
This is my 2019 end-of-year blog post before the holiday hiatus, so it seems fitting to take stock of where we've been and where we are, especially since we’re unsure—but intrepidly hopeful!—about where we're going. It needn’t be a comprehensive list; in fact, it shouldn't be, because who would want to revisit so many moments of this past year? But if we don’t take the time to notice our victories (eyes always fixed on the next struggles), we can wind up where only the failures feel real. That's what our adversaries focus on, but why should we help them do so? Instead, it's crucial to develop a taste for, a habit for, moving forward. And it's crucial to note that our wins have been considerable. On one end of the spectrum, just this past week Bill Cosby’s appeal of his 2018 sexual-assault conviction has been unanimously denied by a panel of three...
Okay. So we’ve learned to be alert about Trump’s creativity when it comes to diversionary tactics. To get himself out of a corner, he will do anything, including initiate a war—sacrificing American casualties and, in the case of the Kurds, the lives of allies who’d fought beside GIs against the so-called "Islamic state" caliphate. We’ve learned we need to peer behind the scenes to look for or surmise what’s really going on, which is inevitably nefarious in Trump world. So here are a few things to keep an eye on, especially now, as his lawyers realize they need to lawyer up themselves with lawyers, his minions begin to topple like bowling pins, and the vise tightens around him. Some people say that after the House impeaches him, as begins to look inevitable, the GOP-controlled Senate might actually convict him, despite previous assumptions; the polls are sinking him as if by...
By the time you read this, everything will have changed again—but a girl can only work with what she’s got, and what I’ve got are words. True to character, I’ve been fascinated by the use of language—hilarious, heartbreaking, and most of all revealing— during this whole Ukraine-gate horror, this hubristic trap self-created by Trump that bodes to be what will finally bring him down. Leave aside for the moment how pundits are busy ”unpacking” the layers of corruption, or how Trump loyalists are “doubling down.” Take, for instance, the most common words used this past week by Republican members of the House and Senate when cornered by the press asking them to describe their reactions to this latest violation of law and betrayal of country by their Beloved Leader. Disturbing is the most commonly used word, barely edging out troubling. Mitt Romney was disturbed. Ben Sasse was troubled. Well,...