“Personnel is policy” is a decent maxim as a guide to indications as to the directions a new administration will take. A president-elect’s prospective appointees generally have histories and perspectives that are well-known. Whom he chooses tells us something about ...
Read MoreThe most benign explanation of Trump’s refusal to concede is that he is engaged in the predictable hissy fit of a cartoonishly extreme narcissist who simply cannot acknowledge that he is a loser. Republican leaders are going along: better to ...
Read MoreThe election seems to have taken place without major incidents of violence or disruption, but there was a good deal of tension at many polling places. The following interesting account by a Detroit poll watcher was sent to me by ...
Read MoreAs of now, it looks like Joe Biden will be the next president of the US. That’s the good news. Biden will be able to undo some of the damage that Trump has wrought over the past four years. The ...
Read MoreWe learn from Thomas Friedman that Trump has re-tweeted a QAnon-linked post that reported that Bin Laden’s killing was faked by the Obama administration, which may have actually killed a bunch of SEALs. Another post re-tweeted by the POTUS held ...
Read MoreSo, the question wasn’t asked. Just as well—I didn’t expect Biden to follow my recommendation. I don’t think the debate changed many votes, which is fine: Trump needed a knockout, and he didn’t get it. But I did think that ...
Read MoreThey asked it of the candidates during one of the 2016 debates. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was something like “Do you have anything good to say about your opponent?” Trump answered by talking about Clinton’s doggedness; ...
Read MoreI don’t know how much the voters care, but I thought it unfortunate that Kamala Harris ducked the question Pence insistently posed to her: would Joe Biden seek to pack the Supreme Court? The correct response was not to dodge ...
Read MoreBiden was Biden (unimpressive) and Trump was Trump (a mendacious blowhard). Two polls–CNN and CBS--showed that Trump lost. Biden would be well within his rights to say that Trump’s obnoxious behavior and continuous lies make debates a farce, and refuse ...
Read MoreIn a post a couple of months ago, I discussed the unprecedented possibility of what would amount to a coup d’etat in the United States—the effective cancellation of a presidential election result. At the time I assessed the particular nightmare ...
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