If you want to get a laugh out of a constitutional “originalist” like Supreme Court Justice Clarence “if it ain’t there it ain’t there” Thomas, use the word “penumbra” in a sentence. Yes, it is inside, but it’s funny, to Clarence and his Federalist pals, thanks to Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, who, writing in…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Dirty Chinese try to prevent the U.S. from spying on them
Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former case officer with the CIA, pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide intelligence information to the Chinese government. He did not admit to actually providing information. You can read about the case in this story from the New York Times by Julien E. Barnes. According to Barnes, Lee’s case “highlighted…
Gregory Mankiw, dean of conservative economists. He got it only half wrong.
After the fortunate demise of President Trump’s nomination of Republican hustler Stephen Moore for a position on the Federal Reserve, Paul Krugman remarked “Aside from Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, not one prominent Republican economist stepped up to oppose Moore.”1 And indeed “Greg”, as I guess his friends like to call him, gave the news of Steve’s…
Veronique de Rugy and the howler of the week
Libertarian gal/scholar Veronique de Rugy starts off her latest column in the New York Times with the understatement of the year (and I have been keeping track): “Fools like me who believed that President Trump would “drain the swamp” in Washington have been enduring one disappointment after another.” I believe the phrase you’re looking for…
Ella Fitzgerald — “Round Midnight”
Ella does Monk; dated video, timeless vocal. In 1961, London, with Oscar Peterson, piano, Ray Brown, bass, and Ed Thigpen, drums. Posted by guachifluchi Need more Monk? Of course you do, Go to Mostly Monk
Shorter Trump “Doctrine”: Ain’t nobody here but us Caucasians
Fareed Zakaria, attempting to suss out a Trump foreign policy “doctrine” other than the obvious “Don’t Fuck with US”, comes up with a reality as predictable as it is unappetizing—it’s all about the racism. Fareed sees no point in attempting to dissect the “thought” of President Trump himself, aka “Mr. Malaprop”, passing him up in…
Mona Charon, speaking truth to Republicans
Kudos to the National Review, which I generally do not like, for publishing Mona Charon’s column, “Shades of Presidential Scandals Past”, which tosses more than a few solid punches at the “Move along, folks, move along, nothing to see here, move along” approach being fostered and foisted by most of her compadres at NR regarding…
When is a coup not a coup? When the neocons say so.
Neocon Central is battered but not beaten these days. The rise of Trump has split the rock in half, but only when it comes to Trump himself. On other issues, the rock remains firm. A useful example has just presented itself, the claim made by both the Trump-hating Washington Post and the Trump-friendly Eli Lake,…
It doesn’t matter that William Barr is lying, because we know he’s lying, David French explains
David French has the unenviable job of being the voice of reason over at the National Review, which means that he has to find a “middle ground” between the True Trumpers of the pack and, well, the truth, which frequently means explaining that grunting like a hog and wallowing in one’s own filth isn’t as…
Rod Rosenstein, exiting ignominiously. And the National Review didn’t even notice!
Nothing, it may be said, became Rod Rosenstein’s career at the Department of Justice so little as his manner of leaving it—that is to say, in his resignation letter, Rosenstein abandoned the last shred of the professional decency and honor that he had fitfully displayed during his two years as deputy attorney general under Donald…