It's being characterized variously as "anxiety" (The Washington Post), "handwringing" (The Hill), "a Maalox moment" and "alarm" (The New York Times), and "growing uncertainty" and "a pervasive feeling of unease" (the Associated Press).
"Boo" only startles when its target is caught by surprise. Democrats chose Halloween to spring a preliminary impeachment vote on the nation, but their move was spotted a mile away. Adversaries of President Trump have been loudly proclaiming their intention to expel him from office since the day he was elected. Now that the campaign to unelect him is out in the open, partisan accusers operating in the shadows must step into the light. Judgment cuts both ways.
"Have broomstick, will travel" is not how Hillary Clinton's calling card reads, but it should. The septuagenarian professional politician is swooping over the American landscape in her billowing jackets, threatening to once again lay waste to the presidential election process. Last time around, Republicans were relieved to have survived her reign of error. As All Hallow's Eve draws near, it is her own Democrats who are faced with uncertainty over what her threatened political resurrection might unleash.
The design of the United States government is riddled with checks and balances intended to prevent any one branch from becoming so powerful it could dominate the other two. This, the Founders believed, would safeguard our liberties.
"This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper," wrote T.S. Eliot in "The Hollow Men." A dark commentary on the despair gripping the European continent following World War I, it fits as a preface to the last moments of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, almost.
Hope paved humanity's lengthy pathway to the 21st century, but fear threatens to take it from here. It shouldn't. Beyond the gloomy headlines, advances in human knowledge are making these supposedly dreadful years actually the most amazing ever.
Having the best of intentions is no protection from the worst of consequences. That's the sobering lesson from the government-run experiment with renewable fuels.
Nearly three years since she lost the 2016 presidential race to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton clearly still hasn't gotten over it and moved on.
Perhaps Ralph Northam should head north of the border when his term as Virginia governor is up. Canadian voters are rather indulgent of leaders who occasionally don blackface, apparently.
In the program for an exhibition of his works at a museum in Stockholm in 1968, pop artist Andy Warhol famously predicted "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." The phrase "15 minutes of fame" has since come to describe anyone or anything that's a short-lived blip on the pop culture or media radar.
After being acquitted in May 1987 of all 10 counts of larceny and fraud — charges that some said were politically motivated — in connection with a New York City subway project, former Reagan administration Labor Secretary Ray Donovan turned to the Bronx prosecutor and famously asked, "Which office do I go to, to get my reputation back?"
Attorney General William Barr kicked up a storm last weekend — by stating the obvious. In a speech delivered at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana on Saturday, the attorney general pointed out that a rising tide of "militant secularism" is waging war on religious communities from coast to coast. Not content to live and let live, they seek to stamp out religious practices with which they disagree. Their assault on religion and the religious is dangerous, and represents a profound departure from the principles of religious freedom on which the United States was founded.
Politics is a mean competition, one that makes pro football look like two-hand touch by comparison. The game on the gridiron, at least, has rules meant to ensure a level playing field. Not so with the contest currently underway in Washington in which Democrats are using every trick at their disposal to knock out the opposing party's star player. Americans are witnessing the savaging of their president, and the quiet voice of conscience says it's fundamentally unfair.
In May 2017, the "comedian" Kathy Griffin posted a video in which she holds the bloody, severed head of President Donald Trump. The media and political establishment were aghast — at President Trump's response. "Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself," the president (of course) tweeted. "My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!" Two years later, Ms. Griffin is back in the popular culture's good graces, bringing her caustic brand of stand up to theaters worldwide. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, was widely derided for taking offense at a video that showed his murder in graphic detail.
Not everyone is born for greatness, but most Americans try to do their part, in the words of the Constitution, "in order to form a more perfect union." Some, though, spend their days attempting to transform it. Republicans and Democrats alike believe it is they who are laboring to build a better nation and their political adversaries who are wrecking it. It's an ominous trend, especially heading into a presidential election season where victory and defeat hang in the balance. When the Democratic presidential contenders take the debate stage Tuesday in Ohio, voters should gauge whether they intend to support the union the Framers formed, in transform it.
In its latest spasm of virtue-signaling last week, the D.C. Council further burnished its far-left credentials by adopting "Indigenous Peoples' Day" as a legal holiday, replacing Columbus Day, to be observed Monday, Oct. 14.
Q: In the past week, what have each of the following demonstrated:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Congress and the White House are at yet another constitutional deadlock, this time over how the United States should proceed in the ongoing civil war in Syria.
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic, Joseph Stalin is reputed to have observed. (And as one of the most prolific murderers of the 20th century, Old Joe should have known of what he spoke.) Likewise, losing 20 or even 100 bucks is deeply annoying. But losing $1 trillion? Why, that's mere statistic — indeed, to us mere mortals, $1 trillion is an unfathomable amount.
Love makes the world go 'round, it is said, but it's money that greases its spin. When news arrives of a weakening economy, some looking out through the wrong end of binoculars can mistake a fly in the ointment for a wallet-ravaging behemoth. With proper perspective, there can be little doubt the U.S. economy under President Trump is on full throttle, and the roar means rising prosperity for American families.
© Copyright 2020 The Washington Times, LLC
3600 New York Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002
