Well, it is. Yes, only 5 of 50 Republican senators voted to proceed with Donald Trump’s second impeachment. On the other hand, on the occasion of his first impeachment, only 2 of 53 Republicans voted even to hear witnesses. 90% versus 96.2%? That’s progress, baby! I’m impressed! I confess that I saw this coming. It…
Search Results for: Donald Trump
Will Geography Damn Us? Probably.
Al Gore won the presidency in 2000 by almost half a million votes. Hillary Clinton won in 2016 by almost three million. Joe Biden would have won the presidency in 2020 sans COVID-19 by, probably, about six million votes. Yet, in fact, Gore lost to Bush, Hillary lost to Trump, and sans COVID Joe very…
Please, Mr. Beinart, try harder
Over at the New York Times, Peter Beinart has a column, “Why Are There So Few Courageous Senators?”, which takes as its text—well, in its first half, anyway—John F. Kennedy’s “famous” book, Profiles in Courage, citing two profiles, “two legendary Southerners, Thomas Hart Benton and Sam Houston, who a century earlier had become pariahs for…
The Billiard Ball Causality of Francis Fukuyama, Together With Other Considerations
I have recently finished reading Francis Fukuyama’s excellent book, Identity The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, published back in 2018, trying to explain why the world isn’t behaving the way Francis and I think it ought, and not doing a bad job of it at all. I’ve written round and about Dr….
William Barr, very late but apparently wise
Okay, William Barr, perhaps my least favorite attorney, has suddenly surprised me, via a cryptic “statement” to the Associated Press, that the AP, in its story, quotes in fragments—fragments that are, nonetheless quite welcome to the ear. Says the AP Former Attorney General William Barr says President Donald Trump’s conduct as a violent mob of…
The Republican Party Has Its Reward
After kissing Donald Trump’s ass for more than four years, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell finally noticed his mouth was getting dirty. Said McConnell, shortly before all Hell broke loose: We’re debating a step that has never been taken in American history, whether Congress should overrule the voters and overturn a presidential election. I’ve served…
Eugene Volokh, brilliant and noble champion of the First Amendment or just another brick in the wall?
Both, actually. At the age of 10, in 1978, Mr. Volokh took the Math “Aptitude” SAT and scored 780 out of 800. He graduated from UCLA at 15, later graduated from UCLA Law, and now teaches there, and also runs the estimable, largely libertarian “Volokh Conspiracy” website. Here is what someone who is quite reasonably…
Some “conservatives” are whistling past the graveyard of American democracy; others are busy swinging a shovel
I like to keep track of what the “responsible right”, as I like to call them, is up to, a task that I perform by rounding up the usual suspects—Ross Douthat, Jay Nordlinger, Kevin Williamson, Ramesh Ponnuru, David French, and Jonah Goldberg, among others—finding most of them at either the National Review or the American…
The “Solar Winds” Fraud: Special Hot Air Edition
It’s an ill wind that blows no good, and the latest fake news regarding “Solar Winds”, the Russian super hack that wasn’t, is a good example. It’s just coincidence, I’m sure, that a sudden leak regarding Russian perfidy should emerge just as Joe Biden was taking office. The odds were already roughly 1,000,000,000,000,000 to 1…
Political Notes From All Over, Volume II
Barack Obama and the Ministry o’ Truth Oy vey, mon president! In a recent interview with the BBC former President Barack “if you like your health care plan you can keep it” Obama complains about the lack of truthiness currently available in the USA: There are millions of people who subscribed to the notion that…