The Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, alias the new Tappan Zee Bridge, was fast-tracked by the Obama Administration. Is infrastructure a bridge too far for Trump’s?

Donald Trump and the 'I' words

May 29, 2019

So we’ve finally heard from Robert Mueller about his investigation into Russkiegate and while we didn’t learn anything new, we did have the extraordinary experience of the special prosecutor emphasizing that while he couldn’t prove the Trump campaign was guilty of a crime, he still wasn’t exonerating the president from obstruction of justice.

The art of the schlemiel

February 14, 2019

Seizing defeat from the jaws of victory, President Donald J. Trump has trumpeted his intent to invoke his emergency powers to build a wall on the southern border even as he plans to sign the bipartisan deal to fund the government and avert a shutdown, because, you know, a shutdown is “a terrible thing,” especially if it adversely affects your ratings, er, polling numbers.

Saving face while losing themselves?

December 18, 2018

It was no minor metaphor when British Prime Minister Theresa May’s car door stuck as she strove to exit recently to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who waited with characteristic stoicism on the red carpet for yet another go-round in May’s futile attempt to negotiate a better Brexit deal. Brexit has been the ultimate stuck car door for May and the British people, a frustrating rigmarole with no satisfactory conclusion in sight.

‘Atlas Shrugged’: The tepidness of Paul Ryan

April 15, 2018

In the kingdom of the blind, they say, the one-eyed man is king. And so it is perhaps inevitable that outgoing House Speaker Paul “Paulie PowerPoint” Ryan should be considered a brain by a country as anti-intellectual as the United States. This is based on his fondness for the Objectivist, everyman-for-himself theories of Ayn Rand, a poor philosopher and an even poorer novelist (“The Fountainhead,” “Atlas Shrugged”) whose characters are basically stand-in for her bloated ideas.

Thus Ryan’s not really much of a Brainiac but then, he has always given the appearance of being something he is not. ...

The wind, the rain and The Donald

September 8, 2017

Scooch over, Harvey and join Sandy, Katrina, Andrew and (here insert your personal past hurricane nemesis) on the long couch.

As the Repubs learned yesterday, there’s no political storm quite like Hurricane Donald. (Here we cue a fabulously appropriate folk song that figures in my novel “Water Music” – “The Wind and Rain” – beautifully realized by the band Crooked Still.)

He blew through Washington D.C., cutting a three-month deal to raise the debt ceiling with Dems Nancy Pelosi and “Chuck Chop” Schumer, the Minority Leaders of their respective Congressional Houses, leaving the repudiated Repubs to wonder in the manner of hurricane survivors, “What the hell just happened?” ...

Republicare – DOA

July 19, 2017

For more than eight years, Republicans have tried to obliterate the influence of President Barack Obama and the singular domestic achievement that bears his name still – Obamacare.

That effort came to the end today as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who always looks as if he has a pencil stuck up his nose – admitted that he did not have the Republican votes to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Or, as he put it, he was not successful in repealing and replacing the failed Obamacare. ...