Two years down and two to go. Like him or loathe him, Donald Trump is the force of nature his supporters hoped he would be and his detractors feared he would be. There’s no reason to think he will change his ways of getting things done leading up to the 2020 presidential election. If the voters could get his solid results without the nonstop drama, Donald Trump would be a shoo-in for a second term.
Ours is the era of the Twitter celebrity. Gun control activist David Hogg, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and of course President Trump owe their celebrity to Twitter, giving most of them (the president excepted) celebrity and fame just for being famous. None would have ascended to such fame but for the social networking platform. Twitter is said to be losing money — gobs of it, in fact — but it’s a kingmaker. Or at least a prince-and princess-maker.
It's a Mexican standoff over a Mexican wall. More than a fortnight into the partial government shutdown, neither side was willing to budge. The longest government shutdown in history isn't likely to be surpassed for a long time. One good thing that may come of this game is a recognition by everybody that shutting down the government for partisan advantage is the kind of game that only small children should play.
Everyone enjoys his bad habits, else they wouldn't be habits, but fortunately most of us have the sense to swear off the ones that cause lasting harm. The obvious danger of tobacco to health has pushed cigarette smoking to a record low. Sad to say, the use of marijuana is growing now that ambiguity over its legality is well advanced. Potheads are sometimes thought to be mellow folk, whose only bad habit is wearing out the sofa while lost in lethargic reveries about what they can't remember. Surprising to some, pothead behavior occasionally ranges into violence. Potheads should learn the underside of the drug before joining the high life.
As native populations in Europe decline, they're increasingly being replaced by immigrants from different and sometimes hostile cultures. The long-term question bothering many Europeans is whether the complex cultures in Europe, carefully cultivated and which have contributed much to the world, can survive this infusion.
The Democrats set the tone of the rhetoric we can expect from them on the very day that Nancy Pelosi became the speaker of the House again. Rashida Tlaib, a freshman Democrat from Michigan, speaking before a giddy audience applauding her every word, had described President Trump in the most vulgar terms possible, and promised that "we're going to impeach the motherf-----."
Prosperity is returning to U.S. communities that have been taking a licking, a reason for cheerful celebration as the new year begins. Recent figures show the economy is going gangbusters, but in some places Americans are simply going. Americans feeling the bite of greedy tax collectors are voting with their feet and migrating to states where they're more likely to find fortune.
No matter how intense, the heat of summer yields to the moderating breezes of its successor season. Brutal governments that scourge their own inevitably face movements that hold out the promise of liberation and peace. The passage of 40 years, time enough to span three generations, tests the ability of the suffering people of Iran to endure the inhumanity of their radical Islamic regime.
Mitt Romney is nothing if not flexible, and he usually bends a little to the left. He has been in the public eye for decades, but he has served only four years in an elective office, as governor of Massachusetts. He has now been the junior senator from Utah for a day. His dearth of time in office hasn't been for lack of trying. He ran for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 1994, governor of Massachusetts in 2002, president in 2008, president again in 2012, and finally for the Senate in Utah. Mr. Romney has either a profound determination to serve his country, or an ardent craving for the spotlight. Maybe it's a little of both.
With American troops and military installations spread on all continents, the importance of a mere 2,000 troops in Syria would seem Lilliputian. But from world media over the past few days, you might think it's as crucial as the withdrawal from Saigon in the previous century.
The Iowa caucuses, Round One in the quadrennial exercise leading to the election of a president, are still a year away, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts delivered a fix this week for Democrats who can't wait to get started on the considerable task of deposing Donald Trump.
What a way to finish. Like a marathoner whose spent legs go wobbly a hundred yards shy of the tape, the nation seemed about to fall on its face during the waning days of the old year, as if barely able to straggle to the starting line of the new one. Before assuming that past performance is indicative of what's to come, however, it's instructive to remember that night follows day, the moon waxes and wanes, and the future, unlike the past, is not written in stone. It's a blank slate on which an industrious people record their work.
The more China tries to minimize the success of Taiwan which is officially the Republic of China — the more important Taiwan becomes in the international order. It is, says one diplomat, "one of the greater ironies of our time."
Washington has always been a mixture of principle and power, but seldom has the concoction been so explosive. As tumultuous as the past two years have been with Republicans lodged at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, the next two with resurgent Democrats commanding the House of Representatives promise to be far coarser. Anticipating the coming clash, Americans are bracing for impact.
Poor Donald Trump. At least that's how the president was feeling on Christmas Eve, according to his own Twitter account. "I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security," he proclaimed. "At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!"
