February 1st, 20240In the run-up to 1992’s presidential election, chief strategist James Carville relentlessly hammered on a simple message for Bill Clinton’s Democratic campaign: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Social issues and foreign policy, Carville theorized, were mere distractions. Voters would prioritize their pocketbook prospects over such...
July 22nd, 20230On July 18, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution by the kind of lopsided vote (412 for, 9 against, 1 present) normally reserved for proclamations lauding members' hometown Little League programs. Unlike most legislation, Concurrent Resolution 57 is short enough to fit comfortably into newspaper op-ed length:
"Resolved...
April 13th, 20230by Thomas L. Knapp
As I write this, Politico reports that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has made an arrest in the matter of “classified” government documents found circulating on social media after allegedly being posted on an Internet game chat server over a period of weeks or months.
The New York Times reports that...
March 3rd, 20210By Thomas L. Knapp
Well, at least he hasn't started any NEW wars!
For four years, that was the excuse I got from anti-war Donald Trump supporters every time he escalated one of the several wars he inherited from George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
I expect to start hearing it from anti-war Joseph Biden supporters soon.
Trump was...
June 21st, 20200Every few years, some particular instance of a pervasive phenomenon — police violence in the form of unjustified or at least highly questionable killings — "goes viral" with the result that America's cities explode in protest.
Every time that happens, some American politicians complain about a non-existent "war on police", while...
July 22nd, 20190"Here we go with the Fake Polls," President Trump tweeted on July 15. "Just like what happened with the election against Crooked Hillary Clinton."
He's complaining about several polls that show him losing the national popular vote to various Democratic presidential aspirants, in some cases by double digits.
He has a point. In 2016,...
June 27th, 20190In a June 12 interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Trump freely admitted that he would listen to foreigners offering him “dirt” on his political opponents.
“I think you might want to listen,” Trump said. “There isn’t anything wrong with listening .... Somebody comes up and says, ‘hey, I have...
April 12th, 20190On April 11, the ongoing saga of journalist and transparency activist Julian Assange took a dangerous turn. Ecuador's president, Lenin Moreno, revoked his asylum in that country's London embassy. British police immediately arrested him — supposedly pursuant to his "crime" of jumping bail on an invalid arrest warrant in an investigation...
