Did you know that Nikki Haley’s defense of Donald Trump contains a significant logical contradiction? Did you know that there are good reasons for rejecting the impeachment of Donald Trump, but these same reasons also argue against his reelection? Did you know that Donald Trump’s and Barack Obama’s policies towards Ukraine, while different from one…
Author: Alan Vanneman
Sara Dowling—“Round Midnight”
Andrew Kingslow – Piano. No information on the bass and drums, because they’re sitting this one out. Sorry, guys! Performed at the Didsbury Baptist Church, Manchester, England, 2010. Posted by Hannah King
Yo, Jeff Bezos! Who writes your scripts, John Bolton?
If, like me, your so-called life has significant late-night gaps, empty hours when you’re too tired, or too lazy, to do anything improving, like reading another history of the Thirty Years War, whose impact still echoes down the corridors of time, or “significant”, like watching a new version of Don Giovanni,1 you might, if you’re…
David French needs some new friends. Fast.
I once wrote of David French that David French has the unenviable job of being the voice of reason over at the National Review, which means that he has to find a “middle ground” between the True Trumpers of the pack and, well, the truth, which frequently means explaining that grunting like a hog and…
Is Ramesh Ponnuru afraid of a baseball bat? [Short answer: YES!]
In what was once one of the most shocking scenes in American cinema, in Brian De Palma’s 1987 gangster flick The Untouchables, über mobster Al Capone beats three treacherous lieutenants to death with a baseball bat. Ever since, baseball bats have had a way of turning up in the hands of über mobsters like Tony…
Shorter Ben Shapiro: “They call me Mr. Miasma”
Ben Shapio has a curious piece up at the National Review, “The Two Theories of Trump’s Actions in the Ukraine Affair”, which I can only consider as an exercise in pre-emptive ass-covering. Shapiro, of course, has a reputation of being one of the hottest young conservative talking heads around—he’s bright, articulate, and quite capable of…
Donnacello—“Round Midnight” Played Twice!
The Donnacello gals ain’t much for talking. I guess they believe in letting the music speak for itself. Well, if you like cellos, and you like Monk, listen up. Here are two recordings by the group, with exactly zero information about who’s who for either session. They do have a website, Donnacello. If anyone knows…
Donald Trump, making John Brennan look like a p*ssy
Donald Trump recounted the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the following manner: He [Baghdadi] died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming. The compound had been cleared by this time, with people either surrendering or being shot and killed. Eleven young children were moved out of the house…
The U.S. is betraying the Kurds? What else is new?
Donald Trump’s disastrous, incoherent withdrawal from Syria is, in all its disarray, entirely appropriate in one respect—it allows the conclusion of a disastrous misadventure to mirror its start, which was also disastrous and incoherent. (That’s enough “disastrous’s” for one sentence, don’t you think?) The plight of the Kurds, now left to the less than tender…
Don’t “feel sorry” for Republicans. You shouldn’t feel sorry for cowards.
There’s a small but persistent meme floating around that most Republican senators “tolerate” Donald Trump but find him personally, well, “tacky”, one might say. They wish someone more refined were president, but, well, there it is. They’d turn on him in a trice if only the right trice would come along, but so far it…