Eli Lake often reminds of a man who kisses ass for a living yet insists on complaining about the farts. Eli gets paid by Michael Bloomberg to be, basically, the voice of the Likud, relentlessly advocating a “firm” U.S. position on just about every aspect of foreign affairs, a “U.S. and Israel against the world”…
Tag: Donald Trump
Yo Republicans! That isn’t an elephant that just sh*t on your living room carpet! It’s a quid pro quo!
That’s right, Republicans. That big, fat, hairy, sweaty, smelly thing that’s in your living room right now, the one that weighs, you know, 25 tons, has bad breath, and makes a lot of noise? It’s not an elephant, or a rhino, or a hippo, or even a Paraceratherium.1 It’s a quid pro quo! Do you…
The ruin that is Trump: When F*ck You isn’t enough
Well, it isn’t. “F*ck You” hasn’t made the North Koreans play ball. Or the Iranians. Or the Chinese. Or even the Venezuelans. Telling the world what to do has proved a lot harder than Donald Trump imagined, and, frankly, the big guy is getting both frustrated and bored, and even a little worried. It’s “interesting”…
Robert J. Samuelson is even-handed. Which is not the same thing as being honest.
WashPost economics pundit and pseudo know it all Robert Samuelson, whom I often ridicule but sometimes praise, is up to his oldest and most tedious trick, “even-handedness”, commenting on what he calls the “schoolyard brawl” between President Trump and Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Samuelson sums up recent developments thusly: After the…
Yes, Republicans, the FBI is corrupt. THANKS TO YOU!
Over at Lawfare, Benjamin Wittes explains the tragedy/farce farce/tragedy of former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe’s dismissal and now impending indictment for false statements made in the course of an internal investigation. The record is perfectly clear: Andrew McCabe was fired immediately prior to the vesting of his pension and now very likely will be…
Short takes
Donald Trump not a nice person, Megan McArdle discovers Well, he isn’t. As Megan explains, following the announcement by Texas Republican Representative Will Hurd, the sole black Republican in the House, that he is retiring: All of which [Hurd’s intelligence, honesty, and decency] makes Hurd’s impending departure the perfect symbol of what has happened to…
Donald Trump not a good guy, Paul Ryan discovers
“Those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad decisions. All the time. We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.” Thus former House Speaker Paul Ryan on Donald Trump, in…
The four-star general with a two-star mind
Okay, that headline is more euphonious than accurate, not to say meaningful, so here’s the gist of what I’m trying to say: Politico has a story up by Eliana Johnson claiming that Donald Trump held off bombing Iran on the basis of comments on Fox News by retired four star Jack Keane, to wit: “Our…
Ponnuru doubles to left
Or right. Or center. Whatever. Supply your own metaphor. While others seem too polite to speak, my sometime pal Ramesh lays the wood to Judy Shelton, one of President Trump’s two new picks for the Federal Reserve, to wit: “Trump’s choice for the Fed Board is now disavowing some of her terrible economic ideas. It’s…
Jay Nordlinger, conservative with a conscience
It seems like every day—because it is every day—that Donald Trump will say something so gross and offensive that one wants to say—and should say—“if a Democratic president had said that, the conservative media would have exploded in outrage and disbelief, following which they would have immediately demanded impeachment.” Of course, no one wants to…