying something.

The Associated Press headlined its report on the speech “Trump pushes racial division, flouts virus rules at Rushmore.”

(The delicate way the news service put the targeting of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt was inadvertently amusing: “He zeroed in on the desecration by some protesters of monuments and statues across the country that honor those who have benefited from slavery, including some past presidents.”)

The Inside Story Of Why Mary Trump Wrote A Tell-All Memoir

For most of her life, Mary L. Trump was shunted aside by her own family.

Her uncle, President Trump, for years looked down on her father — his own brother, Fred Trump Jr., an alcoholic who died when she was a teen.

Naval Academy Midshipman's Sexual Assault Trial Comes as Military Undergoes its Own #MeToo Movement

As government attorneys, and sometimes the defense, questioned a potential member for an eight-member panel, they almost always turned to one question.

"Do you believe women who say they have been sexually assaulted?"

Asking the question made sense. The attorneys were questioning each potential member to see if they could sit on the member panel -- the court-martial version of a jury -- in the trial of Midshipman 3rd Class Nixon Keago.

Keago is charged with sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and burglary.

The trial is proceeding despite the COVID-19 pandemic, with the court using multiple methods to minimize the spread of the disease.

VA Teams Up with Nonprofit to Provide COVID-19 Quarantine Kits to Veterans

The Department of Veterans Affairs has teamed up with the nonprofit group Help Heal Veterans to help create quarantine kits for vets who are confined to their residences as a result of a positive COVID-19 test.

The program provides all the items needed to make the quarantine kits, which contain things to keep veterans who are in isolation in their homes, health care centers, or long-term care centers occupied. The VA and Help Heal Veterans provide the supplies to local organizations and volunteers, who then assemble and distribute the kits as needed.

Film Review: ‘Hamilton’ on Disney Plus

A snapshot of an earlier sense of optimism, Lin-Manuel Miranda's historical hip-hop musical offers fresh resonance for a divided America.

In the quarter-millennium since “ten-dollar founding father,” Alexander Hamilton took a bullet for his beliefs — if a senseless death by duel can reasonably be described in such idealistic terms — America has fought pandemics and wars, prejudice, and inequality, inching slowly toward a more perfect union. The year 2020 finds our country embattled once again, and while so much of the popular arts have been put on hold by a crippling coronavirus outbreak, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s electrifying Broadway musical “Hamilton” finds its way into American homes just in time for Independence Day weekend — more than a year ahead of its intended big-screen release.

Consider this a gift from Miranda — a populist poet laureate for the Obama generation — and distributor Walt Disney Studios, which opted to release “Hamilton” via streaming to all those stuck at home. Overseen by Thomas Kail, who also directed the show on Broadway, this direct stage-to-screen version of “Hamilton” isn’t a filmed adaptation but a “live capture” — a dynamic record of the musical as it appeared in New York, featuring the original cast. Covered over multiple performances by six cameras, the 2 1/2-hour feature is edited like the world’s longest Super Bowl halftime spectacular, which differentiates it from those stuffy theatrical productions aired on PBS, as if everything else about it weren’t entirely unique already.