“The Conservative’s claim over Britain goes even further than this. Beyond fronting their own purported achievements while in power, they seek to absorb the achievements of their political opponents as well – even, or especially, where these were achieved against the Torie’s opposition. The abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of women and the working class, the dissolution of Empire, the welcoming of refugees from war zones (such as the Kinderstransport during the Second World War) and the creation of the NHS – all these important chapters in the nation’s past often happened in the face of fervent opposition from the Tories somewhere along the way, but they are now celebrated by the Tories as proof of Britain’s – and their – magnanimity and good sense.”

“In fifteen years of political journalism, I had witnessed chicanery and skulduggery of every sort. Nothing could surprise me anymore; I was immune to outrage, bereft of the ability to recoil from iniquity. And then rediscovered the ReAwaken America Tour.”

“Here the different groups don’t even need to meet each other. Actually, it might be better if they don’t: what if one perceives the other as the enemy?” –

“You collect them all for a short period, literally for a moment, but so that they all vote together for one person. To do this you need to build a fairy tale that will be common to all of them.”

“The Democrats are bought and the Republicans even more so. They don’t represent us. They represent their donors. We have taxation without representation, just as we did before the American Revolution.”

“Our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” – Stephen Miller

“The Land Registry, despite being a public body funded by taxpayers’ money, continues to protect the interests of private landowners by concealing what they possess. A social taboo continues to stymie questions about land and private property ownership, and makes talk of land reform politically sensitive.”

A curious & compelling short book by South Korean journalist & writer Su-jin Chun. It could easily have been double-speak drivel about how North Korean women are the ultimate divas or outriders of modern feminism, but it is actually a mixed-bag on the isolated regime’s complex politics, sometimes yielding troves of esoteric details on the inner-workings & origins of Pyongyang’s ruling elite & the Kim saga.

Confessions of a Stratcom Hitman (Paul Erasmus):

“In 1981, the bloodthirsty madness was was an exercise costing about R1 million a day. Even ‘psych ops’ – the propaganda effort at the time – could not offset the exigencies of that. The reality is that the three decades ago, the regime spent a million bucks a day on promoting death and torture to prop up an Afrikaner elite, although at the time we didn’t see it like that at all.”

“And so, six years after the toppling of the dictator, a few hundred thousand Iraqis killed, a brutal insurgency, trillions of dollars wasted and five thousand dead US soldiers, the country was being rebuilt on the same model of a concentration of unaccountable power, shadowy intelligence services and corruption.”