… is the most important task a president does. It’s literally about war and peace. But this poses a conundrum, because presidential campaigns are waged and won or lost on domestic issues; politics is very much a “what will you do for me” affair. (The softer and more polite wa[...]
Archive for the ‘America’ Category
March 15th, 2023 - 5:11 pm § in America, Biden, Donald Trump, Europe, Foreign Affairs, Politics, Republicans, Russia, Schools & Colleges
Foreign policy …
March 5th, 2023 - 5:51 pm § in America, Biden, China, Democrats, Donald Trump, Economics, Europe, Foreign Affairs, Hypocrisy, News Media, Politics, Republicans, Russia
Fact-checking Trump’s CPAC lies
Journalist, pesky creatures they are, like to fact-check political speeches. CNN says Trump delivered a “doozy” at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington D.C. on Saturday, March 4, 2023 (see story here). By now, his M.O. is familiar: Portray America as a post-a[...]
GOP legislator’s anti-LGBQT hate tax
Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton (the gunman in the photo below; read his bio here), a former preacher-man, is a hater. He was elected by country hicks in northeast Texas (details here and here). The product of a Baptist bible college, he wants the state to kill doctors who perform abortions, and wome[...]
Will China down a U.S. “spy plane” over its “sovereign territory”?
Earlier this month the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon after it crossed all of North America, lingering over military sites. It came down in U.S. territorial waters inside the 12-mile limit. On the other side of the world, the U.S. routinely conducts military flights over the South China Sea. S[...]
The politics of resentment
Many of history’s great movers and shakers exploited resentment to build a power base. Lenin and Hitler fall in this category. Each drove a revolution that overthrew an existing order, albeit one weakened by events they didn’t precipitate or control. But their revolutions, tied as they w[...]
A book of names (video)
How would you like to be imprisoned, without trial or due process, because you “look like the enemy”? Don’t let anyone tell you America is a perfect country, or allow politicians sweep its history under the rug. This isn’t about making white schoolchildren “feel bad&#[...]
Can we trust our military?
It’s hard to trust the military when top brass look stupid. In 1971, Charles M. Fair (bio here) wrote a book, “From the Jaws of Victory, A History of the Character, Causes, and Consequences of Military Stupidity, from Crassus to Johnson and Westmoreland,” whose title aptly describe[...]
It sucks to be a Russian soldier
“Advance at any cost.” Those are the marching orders being given to Russian soldiers fighting in eastern Ukraine; and by some accounts, the cost is very high. Ukraine claims it’s killing over a thousand Russians a day. While that can’t be verified, outside expert observers sa[...]
Book review: “To Rule the Waves”
If you read only one book on global politics and strategy this year, make it this one. The author, Bruce D. Jones (bio here), has an academic background and has worked for the U.N., World Bank, and is currently at the Brookings Institution. He’s been a fellow at Stanford, Princeton, Yale, and [...]
Have another serving of “Woke”
I’m not entirely sure what conservatives mean when they say “woke,” but they’re against everything (books, science, public health, etc.), so I guess “everything” works as a rough translation of “woke.” They don’t like Mexican immigrants in partic[...]