On the eve of his 77th birthday, former President Donald J. Trump was arraigned in a Miami courthouse on 37 felony counts of holding and withholding government documents, charges that range from obstruction of justice to espionage.
Reporters, legal scholars and political commentators have already weighed in on the activities of the day and the merits of the case far better than I could. Instead, as a cultural writer, I’d like to focus on the thing I find most striking — indeed it has haunted me from day one — and that is the placement of the documents at Mar-a-Lago.
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Read MoreContext drives not only perception but the passion with which we hold that perception. Witness Tara Reade, who has accused presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden of sexual assault when she was an aide in his Senate office in 1993. In another time, Reade would be one more explosive chapter of the #MeToo movement. But as Eleanor Roosevelt might put it, this is no ordinary time.
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Read MoreThe passing of President George H.W. Bush – whom the nation mourned officially Wednesday – was a reminder of all that we have lost and that still remains.
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Read MoreThe attempt to send crude pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and liberal-leaning CNN Wednesday was shocking but hardly surprising. It is the inevitable progression of an American society unhinged by divisiveness and incivility. And, predictably, the aftermath has not brought people together but set them squabbling about whether or not President Donald J. Trump can be blamed; who’s more uncivil, Democrats or Republicans; and the continuing whataboutism that relitigates past grievances.
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Read MoreThe continuing Revolving Door Policy of the Trump Administration has thrown the systemic failure of Alexandrian leadership – leadership from the front – into sharp relief.
President Donald J. Trumpet has surrounded himself with Trumpettes – yes-men and, to a lesser extent, yes-women – and distanced himself from the No, No, Nanettes. Which is odd, considering his professed love of chaos. Wouldn’t you want some tension, some conflict? ...
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Read MoreIn his Sunday New York Times’ piece “The Unexamined Male Libido,” writer Stephen Marche offers this revelatory thought: “Men arrive at this moment of reckoning (about sexual harassment) woefully unprepared. Most are shocked by the reality of women’s lived experience.”
Translation: Men live with women. Men sleep with women. Men father women’s children. But they don’t know them. ...
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Read MoreAh, the emails.
Not Hill emails this time but Russkie emails. We know they are Russkie emails, because the subject line of George Papadopoulos’ emails to three Trump campaign officials was “Russia updates.” In hindsight, that was probably not a good idea.
On Monday, we learned that Papadopoulos had pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts to broker a relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian President Vladimir “Vladdie Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin in his guise as an unpaid foreign policy adviser. Papadopoulos is now cooperating with Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trumpettes and the Russkies. This is not good news for Trumpet.
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