Now that John Bolton is going to be Donald Trump’s third national security adviser in a little over a year(!), it behooves us to consider what we might expect during Bolton’s tenure. The position of national security adviser is exceptionally influential–especially given the recent tendency over the span of several administrations to concentrate significant amounts of foreign and national security policymaking powers in the White House, with policy direction flowing out to various cabinet departments and executive agencies. So, what awaits us when Bolton occupies the post?
Pejman Yousefzadeh
Pejman Yousefzadeh
Scribbling, scribbling, scribbling on the Internet.
Tagged Trump Administration
Movie Review: “The Death of Stalin”
I suppose it is worth stating anew the observation and fact that few–if any–movies actually tell a historical tale in what can be called a faithful manner. Such is the case with The Death of Stalin, which, while unfaithful to historical facts, shows laudable fidelity to stating and underlining a higher truth: The so-called “leaders” of authoritarian and totalitarian societies are as comical, ridiculous and pathetic as they are monstrous, evil and depraved, and to defeat them, it is imperative that we identify them as the buffoons that they are, and mock them accordingly–even as we gape in horror at…
Defining Deviancy Down
So, at the end of the 1986-1987 Supreme Court term, Associate Justice Lewis Powell decided to retire from the Court. Accordingly, Justice Powell submitted his resignation letter to President Reagan. The president nominated Judge Robert Bork to replace Powell. Bork got voted down 58-42 by the United States Senate, the first Senate rejection of a Supreme Court nominee since Judge Harold Carswell’s nomination by President Nixon went down in flames. Afterwards, President Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy, the Senate confirmed him, and the rest is history, right?
Donald Trump and the Lost (or Never Possessed) Art of the Deal
Because the incumbent president of the United States regularly inundates us with boasts about how he is supposedly a clever and masterful negotiator–notwithstanding the overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting that as with other claimed skills, the incumbent president of the United States suffers massively from a severe and pronounced case of the Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to gauging his negotiating skills–I figured that it might be useful to think back to a time when actual artists of the deal made a rather good deal that many thought was impossible to pull off. That time was during the presidency of Ronald Reagan…
Wanted: A Pro-Life Movement that Is Actually Pro-Life, and a Morality Police that Is in Favor of More than Just a Selective Application of Morality
Today, the National March for Life was held. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the event, that is the day when purportedly pro-life people don’t come out for increased sex education and/or increased distribution of contraceptive devices–approaches which may actually help bring down the number of unexpected and unwanted pregnancies, and relatedly, the number of abortions that occur in America.
The Trump Administration Is More Incompetent than You Can Possibly Imagine, Even after Taking into Account the Fact that the Trump Administration Is More Incompetent than You Can Possibly Imagine
I suppose that it is a healthy sign for me that I continue to be amazed by the blundering, mistake-prone, disaster-inducing ways of the current administration; my constant state of disbelief and shock may indicate that my standards for competence, organization and professionalism have not been diminished. Then again, the fact that my standards–and those of others–are repeatedly being run roughshod by the worst president and administration in American history, and only the most deluded of Trump supporters (but is there anything other than a deluded Trump supporter?) can possibly think that this is a good thing.
If It Is a Day Whose Name Ends with the Letter “Y,” then It Is Time for Jane Mayer to Rail about the Koch Brothers
The latest manifestation of Jane Mayer’s Ahabesque quest to label the Koch brothers as pure evil comes in this article, in which Mayer solemnly intones about the dangers of having Mike Pence as president, and states that said dangers mainly revolve around Pence being an alleged tool of the Koch brothers. To be sure, I think that Pence is appalling, and would–at best–make a mediocre president. I would never vote for him. I had hoped that he would be one of the legendary “adults in the room,” and act as a brake on Donald Trump’s worst ambitions, but that hope…
The Trump Administration’s Raisons d’être: Enable Systemic Corruption at High Levels of Government, and Stoke a Cultural and Racial War
No matter how difficult it may be to keep in mind, always, always, always remember that no matter how bad the Trump administration gets, no matter how low it goes, it has further to fall, and it will get far, far worse. Put another way: The Trump administration is always worse than you can possibly imagine, even after taking into account the fact that the Trump administration is always worse than you can possibly imagine.
The Conservative Movement Descends into Utter Madness, Part Infinity (RedState Edition)
Longtime readers know that at one point in my blogging career-resembling-thing, I wrote for RedState, at the invitation of some very nice people. I enjoyed most of my time writing for the site, and met even more nice people as a consequence of my association with the site as one of its contributors. I resigned as a contributor in 2009, and since then, I have generally held my tongue regarding the evolution of RedState. In part, this was because in the aftermath of my resignation, I didn’t visit RedState all that much, so I had rather little to say about…
This Is What Dereliction of Duty Looks Like
I urge everyone to read this horrifying account of how the Obama administration learned of Russian active measures that were designed to disrupt the 2016 presidential election and to throw the election to Donald Trump, whom the Russians have long seen as far friendlier to their interests and designs. I won’t excerpt anything from the story; just read it all, and be prepared to be deeply angry. A combination of fear, excessive confidence in Hillary Clinton’s electoral appeal and an inability to confront Republicans at the state and national level who are equally complicit in having ensured that Russian interference in…
