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Merrick Garland being sworn in as U.S. attorney general in 2021.Does his appointment of a special counsel for the federal government’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump just make him look weak? *Courtesy The United States Department of Justice.*

Bad times for 'bad hombres'?

November 19, 2022

Early in the Trump Administration, there was a store in Grand Central Terminal that sold novelty gift items, many of them critical of President Donald J. Trump. Some were innocuous enough (a troll doll). Others were too scatalogical for reportage. But one that elicited a chuckle was a take on the old paper dolls that showed pictures of Trump and BFF Vladimir Putin to which you could attach outrageous clothing. It was called “Bad Hombres,” after the phrase

Trump coined to characterize many of the Mexican immigrants thronging the U.S. southern border.

These have not been the best of times for the “bad hombres.” In Ukraine, Putin had to pull back from Kherson. When last seen, he was doing some soothing ribbon-cutting and the generals were managing the retrenchment/regrouping/retreat. On the same day, the Republicans turned in a less-than-stellar performance in the midterm election — setting many to blame Trump for pushing through his chosen election-denying candidates, most of whom went down to defeat, and to anoint Trump archrival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as the new It Guy for the 2024 presidential race.

Putin and Trump are, however, not going anywhere.

Who’s smiling now? The Republicans’ failure to seal the deal in the midterms has set up a showdown with a weaker former President Donald J. Trump and a surging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen here with wives Melania and Casey respectively. *Courtesy the state of Florida.*

Trumped: Republicans' election repudiation

November 11, 2022

It was going to be a red wave, no, a bloodbath with all kinds of controversies, conspiracies and maybe even violence — the proverbial American carnage. Instead the midterm election of 2022, which should’ve seen the party out of favor (that would be the Republicans) make significant gains on the party in power (that would be the Democrats) was more birdbath than bloodbath, a fairly typical midterm with some election dysfunction, a nutjob or two, but mostly people quietly, boringly exercising their right to vote. We’ll take quiet and boring.

And while the Republicans may wrest control of the House of Representatives and the Senate from the Democrats — lots of races are still too close to call — the Republicans would have only a wafer-thin majority and no mandate, similar to the Democrats the past two years. The difference is this was the Republicans’ race to lose — and lose they did. Indeed if this were a tennis match, it would be like the Wimbledon darling failing to close out the fifth set despite two championship points. (Et tu, Roger Federer?)

Rishi Sunak giving his first speech as British prime minister on Oct. 25. *Photograph by Rory Arnold/No. 10 Downing Street.*

From Truss bust to dishy Rishi: Can Sunak save Britain?

October 26, 2022

When Princess Anne presented Daniel Craig with the Order of St. Michael and St. George — the same order his character, James Bond, is presented with — all I could think was that right now, we could use 007, Craig, the Princess Royal, St. Michael, St. George, Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, Henry V and anyone else who can lend a hand to right the RMS Titanic that is otherwise known as the United Kingdom.

Riddling the readers with my new book

September 9, 2022

A number of tough deadlines have prevented me recently from blogging and ashamed of it I am, too, as there have been so many juicy storylines on which to comment — the ridiculous ruling on former President Donald J. Trump’s request for a special master, which will undoubtedly be appealed by the Justice Department;

The less than Churchillian new British prime minister, Liz Truss;

The new nonbinary Joan of Arc play, which asks the question, Does it matter that Joan of Arc was a woman? (Of course it does, since it’s one of the reasons she was executed);

And the zigzag rise of Nick Kyrgios, one of a long line of idiosyncratic players (John McEnroe, having another moment, still; Andre Agassi and Novak Djokovic, who should just get the damn jab and be done with it already) in an idiosyncratic sport.

But I want to beg my readers indulgence for a moment as I announce the Sept. 17 publication of my latest novel, “Riddle Me This.”“Riddle Me This” (JMS Books, Sept. 17)….

Where’s “Citizen Kane” director-star Orson Welles when you need him? The entrance gate to Xanadu, uh, Mar a Lago. Photograph by Thomas Wallace Scherzer.

The special master of his domain

August 24, 2022

This summer — like last summer and the one before it — seems to be another case of promise denied. Once again we started with high hopes or at least middling hopes. (Let’s face it: Since Covid, the bar has been set pretty low. And once again, it has not been cleared. We can each point to personal disappointments, which may or may not be of our own making. But as a society, we must consider a failure that stems from our own lack of rationality, imagination and compassion.

One example — the dominant story of the season — will suffice. No sooner did the FBI search former President Donald J. Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago for documents that belong to the National Archives than the Bureau was under attack.

Cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post bequeathed Mar-a-Lago to the National Park Service in 1973 in the hope it would become the Winter White House — which is what it did during President Donald J. Trump’s White House occupancy.

Trump's Toilet-Watergate

August 14, 2022

History, Karl Marx observed, repeats itself — first as tragedy, then as farce. So it was fitting that on the 48th anniversary of President Richard M. Nixon’s Watergate-spurred resignation, Aug. 8, the Department of Justice should search former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, for his alleged failure to return documents belonging to the National Archives.

The official Congressional portrait of Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. As vice chair of the Select Committee of the January 6 Attacks, she has drawn praise for her matter-of-fact, methodical approach to dissecting the events of that horrific day. *Courtesy U..S. House Office of Photography.*

The Jan. 6 hearings and our cult of narcissism

June 14, 2022

If you’re a reader of this blog, then you know that I have often said that two things will destroy our world — the failure of Alexandrian leadership (leadership from the front) and the lack of education, with the second creating the first.

We are living in a time when education has failed badly, when students and teachers have been straitjacketed by the far right and the far left so that many lack any real knowledge and concomitant respect for language, history and science. As a result, the public, or at least the minority that controls many elections in this country, has given power to those who do not best serve the people but those who best serve their baser instincts, who reflect their own narcissism.

This chicken has come home to roost once again in the Jan. 6 hearings into the insurrection at The Capitol that are now being televised, with coverage resuming 10 a.m. EDT Wednesday, June 15.