Most of the government is idle and the nation’s capital is shrouded in nearly a foot of snow with more on the way, but politics, the capital’s only industry, grinds on at a quickening pace. Over the past few days, two more Democrats have entered the race for president, joining Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. John Delaney of Maryland. These four, gathering press notices while they may, won’t be the last.
A congressperson as the arbiter of national morality, the judge of what’s right and wrong, the earnest scholar of government theology? Who knew? Yet Nancy Pelosi says building a wall on the border is “immoral.” Ours is an age that mocks the values that created America.
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!"
Amazon, the world's biggest retailer, founded and helmed by the world's richest man, recently subjected scores of American municipalities to a humiliating dog and pony show. The Seattle-based tech behemoth announced it was planning to build a second headquarters somewhere in North America, promising some 50,000 new jobs to wherever it landed. It then, in a slow-motion imitation of a reality television show, invited localities to submit bids.
Republican Rep. Martha McSally is nobody's idea of a sore loser. The Tucson area congresswoman recently lost a close race for Senate to her fellow Arizona representative, a Democrat named Kyrsten Sinema, who represents Phoenix. Even though Ms. McSally appeared to be in the lead on election night itself, late counts pushed Ms. Sinema across the finish line a few days later.
If only unraveling the maddening complexity of the Russian collusion investigation were no more complicated than solving Rubik's Cube with all of its innumerable permutations. Tuesday's sentencing of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was supposed to set a piece of the 2016 presidential election puzzle in place but instead, it led to new twists and turns that included an unexpected sentencing postponement. While witnessing the political spectacle the probe has engendered, it's helpful for Americans to remember one thing: There has yet to be found any collusion on the part of Team Trump.
Abody doesn't need an advanced academic degree to practice common sense. That's why working folks who carry the nation on their backs have grasped the limits of the renewable energy revolution more quickly than those enthralled with the promise of a fossil-fuel-free future.
The unwritten law is often a myth, romantic as the idea may be. If it's not written there's no one to enforce such a "law." Such romantic legislation is usually thought to apply to the defense of marriage and the home, but it's sometimes applied to other things, such as the freedom of the seas. It's only useful when there's a nation big enough and determined enough to enforce the principle of such a law.
