House Speaker Mike Johnson has gone from zero to Mitch McConnell in record time. The “conservative firebrand” who was elected last Oct. 25 to lead Republicans to greater glory now resembles his depleted Senate counterpart. With sickening speed, Johnson has…
We would rather be ruined than changed We would rather die in our dread Than climb the cross of the moment And let our illusions die. — W.H. Auden, “The Age of Anxiety” (1948) The persistence of pro-Kremlin sentiments on…
This week, Congress moved closer to passing four separate bills with $95 billion in funding for Ukraine, Israel, Indo-Pacific allies, and the domestic submarine industrial base. This funding has been debated for months, with much of it intended for wars…
This afternoon, President Joe Biden set out to make my job difficult. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t know I exist (we’ll keep it that way), and even if he did, he likely wouldn’t care. Nonetheless, as he affixed his signature…
The Hoover Institution’s Stephen Kotkin is probably America’s top Kremlinologist. He knows Russia — its history, culture, and politics — as well or better than any contemporary scholar in the United States. He is in the process of completing the…
It was probably former Wyoming Republican Senator Alan Simpson who first said that the Republicans are the “Stupid Party.” He may not have invented it, but he said it often enough. American humorist P.J. O’Rourke once said, “The Republicans are…
Late this past summer, I witnessed something that others could have seen, but, like me, they wouldn’t have fully understood what they were watching. It was the ultimate tip-of-the-iceberg experience. I was about to catch the train from Kyiv heading…
Ay me! I see the ruin of my house. The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind; Insulting tyranny begins to jut Upon the innocent and aweless throne: Welcome, destruction, death, and massacre! I see, as in a map, the end of all. — Richard III, Act II,…
Among the least pressing problems facing Washington these days is what to do with all our neglected NeoCons now that Donald Trump has seized the Republican Party and decisively evicted them from their chosen home. They are still rattling around…