Trump: 7 Crimes and 73 Years
People who loathe Trump ask: Why hasn’t DOJ indicted Trump yet. Isn’t there a mountain of evidence proving guilt? The absence of an indictment is seen as Garlandian cowardice, typical liberal squishiness and the misplaced impulse not to offend Republicans. (Newsflash to Garland critics: He probably knows that you can’t offend something that, by definition, […]
Reactionaries are phonies who endanger civilized society.
“The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization” is the title of the article. Above it is the stock, golden-afternoon-glow photo of the Roman Forum blaring at the reader that ancient (and not a little blood-soaked) Rome is the reference point for “civilization”. Cliché, certainly, but intriguing to anyone interested in the fate of a society teetering on […]
Cannon fires another judicial salute in gratitude to Trump.
To recap: On August 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant and lawfully removed from Trump’s possession stuff that doesn’t belong to him. He ran to Judge Cannon, an appointee of his, and got her to appoint a Special Master to scour that stuff for things that the FBI shouldn’t see/have or should return […]
Unrecognizable Russia
(By MH, guest contributor) We Russophiles, we lucky few who have experienced Russia in depth, over the years, repeatedly, without the language as a barrier, know how wonderful it can be, with, on a personal level, unequalled hospitality, and with, on a cultural level, unrivalled refinement and professionalism. I dare say for us, but certainly […]
Judges, too, have career aspirations.
DOJ has rightly appealed Trumper Judge Cannon’s incoherent Order in favor of Trump in his manufactured dispute over government-owned [sic] documents the FBI retrieved from his home. In normal (read, non-Trump-related) circumstances, the qualification of Cannon as a “Trumper” judge would be inappropriate and (probably) unjust. But her decision, including its hints of the resentment […]
Why is ignorance preferred?
The United States of Ignorance continues to thrive. The volume of sludge produced and consumed by the minute may have something to do with that. It’s the downside to the First Amendment which, for more than 200 years, has remained mute on what would be a most useful precondition: thine opinion on important public matters […]
Corrupt or Dim? You choose.
Give Judge Cannon credit for boldness in so transparently lending Trump, bestower of her sinecure, a hand with his most recent legal troubles related to pilfering government documents. Of course, that credit may be undue, a mistaken assumption of cleverness that doesn’t really exist. The casual observer faces the usual struggle: is he witness to […]
The same, yet different … for now
A friend writes to offer an article by Christian Esch, a German journalist, about how Russia’s assault on Ukraine has changed Moscow as came to know it over more than a decade of reporting from there. The change has not been for the better. Sensible people in press and media have left the country or […]
What took so long?
In May 2021, four months after the end of his presidency, the National Archives and Records Administration asked him to return materials that Trump had hauled to Mar-a-Lago, but which are owned by the public and administered by the US Government. Only in February 2022, after nine months of unsuccessful negotiation [sic] with Trump’s people, […]
What’s the big legal deal about executing a search warrant on a former president?
Jack Goldsmith, Deputy AG under George W. Bush, worries about Garland’s “using criminal process against former President Trump”. In support, he cites “sensible” commentators (George Will, Damon Linker, David Brooks) who believe that Garland “made a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one, in executing the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago”. In particular, he quotes Will’s concern with […]
Pence: What if…?
Mike Pence — the reactionary religious fundamentalist, white nationalist, and former resident at Observatory Circle under Vandal-in-Chief (ViC) — wants to lead the world’s superpower and its 330 million people. About half of those people prefer the republic’s immolation to a government that strives for the greater good. It’s true that, in contrast to his […]
Summer 2022: Tour d’horizon
And so, the world heads into the summer of 2022. The livin’ is easy even if reason, never abundant, continues to suffer from supply chain disruptions worldwide. Tolerance, like Marxism before it, is headed for the great dust heap that is “history”. It was worth a try, but the deteriorating quality of human capital diminishes chances […]
Russia Gets What it Wants
It’s been three months since Russia decided to bludgeon Ukraine into submission. To date, despite daily doses of “information” coming out of Moscow, the Russian government has left the world to speculate as to why and to what end. And to struggle with language: how does one even find words adequate to describe what Russia, […]
The Return of Trump and the Ménage à Trois
The remarkable Dan Froomkin speculates about media’s wanting Trump to run—and win—in 2024. He concludes: “I don’t think the mainstream media really wants Trump to win again. But I have a hard time explaining its behavior in any other way.” This mistakenly credits media with a sense of responsibility to the public. Froomkin admirably believes […]
$800 Billion for This? (Or, Taiwan is Toast.)
Washington’s decision to abstain from opposing by force Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals a truth about the $800+ billion the US wants to spend in the next 365 days on military matters: none of the muscle is intended for use against powers of equal heft, i.e., China or Russia or India. Smaller countries had better beware. Since […]