Trump’s blunderbuss of an executive order re: immigrants and refugees could well have serious adverse effects — but not the ones its opponents imagine. Whatever the wisdom of that order, the manner and timing of its implementation were evidence of a Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time playacting presidency. As many of us feared from the …
Read More »Lies, Fibs and Facts
Barton Swaim argues in this morning’s WSJ ( http://www.articles/trump-the-press-and-the-dictatorship-of-the-trolletariat-1485215912 ) that the press should ignore Donald’s Trump’s lies on silly things because not doing so only sends them off on wild goose chases of fact-checking when they have more important things to cover in the Trump administration. I think he …
Read More »The Inaugural Mirror
I have argued, since Trump’s election, that we must honor the Constution to which we often pay mere lip service and accept the verdict of the 2016 election. We must treat newly inaugurated President Trump with the honor and respect an occupant of that office typically deserves — just for …
Read More »A Trumpian Flu
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, reporter Janet Hook describes the growing resistance to the legitimacy of a Trump presidency, most recently challenged by Democratic Congressman from Georgia John Lewis in a television interview and further called into question by Democrats across the spectrum, including many within the Clinton camp. …
Read More »There are Transitions and then there are Transitions
Reading this morning’s New York Times, I’m struck by their take on what Obama’s been doing in the waning days of the transition of the presidency to his successor. As is to be expected, they apparently think it’s just fine for the current president to be doing everything he can to …
Read More »Presidents and Transitions
Why do I call myself a conservative rather than a liberal, even while sharing certain culturally liberal values with many of my liberal/progressive friends? President Obama’s approach to the presidency explains it best, I think. Since attaining the presidency, he has been unilateral and overreaching in his use of executive …
Read More »The Path to Ruin
It’s clear enough why so many voters are dismayed over the results of the recent presidential election. Trump was divisive and ill-mannered and the other major candidate, Hillary Clinton, seemed assured of the presidency. Her supporters figured they had it in the bag. No way Trump could win this. Only …
Read More »A Message for My Distraught and Deeply Unhappy Democratic Friends
The mistake Democrats and folks on the left are generally making, in their angry reaction to the recent Republican sweep, lies, at least in part, in their supposition that Obama was the object of unique political obstructionism, unparalleled in the experience of any other president and so they have somehow …
Read More »One Recount, One Time and Done
Once again Democrats are disappointed with an election and, just as in 2000, when the popular vote count gave them hope of reversing an electoral vote outcome they found distressing, many partisans on the left are eager to support Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s push for recounts in key …
Read More »The Powers and Prerogatives of Presidents
A major problem with the Obama presidency has been the president’s notion that if he doesn’t get what he wants one way (a legislative change or an appointee, say) he is free, as the president, to simply do it anyway. Tom Perez’ initial appointment as Chair of the National Labor …
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