“American congressional democracy is broken … We had sustainable finances in the bag. Then the new George W. Bush administration put a rock in the bag and threw it into the Marianas Trench.”

Link. “Fixing our politics will require large numbers of our citizenry to give up deeply-held self-delusions … More in future weeks.”

Lotterman is basically an “Arne Carlson*” old time MN conservative — an extinct species that we sorely need to resurrect. I’m very curious what he’s going to advise.

(The modern MN GOP hates Carlson with supernova intensity.)

Slavery in the Ottoman Empire: “Responding to the influence and pressure of European countries in the 19th century, the Empire began taking steps to curtail the slave trade… Legislation explicitly prohibiting slavery was finally adopted in 1964.”

Link. Read this after an excellent audiobook on Ottoman history which time and again returns to role of Ottoman slaves. Slavery was hugely important to sustain empire and lasted into late 19th century.