Democrats swept the New Jersey and Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races in Tuesday’s election, which is the best news we’ve had politically in a long time. The day began depressingly enough with more revelations about Texas shooter Devin Kelley and the litany of those abused at his hands – spouse, child, pet, superiors – that had somehow eluded national data bases thanks to the negligence of the U.S. Air Force.
You know what that tells me? ...
Read More
The year 2017 isn’t quite over, but I think it’s fair to say that it has been the year of the “C” word.
Collusion. (Wait, what did you think I meant?) You hear it applied to the Russkie investigation. And you hear it applied to the NFL owners’ possible blackballing of Colin Kaepernick over his National Anthem protest. The latest is that Kaepernick’s attorney has subpoenaed the phone records and emails of certain key owners. I for one can’t see what good this will do. Collusion – the legal term would be conspiracy – is difficult to prove. ...
Read More
Say who?
Sayfullo Saipov. He now joins the long list of terrorists, mass murderers, assassins and dictators who are part of what I call “the literature of rejection.”
The terrorist who mowed down 20 on a Manhattan bike path, killing eight and injuring 12 on Halloween, is yet another man – it’s virtually always a man – with a disproportionate rage at rejection. ...
Read More
Ah, the emails.
Not Hill emails this time but Russkie emails. We know they are Russkie emails, because the subject line of George Papadopoulos’ emails to three Trump campaign officials was “Russia updates.” In hindsight, that was probably not a good idea.
On Monday, we learned that Papadopoulos had pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to broker a relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian President Vladimir “Vladdie Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin in his guise as an unpaid foreign policy adviser. Papadopoulos is now cooperating with Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trumpettes and the Russkies. This is not good news for Trumpet.
Read More
The fog of war – or of “advising and assisting,” as every student of the Vietnam War knows – is such that the truth of what happened isn’t immediately apparent. What is apparent is that Trump handled the situation’s aftermath with less than Alexandrian leadership, first by not commenting on it for more than a week and ultimately by saying he did not “specifically” authorize it. (Dude, you are the president. You are responsible for everything that happens in your administration.)
Then he got involved in a typically Trumpian tone deaf controversy with Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow, in which he consoled her by saying that this was what her husband “signed up for. But I guess it still hurts.” ...
Read More
Well, NFL owners and players had a “productive” meeting on social issues in Manhattan Tuesday – code for nothing but smoke and mirrors designed to placate two mutually exclusive viewpoints. There was, incredibly, no discussion of the National Anthem protests that have been designed to draw attention to the very social issues that were on the agenda. You can’t make this stuff up. ...
Read More
On Tuesday, the NFL owners and representative players will meet to discuss the National Anthem protest that has been a driving issue this season – this as protest initiator and former San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL, saying the 32 owners colluded to keep him out of the league because of his activism.
A bit of background: “The Star-Spangled Banner” has been played before NFL games since at least 2009 at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense, ostensibly to bolster recruiting. The NFL rulebook says that teams must be suited up and on the field before the Anthem begins, standing facing the flag, with their helmets in their left hands and their right hands over their hearts. In the third preseason game of 2016, a reporter noted Kaepernick sitting through the Anthem to protest police brutality against people of color.
Read More