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You are watching the 2016 Republican primary campaign, trying to figure out if Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio can stop Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination. A man from the future steps out of a shimmering portal and informs you that the winner of the primary campaign will go on to be the Republican president who will finally bomb Iran’s nuclear program.
People are talking about America’s “K-shaped economy,” so named because charts show different sectors’ fortunes diverging like the two arms of that letter. Recently, for example, data services firm ADP reported 32,000 lost U.S. jobs in November — a sharp reversal from October’s 47,000 gain, but not unexpected. But within that data, smaller firms employing from 1 to 49 workers laid off 120,000 ...
The fact that Dick Van Dyke turned 100 on Dec. 13 is remarkable enough. But the entertainment icon hasn’t simply made it to the century mark; he’s remained purposefully engaged in life and with those around him: acting, dancing, mentoring younger performers, and spreading joy to millions. Van Dyke is a reminder that aging does not diminish our capacity to contribute. In fact, it often enhances ...
A standard journalistic practice at this time of year is to list the high points of the past 12 months. But a review of President Donald Trump’s year finds far more lows than highs. Trump can justifiably take credit for brokering the end of the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza that the Biden administration was unable to stop, though sporadic clashes still occur and a permanent peace still seems far ...
Until now, the most terrifying sight in the history of college football was Dick Butkus, the ferocious University of Illinois linebacker (1962-1964), flattening an opponent. Now, however, an even scarier sight is Maria Cantwell carrying a letter.
After Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were stabbed to death, President Donald Trump went off on a social media tear denouncing Rob Reiner for supposedly having a “mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Asked about the comment, Trump doubled down, saying that Reiner was “a deranged person” who “was very bad for our country.”
My wife and I are once again rewatching “Mad Men,” a show that has, for better or worse, lodged itself deep within my personality. I can’t remember the password to my bank account, or which of my kid’s “Spirit Days” is next Tuesday, but I can endlessly quote “Mad Men.” We just finished season one, which ends with “The Wheel.” You remember it; the episode where Don Draper pitches Kodak on a ...
I had dinner with my son recently, and as tends to happen with us, we started talking about Quentin Tarantino's two-part masterpiece, "Kill Bill." We fell in love with the movies when they were released more than 20 years ago, when my son was in elementary school, and we have seen them countless times. My son had bought tickets to see the recently released "The Whole Bloody Affair" — which ...
Though I tend to think it’s usually a waste of space to devote a column to President Donald Trump’s personality – what more is there to say about the character of this petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man? – sometimes the point bears stressing: We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House.
I get the appeal of “Heated Rivalry” and why it’s been plastered all over my social media feeds. The ambiguous sexuality of the two lead twunks, their butter-smooth skin, blade-sharp jawlines and sculpted abs nested neatly in our favorite homoerotic contact sport – hockey, that is – seem predestined for fan-fiction folders of smut-obsessed netizens.
Folks, the cheese has officially slid off our president’s cracker.
There is a measure of comfort to be taken in the fact that Sunday’s terrorist attack at a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which left at least 15 people dead and many more injured, also produced a hero. A man described in news accounts – but not yet confirmed by the New York Times – as a local shopkeeper named Ahmed al-Ahmed single-handedly disarmed one of two terrorists and survived being shot twice, in a scene that was captured on camera and has since gone viral.
After World War II, the United States and its allies occupied West Germany and helped its post-Nazi leaders build a successful democracy out of the ruins of fascism. What a difference 80 years makes. In an astonishing role reversal, German leaders, along with those of Denmark, the Baltics, Poland, and other European allies, have become the global defenders of liberal democracy — meaning free ...
If Germany were invaded, just 38% of its citizens would be willing to fight for their country, according to a recent poll. Fifty-nine percent would not. In Italy, another poll found that only 16% of those of fighting age would take up arms. In France, Gen. Fabien Mandon, the army’s chief of staff, told a conference of mayors last month that the nation would be “at risk” if it “wavers because we are not ready to accept losing our children.” This statement of the obvious set off a political furor.
Like most parties that lose presidential races, the Democrats have struggled through a difficult aftermath. But the handwringing over their lack of effective leadership failed to temper their strength at the polls.
In 1982, Phyllis Schlafly, perhaps the most important anti-feminist in American history, debated radical feminist law professor Catharine MacKinnon. Schlafly believed that sexism was a thing of the past; to her, if women had different roles in society than men, it was due to their distinct talents and inclinations. She herself, she said, had never experienced discrimination.
One of the joys of living in flyover country is the annual state fair. It is a mix of traveling circus, amusement park, unbelievable food, live entertainment and serious competitions. You see children (and adults) vying for prizes for raising livestock; you can watch everything from barrel racing to sheep shearing; and you can not only see the biggest watermelon but also participate in ...
The confluence of two seemingly unrelated news events in recent days — the first one roiling Hollywood and media from coast to coast, the other playing out before the Supreme Court — was nothing short of uncanny. And disturbing. The first news was the one-two punch of Friday's bombshell that Netflix planned to swallow up Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming business to create an ...
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t recommend perusing the annual National Security Strategy of the United States of America. It generally summarizes the foreign policy direction in which the current administration is headed, and makes for lengthy, dry reading. But the new 33-page document is so shocking — even given what we already know about this administration’s behavior — that Americans need to pay ...
The significant fact about Ukraine’s corruption scandal is that it is having one. A scandal, that is, as opposed to just a fact of life.
