Too many scandals to count. Early on April 6th, the New York Times reported that the C.I.A. Had Evidence of Russian Effort to Help Trump Earlier Than Believed. According to the story, the CIA knew Russia was helping Trump as early as last summer. (Funny that they’re only mentioning this now.) Anyway, late on that same April 6th, Trump launched 60 Tomahawk missiles against Syria. […]
President Tiny Hands at work. (This is another article I started a few days ago. I know I promised I’d protect you from this, but I swear, it’s short.) While Republicans are trying to distract us by overtly smearing Susan Rice and shrieking about imaginary wiretaps, it’s worth stepping back from the latest shiny objects. What are Trump’s political goals? What does he want to […]
“Tactics is the art of using troops in battle; strategy is the art of using battles to win the war.” — Carl von Clausewitz I started this article a couple of days ago, back before the Syrian bombing. the New York Times had published U.S. War Footprint Grows in Middle East, With No Endgame in Sight, an article about how America keeps expanding our military […]
Is Trump smart enough to fake a military attack for political ends? My first thought was that Trump committed an act of war against the Syrian government on impulse. Sure, it his documented ideas were completely isolationist. Sec. of State Tillerson said exactly that. Then Trump saw poisoned children and infants gasping to death on TV, and he twitched the other way. I was actually […]
Partisan judicial appointments. We should try to remember what’s supposed to happen under the Constitution. The President nominates people who are more or less acceptable to the nation, or at least to the Senate. If the President nominated people the Senate felt were too partisan, Senate leaders would push back, and asks for someone more generally acceptable. Supreme Court jurists aren’t supposed to be party […]
Trump cuts the legs out from under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Trump made it clear with his missile attack against Syria that Rex Tillerson doesn’t speak for Trump or the US. Just like every other subordinate, Trump left him to twist in the wind. Trump doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s supposed to let his own people know what he wants. The Secretary […]
Empathy? Trump changed direction completely when he bombed Syria. This was how he started his speech: My fellow Americans, On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians using a deadly nerve agent. Assad choked out the lives of innocent men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered […]
Al-Shayrat airbase, as borrowed from an Airbus satellite image. It’s worth mentioning the military parts of this attack. Tomahawk missiles are wonderfully accurate weapons that can drop 1000 pound payloads wherever you want. They fly so low they’re unstoppable even by the Russian-installed anti-aircraft batteries that Syria has in so many locations. If we meant to follow this up with something more, we’d have targeted […]

