The D.C. newspaper novel, the media, the Washington area, tech and other surrealism: David Rothman at large
In Blowout, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow plumbs the toxic influence of the oil and gasoline industries on the economies and governments of Russia, the United States and other countries. Energy companies free of constraints can be harmful to your homeland’s economic and civic health, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia just might be Exhibit Number One. Here’s a […]
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Oh, the fickleness of Trump-era news cycles! I was going to write about how the Democrats could defeat Donald Trump in part by wooing young voters in critical Electoral College states. And then along comes the Ukrainian bombshell raising serious questions about whether Trump will even be around to run against. But let’s suppose Trump’s […]
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A brilliant thinker like Elizabeth Warren would be copacetic if electability weren’t Criterion #1, but the best anti-Trump defense would be, yes, exactly what some have already called for: a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket. How might this and other actions unify the Democrats before it’s too late? What follows is in the realm of “could and should” rather than “will.” But an old Biden friend just may be reading this column—I won’t go into the details—and I fervently hope she passes it on to him.
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How to defeat Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the second-evilest man in town—Donald Trump’s main enabler? The cause gained even more urgency Tuesday when McConnell denied that Trump was a racist despite clear evidence such as his bigoted smears against four nonwhite Congress members. Here’s my suggestion. Democrats should out-McConnell the Senate majority leader at the […]
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Our “extremely stable genius” loves to depict himself as a victim of witch-hunters. Impeachment? Bring it on! That’s what Donald Trump has said. Although Trump has been sending off mixed signals, I still believe that he pangs for impeachment. But what if witch-hunters and friends came up with a well-crafted impeachment strategy for the here […]
Read MoreCharlottesville. Neo-Nazis. Kluxers. Joe Biden homed in on Trumpish grotesqueries in the video kicking off his presidential bid—as if to say, “You need me to return us to the good old days of yore.” No one except bigots or Republican hacks would deny the cosmic-level threats here, or President Trump’s crooked and traitorous ways. Why, […]
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In a scenic mountain town in Trump country, a professional woman in her 50s scanned the front page of the local daily. She read a headline about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump—at odds over the partial government shutdown and The Wall. America’s oldest kindergartner had vowed to hold federal workers hostage until […]
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Elizabeth Warren, in so many ways, is catnip for progressives as fed up with the status quo as I am. “How did we get here?” she asked in a New Republic interview. “Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie, and they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice. They crippled […]
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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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Stone statues honoring the dead helped draw me to the University of North Carolina. Thomas Wolfe wrote unforgettably of his father the stonecutter in Look Homeward, Angel, a classic coming-of-age novel. After reading Angel, I knew I must go to Chapel Hill. Back in the 1960s when I was at “Pulpit Hill, as Wolfe called the university in […]
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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 […]
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