Stalin, Hitler and the Temptations of Totalitarianism By STROBE TALBOTT, The New York Times Book Review, OCT. 18, 2017 The Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov signing the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, as the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, standing third from left, and Stalin, fourth from left, look on.CreditHeinrich Hoffmann/ullstein bild, via Getty Images A […]

What Trump did to Kelly shows how far we have fallen By E.J. Dionne Jr., Opinion writer, The Washington Post, October 22 at 7:54 PM The United States is in the middle of a very unfortunate experiment in how disoriented a great nation can become before it loses its moorings entirely. At times, politics seems fairly conventional […]

John Kelly and the Language of the Military Coup When he talks about “the best” Americans, John Kelly means dead Americans—specifically, fallen soldiers. Photograph by Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty By Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, October 20, 2017 Consider this nightmare scenario: a military coup. You don’t have to strain your imagination—all you […]

Trump Campaign Staffers Pushed Russian Propaganda Days Before the Election Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump Jr. pushed messages from an account operated from Russia’s ‘troll farm’—including allegations of voter fraud a week before Election Day. By BETSY WOODRUFF, BEN COLLINS, KEVIN POULSEN, SPENCER ACKERMAN The Daily Beast, 10.18.17 5:51 PM ET Some of the Trump campaign’s most prominent names […]

THEATER Review: A Richard III Who Steps Straight Out of the Land of Id   Playing “Richard III” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lars Eidinger is a bogeyman guaranteed to haunt the audience’s nightmares for weeks to come.CreditRichard Termine By BEN BRANTLEY, The New York Times, OCT. 12, 2017 An unhinged nation gets the unhinged leader […]

Republicans, it’s time to panic Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn). (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) By Michael Gerson, The Washington Post, October 12 at 7:32 PM In the midst of a governing crisis, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has once again risen to his role as the voice of bland complacency. Concerning the open warfare between President Trump […]

Alex Brandon/AP Photo This Is How Donald Trump Thinks the U.S. Government Works And why his supporters should care about it. By MATT LATIMER, Politico, October 08, 2017   Shortly after the White House released the outlines of its tax proposal, President Donald Trump railed on Twitter against Democrats who opposed it, noting that his “Tax […]

Of course Tom Price shouldn’t have to fly coach! Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price testifies on Capitol Hill in June. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) By Dana Milbank, Opinion writer, The Washington Post, September 27 at 6:06 PM   For Tom Price, the price is right. The fake-news media is attacking our hard-working secretary of health […]

Folks, We’re Home Alone Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times By Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, SEPT. 27, 2017 Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote a famous memoir, “Present at the Creation,” about the birth of the post-World War II order — an order whose institutions produced six decades of security and growth for a lot […]

Trump shows ‘America First’ is utterly incoherent (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) President Trump addresses the United Nations General Assembly. By E.J. Dionne Jr., Opinion writer, The Washington Post, September 20 at 7:28 PM The worst aspect of President Trump’s speech at the United Nations on Tuesday was not his immature taunting of a dangerous foreign leader when the […]