Saturday Night Live will continue Alec Baldwin’s ham-handed send up of Donald Trump but it doesn’t look like Robert DeNiro will long reprise his role as a menacing Robert Mueller. The Special Counsel has filed his final report and closed shop on his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and, particularly, of whether…
Category: History
The President and the Chief Justice: No Big Deal
The hearts of the chattering classes have been all aflutter this week over an exchange between President Trump and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts this week. The President criticized what he described as an “Obama judge” for a ruling against the administration’s attempt to bar migrants who cross the border illegally from seeking asylum….
CNN vs. Trump
A shorter version of this sentiment appeared on November 29. 2018 as “CNN and Acosta Will Have a Lot to Answer For Later” in a letter to the Wall Street Journal. The case brought by CNN against the White House over suspension of the “Hard Pass of correspondent Jim Acosta will likely not be decided tomorrow…
The “Blue Wave” becomes a Red Trickle
The ballyhooed “Blue Wave” is not going to happen, There will be more of a “Red Trickle.” Since President Trump’s inauguration, an incessant drumbeat by the “mainstream Media” and the keepers and icons of our national culture has informed us that the reaction to Trump will be a “Blue Wave,” pouring Democrats into control of…
Birthright Citizenship: A Primer
President Trump proposes to end the long-accepted concept of “Birthright Citizenship” by executive order. Contrary to most current commentary, there is a legitimate case to be made that he has that authority. It is not a good or persuasive argument, however, and it contradicts conservative political and judicial principles. The concept of citizenship, as it…
We shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for senators to scrap the filibuster
Boston Globe letter The Globe’s laudable condemnation of the US Senate filibuster concludes with a disappointing whimper of a suggestion that the rule be limited and a more laughable one that senators change their behavior (“Fixing the US Senate,” Editorial, March 25). The filibuster is not a provision of the Constitution but a rule of…
The House Intelligence Memo: Damning Details
There’s not much news in the House Intelligence Committee Majority Staff Memo on abuses by a few individuals at the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) in the use of FISA (Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act) to conduct surveillance on domestic political opponents. There is confirmation of the leaks that the discredited “Trump Dossier” a/k/a “Steele…
Trump and the “S—hole Countries”
A great Issue of the Day has become whether President Trump said “Shithole countries” in describing unappealing sources of immigration. Democrats and their media allies have engaged in much hand-wringing over the horror. It certainly sounds like something he would say, but his opponents in the Congress and the media have focused on it in…
The “Russian Collusion” Investigation Takes an Unexpected Bounce
If John LeCarre’s later novels seem to have taken a more polemic tone than his byzantine earlier tales of espionage and treachery, maybe it’s because writers of spy thrillers, like practitioners of political parody and satire, find themselves ever more unable to stay ahead of reality. The subject of Russian interference in the 2016 American…
Jared Kushner’s White House role is far from unusual
(Because of their publication schedule, this op-ed in today’s Cape Cod Times was written two weeks ago, pre-Comey, pre-Sessions and pre-Republican baseball shootout. Dealing with the subject of sputtering outrage at the time, it now seems like a artifact from another era.) Critics, including syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker in “Family politics: Why is Kushner a…
A Primer: the Election, the Russians, Spies & Leaks
A large group of Americans wants an investigation into how the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the election. Another group wants an investigation into the Obama administration’s domestic spying on the Trump campaign and Transition Office and the leaks of classified material from intelligence agencies during the campaign and continuing. The first group…
Judge Gorsuch and the Filibuster
The Kabuki theatre that is a Senate confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice is approaching opening night. The principal actors have exchanged scripts but they already know their lines well, having played both parts before. Some bitterness remains from the last production which closed out of town when one set of actors refused to go…
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