In an extraordinary confluence of events, America mourned one former president as his body lay in state in the United States Capitol, while another former (and soon-to-be-again) president was sentenced after being found guilty of 34 felonies by a jury. Jimmy Carter had become almost the personification of decency in his post-presidential life, while Donald Trump has always been the personification of something a lot more tawdry.

Trump's sentence didn't actually amount to much. Officially, he was sentenced to "unconditional discharge," which sounds more like an embarrassing medical condition than a legal designation. What it amounts to is the state of New York sternly admonishing Trump by saying: "Tsk, tsk!" while perhaps wagging a disapproving finger at him. Trump will not serve a day in jail, he will not have to pay a penny in fines, and he won't even be subject to probation. None of these options were really available to the judge, since in ten days Trump will become president once again.

But even with the lack of any real punitive judgment against Trump, it will still stain his record. He is the first president to ever be convicted of a felony, and he will also be the first convicted felon to be sworn in as president once again. To use one of his favorite put-downs, this is nothing short of a national disgrace.

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Will TikTok be banned before Donald Trump even takes office? That is the question the Supreme Court will hear tomorrow. As things stand, a law will start to shut down TikTok in this country on the 19th, unless the company divests itself from ownership and control by the Chinese government. Which isn't very likely to happen in the next ten days. But the politics of the situation have been rather convoluted, so it's hard to predict what will happen or what the fallout will be in Washington.

Donald Trump oscillates between fearmongering about the Chinese government (which he always makes a point of calling "the Chinese Communist Party") and playing nice with them in order to cut deals and make money. You never know how he'll come down on any particular issue -- it mostly seems to depend on who has most recently lobbied him to adopt one stance or the other. Recently he's been ripping into China for something that is not actually true (Trump's false claim that the Chinese military are currently running the Panama Canal), but he's also flip-flopped on the TikTok ban once already (from being for a ban to now being against one), so it's anyone's guess how he'll react once he gets into office.

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Two years ago, for Presidents' Day, I wrote the following article in celebration of Jimmy Carter. At the time, he had just entered a hospice to live out his remaining days. He lasted almost two more years, reaching the impressive benchmark of turning 100 years old -- the longest any U.S. president has ever lived, in fact. And as the nation pays its respects to Carter before his final journey home to Plains, Georgia, I thought it was worth running this again. I have no idea if any other American president will ever make it to the century mark, but Carter's real legacy was not just a mark on a calendar, but the mark he made after he left office. And I have serious doubts whether any other former president will ever even get close to matching the good that Jimmy Carter did in his post-presidential career. He truly set the gold standard in that regard. His compassion for his fellow human beings was an inspiration to all, and I will always be grateful for his example of all the good a politician can still do after they leave office.

Originally published February 20, 2023

Former President Jimmy Carter has entered his final days. He has checked in to a hospice to live out his remaining time and, according to an official statement, has refused "additional medical care." So it seemed entirely appropriate to use this year's Presidents' Day to honor him. Carter was an extraordinary man and no matter what opinion you have about his presidency, he has set the absolute gold standard for doing good works as an ex-president -- that much is beyond dispute.

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Donald Trump's "Day One" in office is now less than two weeks away. He promised American voters a lot of action on his first day, but in the past few weeks he seems inordinately focused on some rather odd (one might say: "downright bizarre") goals. He has become a big fan of expanding America in what can only be called imperialistic fashion -- adding Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal to the American map. Today he floated a new idea, this one not a land-grab but instead of a sort of water-grab: he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America," for no particular reason (other than to annoy Mexico, one assumes).

It'd be easy to dismiss all of this as typical Trumpian rambling and bluster -- him getting a bee in his bonnet and then refusing to let it go, no matter how outlandish (pun intended) or impossible the goal. In case anyone's forgotten, this is a routine sort of thing for him. I see it all a little differently, however. I see this all as a monstrous distraction from what he has actually promised he would do, because he is now facing the reality that several of his big promises are going to turn out to be either impossible or incredibly hard to achieve. Perhaps I am wrong -- perhaps it is just Trump's deteriorating mind and his penchant for fleeting monomania about the silliest of ideas. But Trump is the master of distracting the media (and the country as a whole) from any possible bad news which might be blamed in some way on him, so I think this is more of a calculated attempt to toss out lots of red herrings in advance of him actually having to govern once again. Call it a pre-emptive distraction effort.

