The UK and the US

The depressing results of the British elections are in, and, inevitably, people are drawing parallels to American politics and the prospects for 2020.  Notably, the usually sensible Roger Cohen, the predictable Bret Stephens and the contemptible Steve Bannon are all ...

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The Party of Trump

Brimming with self-righteous protest, Congressional Republicans have angrily rejected the clear and compelling case that their president has committed impeachable offenses.  Can they really believe that Trump wasn’t trying to extort a foreign government for his personal domestic political purposes?  ...

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Tomasky’s False Choice

I always look forward to reading Michael Tomasky’s commentaries, but this usually insightful pundit gets it wrong in today’s NY Times.  He notes that Democrats have to decide on questions of scope and speed of the impeachment process.  He thinks ...

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Out the whistleblower!

In line with demands by Donald Trump, Rand Paul and others of their party, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee continue to display a fervent desire to expose the identity of the whistleblower who first alerted the country to Trump’s ...

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Ukrainegate and the Russia Problem

Some time ago I expressed concern that revulsion over Russian interference in US domestic politics and over the Trump/Putin bromance works against a realistic approach to our relations with Russia. Yes, we should oppose Russian wrongdoing, but we still need ...

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Liberal Condescension? (II)

I generally try to avoid repeating myself, but some things bear repeating.  A couple of years ago I did a post by this title challenging the common belief that condescending attitudes by liberal elites towards average Americans were a contributing ...

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Parsing the polls

The NY Times’ election analysis whizzes at “538” published poll findings the other day that have caused understandable consternation among Democrats.  The polls, taken in 6 key battleground states, show that Trump is highly competitive with his prospective Democratic opponents.  ...

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The grounds for impeachment

It now looks as though the impeachment of Donald Trump will focus exclusively, or nearly exclusively, on Trump’s shakedown of the Ukrainian government to generate dirt on Joe Biden.  That’s a shame. Suppose—yes, it’s hard, but just suppose—that before that ...

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A big fly in the Medicare for All ointment

I’m a great admirer and appreciative reader of Harold Meyerson, editor at large of The American Prospect and a frequent op-ed. writer for The Washington Post.  In a recent newsletter, Meyerson tries to show how Elizabeth Warren can defend her ...

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Syria

In the well-justified outrage at Trump’s tossing the Syrian Kurds to the tender mercies of his pal Erdogan, there has been a tendency to lose sight of the bigger questions regarding the US presence in Syria. What are we doing ...

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