I am enormously proud of my friend Alice Roberts for this interview she did on CNN, along with the longer one she did on MSNBC, both follow-ups to the Op-Ed she wrote earlier in the week for the Newark Star-Ledger.
Tag Archives: American politics
Pompeo and Circumstance
This morning, I made my third attempt at watching the RNC proceedings. My first was a minute-long foray into Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speech, which ended when I found it impossible to listen to a speech that described Puerto Ricans as immigrants. My second was an attempt to listen to Donald Trump, Jr., aborted about 30 seconds in, after he described a bunch of hapless virus-carrying bats as members of the Chinese Communist Party. This morning, I managed to make it all the way through Mike Pompeo’s speech from Jerusalem–a bittersweet event for me, because as an “ordinary citizen,” like Mike, I too had planned to go to Jerusalem this summer, but couldn’t, when I was mysteriously “struck” by unemployment in the best economy (with the best employment rate) the world has ever seen. Continue reading
South of Heavena
I decided this morning, from the motive of civic duty, to watch a bit of the RNC from last night. I got as far as Kimberly Guilfoyle’s describing her mother as a Puerto Rican immigrant, and I’m like, “OK, that’s enough. ” I’m pretty sure that civic duties are imperfect.
“An unforeseen future nestled somewhere in time.” If only we weren’t heading into it.
Imagine All the People
When Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, there were people out there who were absolutely certain that the explanation was sexism: the American people couldn’t (they insisted) handle the idea of a female president, and voted accordingly. You couldn’t get such people to consider the possibility that maybe Hillary Clinton lost the election because she was a complacent, uninspiring candidate. Continue reading
The Meaning of Super Tuesday
What is the Meaning of Super Tuesday, you ask. I’ll tell you.
Start with the facts. Biden made a comeback. Sanders won California. The other candidates either got pushed down, or dropped out, mostly to support Biden. The one candidate who was clearly defeated was not Sanders but Bloomberg, whose candidacy lacks any clear rationale or support, and looks increasingly petulant and pointless. My only hope is that Bloomberg doesn’t drop out before I finish my series on stop and frisk, because I don’t want to have started it for nothing.* Anyway, what does all this mean? Continue reading
Giving the Devil His Due: Donald Trump and the Afghan War
I’m not a Satanist, but I do believe in fairness, so I don’t mind giving the Devil his due. The Devil in this case is Donald Trump, and his achievement is getting us out of Afghanistan. Or, well: signing a deal that if adhered-to, and if all goes well, will someday get us out of Afghanistan. I ended my 2008 review of Sarah Chayes’s The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban like this:
To ‘keep trying’ to occupy and rebuild Afghanistan is to sacrifice lives and money on an ill-defined, increasingly pointless, and probably Sisyphean venture. A thousand lives and billions of dollars into that quest, we’re no closer to its completion than we were when we first started. That is as much a ‘punishment of virtue’ as anything Chayes describes. We’re entitled to ask when it will end.
We now have a better sense than we did a few days ago of “when it will end.” The answer is: some day. To paraphrase Metallica, the good news is that the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a freight train coming our way. Continue reading
Vigor Mortis
I didn’t watch last night’s Democratic debate–I somehow managed to fall ill without doing so–but I was struck by this passage from what was supposed to be a news story about it. They’re talking about Biden’s performance at the debate:
The former vice president demonstrated more vigor than at many of the previous debates, when he often seemed somnolent. He sprinkled local references into his comments, sought to interject even when he was not called on and complained when he felt he was not given enough time.
Donald Trump’s Slurred Speech: A Diagnosis and Prescription
While teaching a class today, I slurred over a word. I’m so far gone that I don’t even remember what word it was. It might have been “statistical,” but I can’t remember.
Am I drunk? Am I on drugs? Am I suffering from ADHD, or some neurological disease? All of the above?
No, as it turns out, I only got four hours of sleep last night. When I’m tired, I slur my words. Illy coffee helps, but not entirely. Continue reading
Bloomberg on “Stop and Frisk” (Part 1 of 2)
I can’t stand Michael Bloomberg. I don’t intend to vote for him, and regard his entry into the presidential race as a net loss for liberty and justice. That said, I also think that some of what’s been said in criticism of him is confused, and in some cases downright childish. Unfortunately, this is particularly true of the policy that most obviously redounds to Bloomberg’s discredit: stop and frisk. If we’re going to nail Bloomberg on stop and frisk, we need to get the issue right, or at least avoid getting it wrong. But “we” haven’t. Continue reading
Caught with Your Pants Down: The Strange Case of Mayor John Roth of Mahwah
I’m about to recount an almost entirely inconsequential political incident, the strange case of John F. Roth, mayor of Mahwah, a small, affluent town in northeastern New Jersey. But while the incident is almost entirely inconsequential, I’d say that precisely one feature has broad significance. Let’s see if you and I agree on what it is.
About a month ago, John F. Roth, the mayor of Mahwah, went to a party at the home of a Mahwah Township employee. You’re not going to believe this, but alcohol was served at this party. Yes, alcohol. And–hold on to your hats here–but Roth actually consumed some of this alcohol. I wouldn’t lie about something like this. Having done so, he managed to get drunk. He must have realized that he was drunk, because instead of driving home–like a normal person–he decided to walk into a bedroom or guestroom of the house, take off his pants, and fall asleep on a bed. He was later discovered pants-less in that very bed. A call was placed to his wife, who arrived to retrieve him. Retrieved, I gather that he went home to sleep it off, very possibly pants-less, in his own bed. Continue reading
Policy of Truth 