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Today was a pretty boring day in Washington -- which is as it should be. Congress met and certified the Electoral College votes in the ceremonial finish to last year's presidential election. There were no riots, no protests, and no insurrection attempt by a brigade of sore losers. The Capitol remained peaceful throughout. In fact, the whole thing was so boring that it's really not even worth writing a whole column about it.

Instead, let's focus on what the new Congress has on its plate. With two weeks to go before Donald Trump is sworn into office again, Republicans are already eager to get his second term rolling. The Senate will begin hearings on Trump's cabinet appointees, most of which will be pretty dull and perfunctory -- but a handful of them could get quite lively indeed. Especially considering the fact that Democrats will get to question each of them publicly about anything under the sun. They'll do so to score political points, but also in an effort to convince a few worried Republicans of the candidates' unfitness for office. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, so it will take four of them rejecting any nominee to tank their chances. But most of them will wind up sailing through the process, even if one or two do get derailed.

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Program Note: I must begin today's column with an apology. I had fully intended to write and run this column yesterday, but external events precluded it, and instead I spent all afternoon under the car, performing necessary repairs. It wasn't too bad -- it was 70 degrees outside and not raining (not to rub it in, for those of you actually experiencing winter...) -- but it took all my time and energy for the day, so I was not able to post the annual "banished words" column in a timely manner. My apologies.

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This is not really a column, more of a cheerful year-end program note instead, just to let everyone know.

I had every intent of sitting down today to write my annual humor installment reviewing the "banished words" for next year, but the kindly folks at the Lake Superior State University have let me down and it seems they won't be publishing the list today, but are instead waiting until the new year actually dawns to do so (they are inconsistent -- sometimes the list appears before the ball-drop, and sometimes afterwards). So you'll have to wait until at least tomorrow for that (or possibly Thursday, no promises...), due to circumstances beyond my control (sorry).

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American politics can, at times, be cyclic in nature. One party has a defining characteristic and the other party is at the opposite end of the spectrum -- but over time the pendulum can swing, and the parties wind up reversed from their previous positions. Case in point: it wasn't that long ago that congressional Democrats were known for their fractious behavior with many different factions at loggerheads with each other, to such a point that large groups of them crossing the aisle and voting with the Republicans was a regular occurrence. Charmingly enough, it was referred to as Democrats' "cat-herding problem." Cats, as we all know, are impossible to herd, since they are all fierce individualists and resist any attempts to get them all headed in the same direction. Herding the Democratic cats was seen as a Herculean (and quite possibly impossible) task.

That was only a few decades ago, mind you. Nowadays, however, it is the Democrats who are known for sticking together, which is largely the result of having very strong leaders in both the House and the Senate who were adept at twisting arms and cajoling their members to stick together. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid demonstrated that Democrats weren't always a herd of cats, and could indeed present a unified face to the other party. These days, of course, it is the Republicans who have a cat-herding problem. The pendulum of politics has swung.

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When I first wrote this, of course, conspiracy theories were just a fun and amusing distraction for most people. These days, they're more of a worldview or way of life for far too many Americans, but I'm not going to let that stop me from re-running this, as it is my own most-favorite holiday column. So sit back and enjoy as I expose the biggest conspiracy of all time -- one that has been going on longer and affected more people than anything else imaginable.

Originally published December 23, 2009

Speaking as someone who generally enjoys a good conspiracy theory just for the "creative writing" aspect alone, in all good conscience I simply must report this shocking news: I have uncovered a big, fat conspiracy that is no mere theory. We're either being lied to, or we're joining in the propagation of the lie ourselves, with merriment. In actual fact, it would not be hyperbole to call this the father of all conspiracies.

And almost every single one of us has participated in this gigantic hoax, in one form or another, at least once in our lives. For many, it happens like clockwork on a regular basis. And it seems to prove Hitler's point about the "Big Lie" -- if you repeat it often enough, sooner or later a certain segment of the populace will accept it as being true.

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Donald Trump is a master at deflecting attention. Over and over again, he trots out some outrageous idea or catchphrase, and the media all goes chasing after it because they seemingly can't help themselves. Meanwhile, the things Trump is actually doing don't get much attention, which is the whole point of the exercise.

Case in point is Trump suddenly championing a twenty-first century American "Manifest Destiny," where he has set his sights on three pieces of real estate he'd like to add to the United States: Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. Spoiler alert: none of these are serious proposals. None will actually happen. And yet they are being treated seriously (or at least semi-seriously) by people who really should know better by now.

So let's run down these three ideas, in the order of how preposterous they are (although it's tough, since they are all kind of equally preposterous, when you get right down to it).

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