Cassidy Hutchinson testifying before the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attacks. *Courtesy the committee.*

Cassidy Hutchinson -- Ms. America

June 29, 2022

I always knew former President Donald J. Trump would be done in by a woman, but I never imagined it would be this woman and in this way.

I always thought the Trumpian comeuppance would come at the skillful hands of the estimable Stormy Daniels or the equally estimable House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, skilled in a different way but with the same results.

But there she is. No, not Miss America but Ms. America, Cassidy Hutchinson — earnest, principled, detail-minded, determined and crisply attired in summer-ready black and white, looking for all the world like something out of a John Grisham movie. (Back in the day, she would’ve been played by Julia Roberts. Today, she’d probably be played by Dakota Johnson.)

Spencer Tracy, Harry Morgan and Frederic March in “Inherit the Wind” (1960), based on the play inspired by the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial that also put Darwinism in the hot seat. Courtesy MGM.

Inherit the (whirl)wind -- Trump on trial

February 11, 2021

We’re in the “Inherit the Wind” phase of the Donald J. Trump post-presidency, which will play out mainly in the courts even as it continues to play out in the court of public opinion. New York is following the money, while Georgia focuses on the former president’s alleged muscling of officials to “find” votes for him in a state he lost. Then there are all those women and their sexual harassment charges.

All of this, however, is taking a backseat to the “trial of the century” — every important trial is always the trial of the century — in which House Managers, having impeached Trump, are attempting to convince Senate jurors that the former president is guilty of the sole count of the indictment, incitement of insurrection.

Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History, has asked New York City to remove James Earle Fraser’s 1939 bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt from in front of the museum as it shows an African-American and a Native American i… — Ellen V. Futter, president of the American Museum of Natural History, has asked New York City to remove James Earle Fraser’s 1939 bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt from in front of the museum as it shows an African-American and a Native American in an inferior position to the white president.

Black votes matter, too

June 25, 2020

Well, we didn’t have to worry about social distancing at the Trump rally in Tulsa after all. Even Asa Hutchinson, Republican governor of Arkansas, wryly told Judy Woodruff on the “PBS NewsHour” Monday that those Arkansans who crossed the state line to attend the event at the Bank of Oklahoma Center and had seats on the main floor had better get tested on their return. Those, however, who were spread out in the vast blue expanse of the upper tiers? They’re good, Hutchinson said.

Carl Heinrich Bloch, “Christ at the Cross” (1870), oil on copper. Museum of Natural History, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Suffering, death and Resurrection

April 6, 2020

It is perhaps fitting that we should approach the apex of the coronavirus in the New York metropolitan area during Holy Week, which once again overlaps with Passover.

This year there was no need for Lenten sacrifices. Instead sacrifice has been forced upon us. The coronavirus has been our Lenten journey and now our Calvary. This, too, is our Passover story — which also has a plague episode — our Exodus.

Stormy weather with The Donald

March 8, 2018

Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky
Stormy (Daniels) Weather
Since Donald Trump and I’ve been together
Keeps raining all the time.

The howling winds, ice-laced downed branches and big, fat raindrops and snowflakes of back-to-back nor’easters are nothing compared to the bomb cyclone that is Trump-et. The man who says he loves chaos – thinking it is somehow the same as a constructive exchange of differing ideas – has plenty of it these days. He’s got porn star Stormy Daniels suing him over the nondisclosure agreement she says he never signed, thus freeing her to show and tell about her relationship with The Donald. ...

The Senate health care bill and the disease of the disconnect

June 29, 2017

Sen. Mitch McConnell hopes to tweak the Senate health care bill so that he can submit it Friday to the Congressional Budget Office, the same Congressional Budget Office that torpedoed the bill in its current form when it announced that the bill would result in 22 million more people being uninsured by 2026.

That sent the Repubs into overdrive to get the bill revised in time for their Yankee Doodle break, because if anyone deserves a Fourth of July break, it’s hard-working Congress. ...

Trump to Comey: ‘you’re fired’

May 9, 2017

So let me get this straight: President Donald J. Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey for the way he revealed the Bureau’s investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal.

Uh-huh.

Not because Comey was investigating the Trump Administration’s relationship with the Russkies, no, not that. ...