The Trump Paradox on November 25, 2024Donald Trump has promised to impose disruptive change on government. Most of his appointees have been chosen for that purpose. And Congress is not immune if Trump is able to persuade both Houses to grant him recess appointments. That would neuter the Senate and its advise and consent constitutionality authority. Whether or not all Trump’s […]
Trump II: Where Might He Be Headed? on November 18, 2024For the past eight days, most reporting on the presidential election was why Donald Trump won and why Kamala Harris lost. Now, with the initial announcements of cabinet picks, speculation abounds over where the second Trump administration is headed. Of course, not until all major cabinet appointments including the Attorney General, Treasury, Defense, Secretary of […]
Trump wins! on November 9, 2024Trump won a decisive presidential victory. Simply put, why? That question will dominate discussion and provoke answers for decades to come. After all, no prior presidential candidate in American history had such potentially disqualifying baggage as Trump. Could Americans re-elect someone who had been twice impeached as president; was a convicted felon; a sexual predator […]
Looming Electoral Vulnerabilities, We Ignore at Our Risk on November 4, 2024At long last, election 2024 is upon us. Six days from now, November 5th, marks E-Day. But when the 47th president of the United States is formally determined may take weeks or months. In that context and as this column has noted, in the UK November 5th is Guy Fawkes Day when in 1605, a […]
A Long War President? on October 28, 2024Writing in his newsletter Inflection Points, my good friend and close colleague Fred Kempe, President and CEO of the Atlantic Council, speculates that whoever Americans elect on November 5th may indeed become a wartime president. Referring to the world in November 1940 just a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor forced America to declare […]
Will Israel Win The War? on October 7, 2024Israel’s preemptive and decapitation strikes against Hezbollah, so far, seem a masterful operation. The campaign was initiated by disabling cyber-attacks against pagers and walkie-talkies that disrupted communications among thousands of Hezbollah personnel. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) then killed many of Hezbollah’s top leadership including 64-four-year-old Hassan Nasrallah, who had headed the organisation since 1992 […]
Three Big, Unasked Questions on September 30, 2024As the election of 2024 draws closer, here are three big issues that need to be put in a declaratory form and answered by the candidates: Truth; Debt; and Defense. But as the so-called political debate continues to descend to unprecedented levels of bad taste and ignorance, this prospect is less likely than one of […]
Inching Towards World War–III on September 23, 2024More Republicans are warning that the election of Kamala Harris as president could lead to World War-III. Republicans further assert that a Trump presidency would eliminate that threat. And their so-called reasoning was that if Trump had won in 2020, the Gaza War would never have started and the Ukraine conflict would have been resolved. […]
DOES AMERICA NEED A SHRINK? on September 19, 2024Does America need a shrink? Has American behaviour, certainly regarding the November presidential election, become so irrational and inexplicable that clinical help, if it were available, is urgently needed? Of course, American irrationality cannot compare with Iran’s Mullahs and Afghanistan’s Taliban regarding women, a gross perversion of Islam. And the irrationality of Nazi Germany and […]
The Gaza-Hamas-Bibi Delusion on September 9, 2024The Biden administration is finalizing its last and final offer for a ceasefire and return of the hostages held in Gaza by Hamas. This comes after the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) recovered the bodies of six hostages presumably shot dead just before they could be rescued. One was an American. In Israel, massive protests and […]