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I want to recommend a book I just started reading last night: "Suspicious Minds," by Rob Brotherton. As is usual, I read first the chapter that stuck out -- Chapter 5, The Paranoid Fringe. It takes a useful critical look at the seminal article by Richard Hofstadter -- "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" -- and also runs to ground a plausible origin of 'tinfoil hats.' The book is written in a wry conversational tone, and is not on the surface a ''scholarly" read thick with endless footnotes, but it also contains a very useful reference list by page number -- as well as a full index at the back. (My copy is from our local library, but I am going to order it from Amazon so I always have it on hand as a reference book.) Here is an excerpt from the first page that might whet OLer's appetite for more ... In a fit of recursion, I include this bit of commentary from earlier this month. It suggests that I am bound by ingrained prejudice/s, which may or may not be true ... yet leaves the door open to further friendly discussion. -- for those who like to check out reviews before purchasing or borrowing from a library, here's a selection -- which I thought remarkable. Remarkable in the sense of "how many reviews do not mention Donald Trump?" New York Times review by Adrian Chen Inside Higher Education review by Scott McLemee Brief Scientific American review by Maria Temming -- for the benefit of Dear Leader, I found the book is available at his local library too!

Mike LaChance is a contributor to the website "Legal Insurrection." His article "25 Not Salon-Approved Conservatives Worth Following on Twitter" wryly comments on an article at boo-hiss Salon. So I made a Twitter list. -- both LaChance and Salon writer Taylor Link address the point of 'the bubble,'' AKA 'information silos,' a tendency to consume news and commentary drawn only from a pool of like-minded people. One of the things I bear in mind as a Twitter consumer. Extend my purview, and all that. Here's LaChance's 25 embedded: A Twitter List by wsscherk

A glimpse of the worst kind of 'reporting' ... from the Gateway Pundit, determined to put something out there to agitate and draw clicks, regardless of truth: Then there are those who go with the first thing on their minds (a sample): -- and of course, the "news" from good old 'Baxter Dmitry' ... spinning hard, and adding a "false flag" note drawn from his asshole. Helpfully, the ghouls at Infowars are busting a gut to lay blame ... Alex Jones has identified the culprits: the Democrats and the Deep State:

Former President George W Bush doesn't usually make much news, but a speech he gave at his Presidential Center has the usual suspects dragging out portions of his speech for crimes against Trump. The theme of the conflab at the Bush Center was "The Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World." Here is the full speech, and below I add in the full text. Some folks think it was an unfair attack on the current President (or his perfect policies and actions). You listen, you read, you decide ... The nub of the matter? The full remarks ... cued to (one of) the 'attacks.' You can roll up and down to find other shameful examples of Swamp Gas. -- the kingdom of reaction, via Memeorandum.com -- see also MSK's new OL thread for a candid reaction to the "attack against Trump."

I can't make complete sense of the deal/no-deal, amnesty/no amnesty hoopla engorging the members of the media today. I think that the President wants to allow work permits continuing to be given to DACA folk, on the same two-year re-application schedule. But the hoopla machinery is at full screaming intensity today. From Memeorandum this moment: Whew!