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Liberty Triumphant Over A Dead Cow?  Treasures From The Yeltsin Center  

The New York Times reports another outbreak of American style presidentialish-ness, this time in the wilds of Russia.

The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center looms over Yekaterinburg, where young Boris began his climb of the greasy Communist pole.  His previous boosts to local history  include destroying  the building where the Bolsheviks killed the Russian royal family.

Boris is going to get the full American cheese plate, with stirring versions of his “compelling personal story” and a reproduction of his tank-standing posture in the events leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Tanks for the Memories  

Tank-adjacent events apparently not to be marked include his killing hundreds while shelling the Parliament which had impeached him.   Americans still basking in the afterglow of Saint Ronnie’s miracle victory over Communism may not recall that in the aftermath of  Parliament’s defeat Yeltsin rewrote the constitution removing any limits on Presidential power, enjoyed two genocidal wars in Chechnya and elevated the obscure Vladimir Putin to greatness.  While looting the economy.

Visitors will thrill to a recreation [“not a replica” the Times stresses] of his presidential office, featuring the actual furniture.

Instead, we can focus on how come all the fancy Decision Points® Theatre interactivity doesn’t give us a “choice” on the real question: stopping the Florida recount.

 

 Like a very fancy high school.

Work In Progress   

Latest news on the coalition of the willing shows an unexpected ally at Freedom’s Frontier: Zimbabwe’s Eternal President Robert Mugabe.

The word comes from the Open Society Institute’s new report on just how many countries the CIA roped into helping them capture, kill and drop ship terrorism suspects hither and yon.

Going with popular boogieman Mugabe seems an inspired choice, what with his storied history of firm government.

Boo!  

Cruz In For A Disabusing? 

Despite brave talk about how next time it will all be different with their brown brethren, your New Look GOP is still, shall we say squeamish about them whats from elsewhere.

Which makes it all the more surprising that some have turned to an immigrant to get the job done in 2016.

Passing over dozens of qualified white males [and that New Hampshire gal ] Politico is thinking big again.  Hearts are reported aflutter for Texas dreamboat Ted Cruz, despite his Canadian birth.

An immigrant to do a job Americans could do.

Politico reports the speculation with a straight face, carefully ignoring recent Republican birther flirtations, which go unmentioned.  Our favorite birther sub-cult was the variation which reluctantly accepted Obama’s Hawaiian birth, but branched off into unique interpretations of the Constitution’s “natural born” language involving invented disqualification based on his father’s citizenship.

Similar circumstances [father not a citizen] would appear to disqualify Cruz, but as Politico folkish-ly allows, Ted “knows a thing or two about constitutional law.”

The Senate newbie is clearly interested in the issue, with spokesman Sean Ruston pre-loaded with this less than spontaneous line:

“Ted is a U.S. citizen by birth, having been born in Calgary to an American-born mother” 

Over Done

                           

Fresh from mocking his real estate adventures, thoughtful observers have a new stick with which to beat mock socialogist David Brooks, while striking a glancing blow at Eternal President Ronald Reagan.

Brooks storied mendacity offends all right thinking folk, but now he’s throwing music into his pop culture poporiti, with comic results.

He’s joined the cult of Bruce Springsteen, with the added ickyness of traveling to observe The Boss’s caring antics in several of Europe’s tanking economies.

Nothing revulses like the clueless drawing vast conclusions from pretend empathy.

Bonus points to Alex Pareene and  “Mobutu Sese Seko” for recalling Springsteen inspired dimness of the Reagan era, when another Republican failed to strap Bruce to their caring conservatism.