Just off the corner of Connecticut and N Streets in Washington, DC is a reasonably imposing red-brick urban mini-mansion, which, a small plaque informs you, once belonged to General Henry Robert, who, you probably don’t know, wrote Robert’s Rules of Order. But back in 1975 when I worked there as a file clerk, we called…
Author: Alan Vanneman
More short takes
Fred Hiatt wants to make sure you know he’s a COMPLETE idiot Well, he does. “We knew who Trump was but elected him anyway. We can’t impeach him for that.”, writes WashPost editorial page editor Fred, ignoring the fact that “we” didn’t elect Trump, the Electoral College did. I myself am opposed to impeaching Trump,…
Imani Williams—“Round Midnight”
No information on her backup, unfortunately. Posted by K-dub-U
Takes, short and not so short
Nancy Pelosi is invisible, says George F. Will In a not bad considering column, George F. Will urges congressional Democrats to “temper their enthusiasm for impeachment with lucidity”, listening to words of wisdom from others, including Greg Weiner, “Madison scholar par excellence” and author of a new book that Mr. Will has either read or…
Just because I don’t loudly s*ck the president’s c*ck every day doesn’t make me a traitor, loudly exclaims an aggrieved Ramesh Ponnuru
My apologies to those who, like me, prefer their vulgarly sexual terms of abuse unasterisked and unexpurgated, but you never know whose algorithm you’re going to trigger these days. Anyway, to the point: Right-winger Ramesh Ponnuru, whom I last blasted for gratuitously taking sides with Donald Trump against U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts with regard…
Yes, Donald Trump is destroying America. Surprised?
The present brouhaha1—or is it a kerfuffle?—over Robert Mueller’s “I said what I said” announcement may, or may not, slow down Attorney General William Barr—or as we like to call him in DC, “Michael Cohen II”—and his “plan” to rummage through the files of the federal government’s entire intelligence community and declassify anything he damn…
Textualism refuted! Or Clarence Thomas lays an egg
A few posts back, I groused (loudly) over Justice Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion in FTB v. Hyatt, overturning a previous Supreme Court decision, Nevada v. Hall regarding the immunity of states from suit in other states’ courts. In rejecting Hall, the Court found that the Constitution not only grants states an inherent immunity to suits…
Harvard University, proving that no matter how rich you are, you can still be a coward
Over at Bloomberg Opinion, Stephen L. Carter has a crushingly accurate piece, “Harvard’s Shameful History Repeats Itself”, recounting how Harvard, which once let itself be bullied by Joe McCarthy, now lets itself be bullied by enraged feminists and other pc types, dismissing husband and wife Harvard Law professors Ronald Sullivan and Stephanie Robinson as deans…
Bud Powell—“Round Midnight”
One thing I definitely lack is perfect pitch, but Bud’s piano sounds seriously out of tune in this clip, which I am nonetheless including for its historical significance. This is “obviously” a French film director’s “homage” to both Bud and Thelonious—the whole mise-en-scène reeks of France in the fifties (which is not a bad reek…
The CIA lies well—and David Ignatius is glad to help!
Mole hunt! Mole hunt! That’s the cry over at the CIA, and it’s exciting! See, here’s the deal. Back in the day, it seems that the Chinese were picking off our “key informants” (aka, “spies”), and no one knew how or why. Thanks, however, to bungled “tradecraft” on the part of the Chinese, the good…