On November 9, 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte engineered a coup that made him First Consul and ended republican government in France. By the date of the Republican calendar then in effect in France, the date was 18 Brumaire in the year VIII.1 In 1852, Karl Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, commemorating in contempt…
Tag: Donald Trump
Charles Krauthammer half full, Charles Krauthammer half empty
In his latest column, Charlie the K bemoans “the refusal of an unbending left to accept the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.” Sighs Charlie, “It’s not just the demonstrators chanting “not my president.” It is leading Democrats pushing one line after another to delegitimize the election, as in: He lost the popular vote, it’s James Comey’s…
Meryl Steep: Fatuous, yet entitled
Janeane Garafolo is the only human being I have ever heard pronounce the word “œuvre” with a straight face.1 Yes, that’s pretentious, but so what? Janeane gives better foreign policy advice and (probably) better head than Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and hundreds of other double-dome distinguished fellows and chairs who have spent the past thirty…
Yo, fellow elitists! Enough with the breast-beating!
Yes, I am an elitist. I do not own a car, yet am comfortably nestled in the lower upper-income brackets. I live within walking distance of three live theaters, an internationally recognized art collection (the Phillips), and numerous jazz clubs, not to mention a Whole Foods and more Starbucks than I can count. I don’t…
Why Donald Trump will be our very worst president, by a very wide margin
Donald Trump will be our very worst president, by a very wide margin, because Donald Trump is the apotheosis of the Tea Party, the culmination of Republican lawlessness—that is to say, an impatience and contempt for “rules” that eventually transforms itself into a delight in their violation—that has been growing stronger and stronger since the…
Michael V. Hayden, mightily covering ass
Michael V. Hayden, you may be interested to know, is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group and visiting professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, and was formerly director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005 and the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009. He has a…
Sarah Palin and David Ricardo, peas in a pod!
Some time ago, in one of my many railings against our president-elect, I noted that, once upon a time, even echt-dirty fingernail Republican Sarah Palin was a die-hard free-trader. Well, it looks like Sarah’s fingernails are still dirty, and her heart, and her free-trade principles, still true, for she’s risen up in rightuous wrath against…
George F. Will Explains It All For You. Incorrectly.
George “F for Farrreeeky!” Will has a piece up, “Infrastructure projects aren’t jobs programs”, which, all inadvertently, explains why infrastructure projects are jobs programs. Saith St. George, “New Deal public works gave the nation splendidly useful engineering marvels, including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam. It did not, however, significantly reduce unemployment, which…
A Canny Old Rug Peddler From Queens
Well there probably is one, but his name isn’t Donald Trump. But over at The National Interest, Leon Hadar assures us that the Donald is indeed Bismarck with a conk1. Here’s how Leon spins his vision of “TrumPolitik”: “TrumpPolitik would certainly place more emphasis on strengthening U.S. relationship with the big powers of the world,…
War with Iran? You bet! It’s easy, and it’s fun!
A kinder, gentler Trump Administration? I think you meant “fascist-hysterical”. Thanks to the appointments of former Lieutenant Gen. Mike “Fear of Muslims is rational” Flynn as national security advisor and Rep. Mike “Waterboarding is cool” Pompeo as head of the CIA, we are just about guaranteed a repeat of the war on Iraq—constant accusations of…