Does this make me sound old? I don’t really care. The U.S. TikTok ban is spot on and the Brazilian X ban is not. No “back in my day” speech required.
After the long holiday weekend, the cable news talking heads returned to their flashy sets. One led with an impassioned speech about the horrors of the October 7 attack on Israel and the tragedy of the hostages killed this weekend — and didn’t immediately pivot to score a partisan point. That encapsulates upstart network NewsNation’s approach.
In Vice President Harris’s nomination speech, she labeled President Trump an “unserious man.” She was right, but she should know: she could wear the “unserious” label just fine herself.
Alvin Lee was a rock-and-roll singer, guitarist, and songwriter of some note. Anyone who has seen the “Woodstock” movie surely remembers him and his band, Ten Years After, performing “I’m Going Home.” It didn’t impart the sense that Lee was high in the intellectual hit parade. But he was at least a talented predictor of future events, as I was reminded this week.
Last week, Vice President Harris chose Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota to be her running mate for the fall presidential election. He’s an interesting person with many fine qualities, and perhaps even some compelling issue positions, depending upon your perspective. It must be said, however, that the Vice President and Governor Walz continue to uphold their national party’s extreme views on abortion, and the right to life.
This will be a weird election, but not in the sense of uniqueness. If anything, 2024 is a race to find out who can best ignore recent history and doom the rest of us to repeat the weirdest aspects of it.
“America needs a full-time president, and a full-time Congress,” Nixon said. He also admitted errors in the events that led to his decision. “If some of my judgments were wrong — and some were wrong — they were made in what I believed at the time to be in the best interests of the nation.” The need for a full-time president no longer seems to exist, and the less time Congress spends on the job, as a general rule, the better.
There was a time, and it was not long ago, when you could sit down and write a column a few days in advance with a better than even chance that events would not overtake it. Reporters would even write “ever-green” columns and stories, to keep in the queue for events such as the sudden cancellation of a full-page ad or the illness of the columnist. The ever-green piece could be dropped in and all would be well.
Overloaded with politics and the contemptible collection of low creatures whence we must choose come November, maybe it is time to discuss something good and decent and pure: Snakes.
For a short while a couple of days ago it seemed that it might — just might — be possible for a person of conscience to vote for Donald Trump. But then . . .