[ Posted Monday, February 8th, 2021 – 16:48 UTC ]
For only the fourth time in American history (and for the second time in approximately one year), the Senate will convene an impeachment trial tomorrow, to consider the charges against Donald Trump. Even at this late date, however, there are many unanswered questions about what exactly is going to take place this week, so I thought I'd review where things stand as of now (some of these issues may actually be resolved by the time I write, edit, format, and post this article, I should mention in advance).
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[ Posted Friday, February 5th, 2021 – 18:59 UTC ]
This week we were treated to the spectacle of the Republican Party largely voting in support of an advocate of using deadly violence towards her political opponents. How the mighty have fallen -- since this used to be the party that dearly loved to sanctimoniously lecture everyone on how high morals were an absolute necessity in politics, and that even the concept of "moral relativism" was evil. That all went out the window when they nominated the most amoral man imaginable for president, of course, but it's still rather shocking to see this once-publicly-righteous party wallow in the filth of QAnon and flirt with ideas like advocacy for assassinating political opponents.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 4th, 2021 – 17:51 UTC ]
As we head towards next week's impeachment trial of Donald Trump in the Senate, I think there are three important things to remember and to stress. In fact, I wish more in the media would point these things out on a regular basis, but if they fall down on the job then Democrats should immediately pick up the slack and remind everyone of a few hard, cold facts.
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[ Posted Friday, January 29th, 2021 – 18:29 UTC ]
President Joe Biden has now spent his first 10 days in office. All told, it's been fairly boring. Which is exactly what millions of Americans voted him into office to achieve. Journalists everywhere are writing absolute paeans to boredom. Throughout the land, a joyous cry is raised: "Let boredom ring!" Well, OK, that may be overstating it a tiny bit. But not by much.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 27th, 2021 – 17:32 UTC ]
This really shouldn't be all that extraordinary, but sadly it is. The Department of Homeland Security just issued a warning about the possibility of right-wing violence and/or terrorism. Here are the pertinent facts:
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[ Posted Monday, January 25th, 2021 – 16:35 UTC ]
The Washington political press corps have returned to some semblance of normalcy. One of the things this means is that President Joe Biden is getting scrutiny and criticism for the actual reality on the ground versus what he had promised. This follows a four-year period of being so cowed by Trump's firehose of lies and bluster that the press corps mostly didn't even bother, other than a few half-hearted attempts here and there.
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[ Posted Friday, January 22nd, 2021 – 18:18 UTC ]
Three momentous things happened last week which so overshadowed everything else in the political world that we're just going to ignore everything else up front, here.
First, Donald Trump slouched off to his golf resort in Florida a few hours early, for purely petty reasons -- he wanted the flight to still officially be "Air Force One" (a designation that only exists when the current president of the United States is on the plane), and he also didn't want to have to ask President Joe Biden for the routine favor of one last flight home on the big plane. So he flew while he was still president, after staging a pathetic goodbye rally at Joint Base Andrews (home base of the two planes that serve as Air Force One and Two). He forced the military into giving him one last 21-howitzer salute, and then flew south for the winter. And, hopefully, forever.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 20th, 2021 – 17:26 UTC ]
It is morning in America again.
Ronald Reagan famously made a lot of political hay out of that slogan. The phrase worked so well because Americans generally favor optimism and a bright future over the gloomier alternatives. All modern presidential candidates since Reagan have struck optimistic themes while campaigning. Except one.
Donald Trump actually did campaign on optimism, but only during his first run. He borrowed the language of populism and painted a rather rosy worldview for the forgotten blue-collar Midwestern worker, back in 2016. By doing so, he flipped the "Big Blue Wall" that Democrats had previously relied upon to give them the necessary Electoral College votes, and he thus won the presidency.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 19th, 2021 – 17:39 UTC ]
On April 20 of 2017, I remember talking to a friend who was already absolutely exhausted by all of Donald Trump's antics. I remember the date because I responded with: "It's been exactly three months since he took office. That means one-fourth of one year, or only one-sixteenth of his whole term." This was met with groans, even though I was really just trying to caution: "Pace yourself."
We have now almost (as I sit down to write this, there are exactly 18 hours to go) made it through the other 15/16ths of Trump's term. And everybody is now far beyond just being exhausted by it all.
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[ Posted Monday, January 18th, 2021 – 17:35 UTC ]
The mainstream media is finally using the correct terms to describe Donald Trump's efforts to overthrow an American election. The outbreak of insurrection at the U.S. Capitol apparently was enough for them to start calling a lie a lie. And not just a lie, but (as many journalists are now admitting) a Big Lie.
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