[ Posted Monday, May 28th, 2018 – 17:15 UTC ]
Since today is Memorial Day, I'd like to begin with a remembrance of our most forgettable war, the War of 1812. How forgettable was this war? Well, its bicentennial passed by a few years ago, but the country as a whole took little notice. That's pretty forgettable, as these things are measured. In fact, only one event during this war has become what one might call (if one were in the mood for a pun) a "Key" moment, but more on that in due course.
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[ Posted Friday, May 25th, 2018 – 17:22 UTC ]
We've always been planning a meeting with Eastasia. What's that? Oh, wait... we've never been planning a meeting with Eastasia. Any suggestion of such a meeting has been tossed down the memory hole -- along with the commemorative coins we prematurely minted to celebrate it.
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[ Posted Thursday, May 24th, 2018 – 16:56 UTC ]
This is the fourth time in two weeks I've written about Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. And, at this point, I have to admit, I'm completely stumped. I have no idea what is going on, and no idea what to expect next. I suspect I am not alone in this position, either.
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[ Posted Monday, May 21st, 2018 – 17:26 UTC ]
Donald Trump supposedly wrote a book on how to be the world's best dealmaker. He didn't actually write it, of course (hence the "supposedly"), and it's even doubtful whether he's ever even read it through, cover to cover. He's not a big reading guy, to put it as politely as possible. But the thoughts contained within The Art Of The Deal were indeed Trump's, painstakingly collected by his ghostwriter. What one has to wonder right now, though, is whether North Korea's Kim Jong Un is following Trump's dealmaking script better than Trump -- because from outside appearances, this now seems to be the case. Perhaps, unlike Trump himself, Kim Jong Un actually read (and took to heart) The Art Of The Deal.
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[ Posted Tuesday, May 15th, 2018 – 17:19 UTC ]
Quixotic. Peripatetic. Mercurial. These are all ten-dollar words which could describe Donald Trump's approach to foreign policy matters. A less-fancy term might be "totally incoherent." Trump stands for nothing, has a situational approach to any individual foreign policy issue, and doesn't seem all that conversant with important details -- all of which add up to a foreign policy that his own foreign policy advisors can't predict. They are continually being caught by surprise by some off-the-cuff Trump tweet or statement, and regularly scramble to provide some sort of backup to whatever bee Trump currently has in his bonnet. It's Nixon's madman theory writ large, because even Trump's own White House has no earthly idea what he'll do or say next. At least Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were on the same page in their madman gambit, but Trump doesn't seem to be sharing his thoughts with anyone within his administration.
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[ Posted Friday, May 11th, 2018 – 18:03 UTC ]
Before we get to all the Trumpy news of the week, we had to headline what is going on in Paul Ryan's House, since it hasn't been getting enough attention yet. Because the House Republicans are revolting!
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[ Posted Thursday, May 10th, 2018 – 17:26 UTC ]
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has agreed to meet with Donald Trump next month in Singapore, which will be a historic summit meeting. This meeting will in fact be unprecedented, as no North Korean leader has ever previously sat down with a United States president. Predicting what will come out of this meeting is really anyone's guess, since both leaders can be described as mercurial (and even that's being polite to both of them, really).
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[ Posted Tuesday, May 8th, 2018 – 17:00 UTC ]
We are now exactly six months away from this year's midterm congressional elections. Today, four states are holding their primaries: Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia. This means the 2018 election season can be said to have already begun in earnest. There are two races everyone will be watching tonight, one on each side of the aisle. The Senate GOP primary in West Virginia is the more important of the two, but the Democratic governor's race in Ohio is also going to garner some attention.
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[ Posted Friday, April 27th, 2018 – 17:52 UTC ]
Last week, we were admonished for celebrating 4/20 in a manner that was too subtle by half. We subtitled last Friday's article: "Dazed And Confused," and began with: "We don't know why that headline sounded like such a good idea on today, of all days. [Ahem.]" But the rest of the article didn't really have much to say about the issue of marijuana. So today we are going to correct that lack, as you can tell by this week's subtitle.
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[ Posted Friday, April 20th, 2018 – 17:23 UTC ]
We don't know why that headline sounded like such a good idea on today, of all days. [Ahem.] But it somehow seemed appropriate when the week began with the Trump White House casually tossing Nikki Haley under the bus. Except, unlike most of the folks now residing down there with her, Haley pushed back on the cover story that she had just somehow "gotten confused."
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