The D.C. newspaper novel, the media, the Washington area, tech and other surrealism: David Rothman at large
The Uber driver—let’s call him Muhammad—was from Afghanistan. “So,” I asked, “how do you feel about Donald Trump?” I wasn’t going to take anything for granted. The Aryan in the White House might not like Muhammad’s skin color and his probable Muslim faith. But earlier I’d run across a religious African immigrant who cherished Trump […]
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Donald Trump is still demonizing billionaire George Soros and other “globalists,” just as he did in a 2016 campaign commercial with anti-Semitic dog-whistles, or at least something very close. But Trump is picky about which Jewish billionaires to smear, and for good reason. None other than Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish casino billionaire, helped finance our demagogic […]
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HELL—Fresh from his summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump has negotiated a historic agreement with Satan. Under the deal, Satan will not lay claims on the souls of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Occupational Health and Safety Administration acting head Loren Sweatt, immigrant hater Jeff Sessions, consumer financial protection foe Mick […]
Read MoreOuch. If you own stocks, how did you feel when Wall Street suffered its worst week in two years? The S&P dropped six percent. Donald Trump had been pestering the media to report more on the stock market, up since his election. Now at least one TV financial pundit was joking about Trump’s crazy trade […]
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Brilliant scientists from MIT and Berkeley deployed a powerful ray gun against President Trump before his State of the Union speech. This brain-altering gadget did not kill him. Instead it jacked up his IQ 50 points as intended, gave him a conscience and forced him to tell the truth. Wait. I’m dreaming. But here’s an […]
Read MoreLate last night I fell asleep reading the Failing New York Times on my iPad here in Alexandria, Virginia. To my surprise, though a time warp and other inexplicable phenomena, I awoke in a spare bedroom in the former Trump White House. I say “former” for a reason. The time was the mid-2020s. And the […]
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George Roper, my good friend from high school, is dead now. When alive, he was often as right-wing as they come—complete with a passionate anti-Obama blog. And yet George and I avoided hand-to-hand combat. Up to his death several years ago, we followed each other on Facebook. He even talked up my novel. Similarly my […]
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Thank you, Sarah Palin. Friday you reminded us what a whack job The Donald is, even if your language was more indirect. Here he’d led you to believe he was a constitutional conservative. But now he’s bragged about a plan for Indiana to pay $7 million in incentives over a decade to keep a Carrier […]
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A century from now, historians may well turn to the Trump Time Capsule series. The Atlantic’s James Fallows has told “what we knew, when we knew it, about the man who was trying to become president.” The series holds Republican politicians and others accountable to future generations. Donald Trump’s detractors regard him as a potential tyrant […]
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Richard Nixon’s enemies list was a black-tie affair. What a party! The twenty original names included such luminaries as film star Paul Newman, Congress member Ron Dellums, and journalist Daniel Schorr. Some powerful VIPs almost felt slighted not to make The List. The Nixon people later added scores of other individuals, as well as groups, […]
Read MoreOhio National Guardmen killed Bill Schroeder, an ex-Eagle Scout, 46 years ago today, at Kent State University. As a reporter for The Lorain Journal, his hometown daily, I covered the death of this ROTC cadet. Do you realize what America was like back then? People actually phoned up our factory-town newspaper and praised the guardsmen […]
Read MoreUpdate: Jim Moran has since told me there was no quid pro quo, that the real estate developer's contributions were part of an arrangement by which he contributed to many races at once. I appreciated his responding and will let readers judge for themserves. I’ve already told how the $1B Quarter Pentagon, aka BRAC-133, part […]
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