Call it “system fail” for those who wish our system will fail. In the 1962 thriller “The Manchurian Candidate,” a high-profile figure is programmed as an assassin in a bid to overthrow the U.S. government. In more recent times, someone at the dangerously power-drunk Federalist Society saw this and blurted, “Capital idea!” And so, in…
I feel for you, Sam Alito. Decades ago when dragging my skin-and-bones college freshman self back to the dorm at suppertime, if I smelled fish sticks wafting through the air, I immediately calculated the cost to escape to a pizza or burger place. So I understand how a Supreme Court justice could feel the same…
A recent poll finds only two of 10 Republicans think Donald Trump should be charged with the crimes for which he was indicted in Florida. It’s all political, they say, all Joe Biden’s doing. They don’t dare say that a grand jury authorized it, and 37 criminal charges, as with his criminal indictment in Manhattan.…
We have been remodeling our property. The ketchup stains are gone. The glass shards at the Capitol, too. The former tenant who’s given a bad name to scoundrels everywhere has been replaced by someone who honors the place with his demeanor and sense of history. We Americans can feel good about the changes on the…
“A toast — to the Texas Legislature.” The Republican strategists lifted their cocktails high. What a session — a brutal blitzkrieg against a helplessly microscopic segment of constituents who barely have a voice: transexuals. Mass shootings? A fatally flawed electric grid? Schools gasping for funding? Texas Republicans could, in all good conscience, put them aside.…
Vindictive. Vengeful. Vituperative. Vitriolic. Vainglorious. Venal. Volatile. That’s just from the V section for Ron DeSantis. Not “visionary.” Not “virtuous.” Just mean. Tragically, his style of spite sells to some in the age of Trump. As New York Times columnist (and Reagan conservative) Bret Stephens quips, “It takes a creep to beat a bigger creep.”…
Whatever fraud he’s up to now, once upon a time Rudy Giuliani fought crime. A zealous federal prosecutor in the 1980s, one of his key tools was the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – RICO. The 1970 law gave law enforcement a means of cracking vast criminal organizations and targeting the kingpins. RICO was…
“Why are you so afraid of the word ‘Fascism’? . . . Just a word – just a word. And might not be so bad.” In Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 political novel “It Can’t Happen Here,” it’s just a word — until fascism’s face is painted on America’s streets. The tool for Lewis’ turn of the…
What did he eat while his worshippers ransacked our Capitol? Did he pop bonbons? Chocolate or cherry? Did he order Chinese? Did a noble DoorDash dispatch persist through the haze and bear spray to bring unto the king his Quarter Pounder? Thanks to the Jan. 6 Committee, you and I know what else Donald Trump…
The largest mackerel ever caught tipped the scales at 93 pounds. Imagine one of those across the face. No need for Republicans in Wisconsin. They felt it last month in what was touted as the most important election of 2023. Smack. In the vote for a seat on the state supreme court with abortion rights…