Michael McKenna

A rebuttal to Venture Global

One of the great things about writing a column is that it occasionally draws blood and the intended target responds with an ill-advised letter to the editor.

September 27, 2023

Barreling toward another government shutdown: The art of political kabuki

Since the passage of the misguided and disastrous Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974, parts of the federal government have shut down 20 times, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

September 20, 2023

Al Gore and illegitimacy: No one voted for net-zero emissions by 2035

Al Gore, the former vice president, Nobel laureate and tobacco farmer, the guy who literally made his money by selling out to Arab oil traders, has been making the news lately.

September 15, 2023

Feds should investigate Venture Global, which is supposed to be sending LNG to Poland — but isn’t

The energy world is characterized by large, capital-intensive facilities that sometimes take decades to finance, permit and build.

September 13, 2023

Biden fails crisis management in Hawaii; DeSantis shines in Florida

One legitimate measurement of the readiness and capability of a candidate to be president is how he or she responds to a crisis.

September 9, 2023

Summoning violence: Why using the 14th Amendment against Trump is a really bad idea

Of all of the legal challenges former President Donald Trump faces, perhaps the most formidable is the risk of being struck from the ballot in a number of states because his presence would contravene Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

September 6, 2023

Gavin Newsom’s shift on energy is a sign he’s running for president

Gavin Newsom, the current governor of California, is running for president -- maybe in 2024, certainly in 2028.

September 3, 2023

Political parties’ presidential nominating process is greatest risk to our democracy

Democrats have been working on a theme for the last couple of years that former President Donald Trump and his supporters constitute a threat to democracy because, well, because they have the temerity to support Mr. Trump.

August 30, 2023

Voters need to know who will serve the next president

Here's an idea: instead of wasting time on questions about UFOs and climate change, maybe the moderators of last Wednesday's debate should have asked about important and relevant questions.

August 26, 2023

GOP presidential contest has come down to Trump vs. DeSantis

The Iowa State Fair has mercifully come and gone, and the first debate among the GOP presidential candidates is upon us.

August 23, 2023

On the GOP debate stage or not, Trump will dominate the headlines

The current candidates for the Republican presidential nomination seem to think that former President Donald Trump won in 2016 because he won the debates.

August 18, 2023

Congress led by octogenarians stuck in Cold War mentality

The great Jonathan Martin recently wrote a story that lays bare all the pathologies of the Republican Party and the chasm that exists between its "leaders" and the voters.

August 16, 2023

Biden outflanks Republicans on China

This past Wednesday, President Biden signed an executive order banning new American investments in advanced semiconductors and quantum computers in China starting in 2024.

August 13, 2023

College football: Where profits are more important than education

Last week, the Pac-12 conference, which was founded in 1915 and has won more NCAA championships in team sports than any other college sports conference, dissolved in a matter of hours.

August 9, 2023

National commission on COVID-19 could protect more Americans in the future

We need some sort of national reckoning with respect to COVID-19. If we don't get a firm grip on what went right and what went wrong and why, we are likely to repeat the lethal mistakes that were made.

August 6, 2023

Decline of Hollywood followed the summer of 1977

In the summer of 1977, nearly everyone in the country was seeing "Star Wars" or "Smokey and the Bandit" in movie theaters.

August 2, 2023

The limits of politics: What happens in your own home is what matters

As we wander into yet another election that will no doubt eventually become the "most important election of our lifetime," it might be worth thinking about the limits of politics, especially with respect to the presidency.

July 28, 2023

Why skipping the GOP debate makes sense for Trump

Former President Donald Trump does not seem very excited about the opportunity to participate in the first Republican presidential primary debate.

July 26, 2023

New York Yankees and Pentagon are both guilty of overpaying for mediocrity

The New York Yankees, one of the premier sports franchises on Earth, are in last place in the American League East division.

July 21, 2023

GOP must stop yelling about ‘weaponization’ of Biden’s DOJ

As the next indictment against former President Donald Trump creeps closer, it seems like a good time to review a few simple yet often forgotten and perhaps outdated concepts about American justice and governance.

July 19, 2023