Hillary Clinton warned us all, almost exactly ten years ago to the day. In a debate moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News (which took place on October 19, 2016), Clinton and Donald Trump had a memorable exchange that has turned out to be sadly prophetic.

In the midst of a discussion about open borders, Clinton made a pivot and started talking about Russia and Vladimir Putin. Here's what she had to say about it, from the transcript of the debate:

Read Complete Article »

First off, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Leif Erikson Day! (well... kind of.)

Getting back to more modern times, Donald Trump is increasingly pushing legal boundaries, in multiple directions. That's barely even news anymore, since it has been happening with such frequency throughout his second term, but some of his moves in particular of late have been drawing the ire of even his own Republicans, which does make it a little more newsworthy. Plus the fact that some folks are even calling his biggest move over the weekend treasonous, which does up the ante a little too.

Read Complete Article »

War is changing. That's not too surprising, since war has always been changing. New offensive weapons appear, giving one army superiority over another. Such advances can win battles and even whole wars. New defensive weapons are developed to counter the threat, so even newer offensive weapons are then developed. The cycle never stops, really. And this has been true since the beginning of time, so it really shouldn't be surprising that it's happening in a big way once again.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump just hosted the leader of China on a state visit, and in the end it turned out to be a total flop. No big announcements happened, no big deals were cut, in fact nothing much of anything took place, other than Trump trying desperately to impress Xi Jinping with his new heliport and all the other laughable modifications he's done to the White House. Xi wasn't notably impressed (of course), but he did promise two more giant pandas would be heading to America soon, so that's something, at the very least.

The truly epic part of this failure at summitry was that none of it was caught on the television cameras. Which must have thoroughly cheesed off Trump, for whom an event that doesn't appear on television simply does not exist.

Read Complete Article »

Donald Trump just signed a new "deal" (or maybe: a "new" deal) with Denmark and Greenland. The scare quotes are there to signify the fact that this really isn't a new deal at all -- it mostly just reaffirms the existing agreement that has been in place since the dawn of the Cold War, back in 1951. But the leaders of Greenland and Denmark were smart enough to know that repackaging what was already in place would soothe Trump's bruised ego and gave him a performative signing ceremony he could brag about. This shows the rest of the world that coddling Trump the way you would a small infant is often the best path forward for other world leaders.

Read Complete Article »

Did this year's "October surprise" happen early? I have been pondering this question all weekend, after several major developments have taken place in the increasingly regional war in the Middle East. Could these developments affect the American midterm elections in the way that traditional last-minute political "surprises" have in the final weeks before the public votes? So far, the answers seem unclear, but the potential certainly exists, even though few have commented on this possibility.

Read Complete Article »

America just broke a record today, but it's not one to be proud of. The average price of diesel fuel nationwide just hit $5.85 per gallon, which is the highest it has ever been. It beat the previous record of $5.82, which was set in 2022, just after Russia invaded Ukraine. Diesel costs have risen over 50 percent since Donald Trump started his war of choice with Iran. But even though he normally likes bragging about setting records, Trump will probably not be boasting about this one.

Read Complete Article »

Here we go again. Our toddler-in-chief threw another tantrum this week, because he was mad at Canada. Donald Trump was astonished that Canada didn't immediately knuckle under and agree to all his kooky demands, so he went ahead and opened up a whole new trade war with our neighbor to the north. These demands (to show you how inane the negotiations must have been) included trying to force Canada to reject their bilingual nature and get rid of all that French stuff. Canada refused. So Trump announced a new 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods. Canada then announced their own tariffs on American goods. Trump then threw his tantrum, announcing that he had just renamed Lake Ontario, which will now officially and henceforth be known by the U.S. government as "Lake America" (or possibly "Lake Of America," Trump didn't seem too sure). Which (of course) spurred the internet to respond. The site MapQuest helpfully pointed people to a tool they could use to rename the lake to anything they wished, which (of course) led to all sorts of amusing new names for it (Lake Epstein Files? Lake Hormuz? Lake Cheats At Golf? Lake Gulf Of Mexico?). The funniest one (to us, at any rate) came from "Mister Cool" on the site formerly known as Twitter, who posted an image showing: "Lakey McLakeface."

Read Complete Article »

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made an announcement today, unveiling increased sanctions on Iran and also (possibly -- there were few actual details given) on countries which still do business with Iran. It was billed as being a tough declaration of economic warfare (he called it "D-Day"), but what is pretty obvious is that in reality it was an admission of military defeat.

Read Complete Article »

So doubtlessly you've heard the story -- which has gotten heavy coverage in the political press all week long, of course -- of the very progressive Democrat who not only won the primary for an open Senate seat but also impressively outperformed polling expectations, right? It was a huge story -- because it will mean there will now be three progressives on November Senate ballots in three swing states. Progressives scored a big win, which has given rise to much discussion among the pundits over whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the Democratic Party, because it is such a risky strategy right now (with control of the Senate hanging in the balance).

What's that? You didn't hear about all of this?

Well, that's because the mainstream media decided a different primary race was worth all their ink and airwave time instead. They obsessed over a progressive who very narrowly lost a primary in a governor's race (which is just not as important, to national politics, as the Senate races), because they could barely contain their relief and glee over seeing a progressive lose (even though the polls said she would win).

Read Complete Article »