While I do realize that a very entertaining playground fight between the world's most prominent schoolboys is currently raging, I am going to exercise a monumental amount of restraint and not address the dustup between Elon Musk and Donald Trump today. Besides, by tomorrow, there'll probably be several more amusing developments to talk about, right?

Instead, I am going to stick to what I intended to write about today, which is to give some advice for Democrats seeking for ways to realign the party's fortunes. Partly, this is a question of style, although we're going to start with some substance that has been sorely missing from Democrats resisting what Donald Trump has been doing in office. This column should be seen as a companion to yesterday's column, which was more ideological in nature.

Continue Reading »

So there's a public gathering in Washington this week that aims to fix what's wrong with the Democratic Party. It is called "WelcomeFest" and is yet another effort to make the party "more moderate" (they talk of being "partisan centrists"), while admittedly trying to emulate the amount of energy from the progressive side of the party. One of the founders of the "Welcome Party" summed this up: "We respect the very robust and multifaceted effort on the progressive faction of the party over the last few years. They had a lot of clear coherency behind it, and there was a lot of action. We are essentially just trying to emulate that faction of the party." However, one has to wonder what they really mean when they talk of being centrists and moderates, since the lion's share of the funding behind the effort comes from Democratic deep-pocket donors, instead of being supported by any sort of authentic grassroots effort.

Continue Reading »

Elon Musk is back in the news. He's upset over the Republican budget bill and he's having a hissy fit about it online. Musk seems destined to lose this battle, since by coming out against the bill he set himself at odds with Donald Trump -- and Trump is a lot more popular with the Republican base than Musk. On the other hand, Musk has an almost unlimited amount of money and he's quite willing to toss millions at political causes when he feels like it. So it's tough to really predict how any of this is going to play out.

Just last week, Musk was apparently saying goodbye to politics. He left his job advising Trump and said he was going to devote all his time to his various companies. He also said he intended to pull way back on spending money on political causes. But since Musk is just as mercurial as Trump, he can change his mind at any point on any position he previously held. Which he may possibly be doing. Or not -- perhaps he's just having a hissy fit and it'll wind up being another little tempest in a teapot.

Continue Reading »

In the annals of warfare, at times new inventions completely revolutionize how wars are fought. The full list of these is long, so here are just a few prominent historical examples: gunpowder, the rifle cartridge (as opposed to musket balls), the machine gun, airplanes, and tanks. War-changing inventions don't always have to be offensive weapons -- radar would certainly qualify. In each case, however, the introduction of something new onto the battlefield has completely changed how wars are fought. Battleships had to give way to aircraft carriers. Before that, cavalry gave way to tanks. So it goes.

We seem to be at such an inflection point now, which is not exactly an original observation, but it was brought into stark relief by the Ukrainian attack on Russian airfields this weekend. Because the war in Ukraine (as well as a few other conflicts around the world) has shown the evolution of warfare that is happening right now. Call it the dawn of the era of robot wars. Or, if you're not as big a fan of old-fashioned nomenclature as I am, perhaps calling it the era of drone wars would be more accurate.

Continue Reading »

This week, Wall Street figured out something about Donald Trump (that Vladimir Putin has known for quite a while now) and gave it a catchy name: "TACO." This stands for: "Trump Always Chickens Out."

Let's start with Putin, before we get to the economic TACOs. Trump has been flailing around on Russia's invasion of Ukraine ever since he got into office again, as Vladimir Putin plays him like a violin. This has now descended into outright ridicule:

Continue Reading »

Donald Trump may accomplish one big thing as president, in his second term. He may speed up the judicial process to the point where its decisions are still actually relevant when they are handed down.

I say this after the legal whiplash of the last 24 hours or so, as first two federal courts ruled (independently of each other) that Trump's worldwide tariffs were illegal, and then today an appellate court temporarily halted the injunction (which would have erased all the tariffs Trump announced on "Liberation Day"). So we're now (temporarily, at least) back to where we were before yesterday's rulings, as the appellate court has asked both the plaintiffs and the Trump administration to file their responses in the next two weeks. They could issue a final ruling on the appeal at any time after that. Obviously, no matter which way the appellate court rules, this case seems destined for the Supreme Court in the end, but nobody knows how fast they'll rule on it (if they followed their normal schedule, it'd take at least six months or so for a final ruling, but they may well expedite the case).

The case centers on two separation-of-powers questions: Can Congress delegate their constitutional power to levy taxes (such as tariffs), or is this impermissible... and if they can do so, did they actually do so in the law Trump is citing as the one which gave him the ability to levy tariffs on the entire rest of the world on a whim?

Continue Reading »

There are two basic ways to successfully deal with a bully: you can stand up to him, or you can laugh at him. Wall Street is apparently now taking the second route, as traders openly ridicule Donald Trump.

There's a new acronym making the rounds on Wall Street: "TACO," or (more specifically) the "TACO trade." It stands for "Trump Always Chickens Out," and it refers to the resilience of the markets after a cycle which is becoming more frequent in Trump's tariff war. The cycle starts when Trump, in a fit of pique, announces insanely-high tariffs will be levied. The market then tanks. Trump then backs off and announces he will be "pausing" the tariffs, or severely rolling them back. The market then gains back what it had lost.

Here's the latest iteration of this new phenomenon:

Continue Reading »

Donald Trump never admits he's ever been wrong about anything. His narcissistic personality won't allow him to, most likely, but no matter what the psychological reason behind it is, Trump infamously never admits a mistake. This weekend he came about as close to admitting being wrong as he ever has, which was remarkable enough.

Trump has long admired Russian leader Vladimir Putin, since Putin runs his country exactly the way Trump wants to run America -- with an iron fist, squashing all dissent swiftly and brutally, and never having to answer to anyone for any of it. Trump's Putin-envy (or even Putin-love) has been downright embarrassing to watch over the years, but it has been effective in morphing a good part of the Republican Party away from their traditional stance that Russia is always and always will be an adversarial enemy of this country (see: the Cold War, Ronald Reagan, etc.). But perhaps all of that is about to change, now that the scales are falling from Trump's eyes? One can only hope....

Continue Reading »

Because today is Memorial Day, I decided to take the day off.

It has now been fourteen months to the day since one of the worst days Baltimore has ever had, and while progress has been made on rebuilding the Key Bridge, the reopening isn't scheduled for another three years.

So I decided once again to hearken back to a much better day for Baltimore -- a day filled with violence, but one in which America scored a decisive military victory that was a pivotal moment in ending a war. It's a war few people remember today, but the victory is still celebrated before virtually every sporting event that takes place in this country, even if the circumstances have largely been forgotten. So once again, this Memorial Day, let's all take a moment to give the Battle of Fort McHenry its due.

[I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday today, and new columns will resume tomorrow.]

Originally published June 28, 2018

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.

Continue Reading »

Once again, the Republican Party has laid out its real agenda, in the form of a federal budget. And once again, they have proven what their real priorities are: cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans no matter what -- no matter who has to pay for it, or how.

Democrat Rahm Emanuel, who we should mention is considering running for president in 2028, came up with a slogan for Democrats to use when explaining this to the American people: "Tax cuts for the wealthy, healthcare cuts for the many." We have to admit, that's pretty good, although there are certainly plenty of other ways to phrase the basic point. We might go with: "the reverse-Robin Hood Republican budget," since it conjures up the image of: "stealing from the poor to give to the rich." Or perhaps something more personal, such as: "Donald Trump lied to you," or "Trump does not care about your family at all."

Continue Reading »