Category: politics

The Shape of Pardonpaloozas to Come

Mike Rothschild

A “constitutional crisis” is generally defined as a problem for which a country’s founding documents don’t contain a solution, or they do, and the solution is ignored.

Five Thirty Eight breaks down this concept even more, delineating four types of American constitutional crises: when the Constitution doesn’t say what to do, when it does but in an unclear way, when it does but it’s not feasible or possible, and when it does and the institutions meant to enforce that solution are bypassed.

Pundits have been predicting a Donald Trump administration constitutional crisis since day one, from his flouting of the emoluments clause to his firing of former FBI director James Comey, to the potential firing of Robert Mueller.

But with Trump’s pardon of loathsome former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, convicted of contempt of court for refusing to stop violating the constitutional rights of Latinos, we likely got a glimpse of the constitutional crisis to come.

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President Trump’s Afghan Strategy Has Already Failed

Mike Rothschild

At 6PM today (9PM for you New York liberal elites), President Trump will give his first televised speech to the country.

Speaking at Fort Myer in Virginia, Trump will outline a “path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia.”

For Afghanistan, he’s almost certain to announce a small uptick in troops being committed to the effort, likely about 4,000. He’s also thought to be announcing a crackdown on corruption in the Afghan government, and measures to bring Pakistani anti-terror operations up to snuff.

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No Pivot, No Turning Point, No Bottom

Mike Rothschild

It was “an inflection point,” The New York Times declared in a devastating assessment of Donald Trump’s status.

Columnist Nate Cohn wrote that Republican “elites quickly moved to condemn [Trump’s] comments,” and that “his support will erode as the tone of coverage shifts from publicizing his anti-establishment and anti-immigration views … to reflecting the chorus of Republican criticism of his most outrageous comments.”

Trump’s shocking remarks “were nothing less than an invitation for the rest of the Republican Party to begin their long-awaited offensive.” Cohn concluded. “Nearly all [Republicans] have incentives to pile on, and Mr. Trump — without a deep base of support and with few party allies — will struggle to hold on.”

The comments in question had nothing to do with the Nazi riot in Charlottesville this weekend. If fact, they had nothing to do with anything Trump has said while President, or even while he was the presumptive nominee.

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James Alex Fields Jr., Heather Heyer, and the History of Nazi Street Brawling

Mike Rothschild

On May 7th, 1945, around 6 P.M., Private First Class Charles Havlat was on patrol near Volary, Czechoslovakia with fellow soldiers of the Fifth Infantry Division. He was manning a machine gun in a jeep driven by the Lieutenant leading the unit.

His squad was ambushed, and during a “brief, but intense skirmish,” Havalt was shot through the head and killed. The shooting ended only because both sides were informed that hours earlier, Nazi Germany had signed an instrument of surrender. It was due to take effect at midnight of the next day, and when it did, World War II in Europe was over.

Killed in a completely unnecessary action, PFC Havlat is generally regarded as the last American to die at the hands of Nazi aggression.

Or at least he was until this weekend.

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Here’s What’s (Probably) Going to Happen with North Korea

Mike Rothschild

August is hot. Humid, bedraggling, motivation-sapping hot. It’s so hot that Neil Diamond has a famous live album that’s literally called “Hot August Night.”

But what’s hotter than Neil Diamond busting out “I Am, I Said” for an amphitheater full of sweaty boomers?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A nuclear bomb going off over your head and turning you into atoms. That’s hot.

Obviously, the sabre-rattling between the U.S. and North Korea over Kim Jong Un’s nuclear ambitions has people nervous. Panicking, even. News broke last week that the Kim regime might be much closer to developing a nuclear warhead that can fit on a missile than anyone believed. He’s testing ICBM’s that could hit well into the U.S., and making grave threats about firing missiles at Guam and”mercilessly wiping out” his enemies.

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