As we keep hearing about how the U.S is in negotiations with Iran, Cuba, or Russia, it behooves all involved to remember that the U.S. is very much like Lucy from Peanuts: constantly tricking its friends, allies, vassals, and enemies into kicking a football that it pulls away at the last second, and then selling them psychiatric counseling for the trauma this causes.

Lucy offers psychiatric help for 5¢: 'The doctor is [in]'

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Labor
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I’d always remembered Eddie Izzard’s version,

“Someone’s killed 100,000 people. We’re almost going, “Well done! You killed 100,000 people? You must get up very early in the morning! I can’t even get down the gym. Your diary must look odd: ‘Get up in the morning, death, death, death, death, death, death, death – lunch – death, death, death – afternoon tea –... [More]”