Dispatches from Vilnius

"I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War.  He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart.  He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War.  There's no reason for this." Leave it to the Donald to give us a revisionist view of the Civil War.  It is relatively safe to say that Jackson would have been against the Civil War given his position on South Carolina's  nullification bid , but the two events were thirty years apart.  This is what happens when you are spoon-fed little morsels of history from Stephen Bannon. I was wondering where all this interest in Jackson came from?  It probably stems from the decision reached last year to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.  Trump questioned  this decision during the transition and one of his first acts as President was to prominently hang a portrait of Old Hickory in the Oval Office.  This is a very ...

It took a while for Nicky, I mean Hasan Minhaj to hit his stride but when he did he had some good jokes , mostly directed at the White House Correspondents Association itself.  Donald Trump was reduced to an elephant in the room as he decided to hold a rally in Pennsylvania, which David Gergen called a " deeply disturbing speech ."  And so we mark 100 days. Hasan prefaced his monologue by saying he was the only person who would do it.  Everyone else had backed out.  There was a time Alec Baldwin might stand in for the President, but it seems Alec is tiring of this impression as there is only so much you can do with a caricature.  Twenty-five minutes is a long time to stand in front of a cynical bunch of journalists and try to make them laugh. There were few celebrities on hand.  There was absolutely no one from the White House administration, not even Sean Spicer, who fields the White House correspondents every day.  Panning the room, the on...

We've reached the 100-day mark of the Trump administration and there really isn't much to say about it.  He hoped to hold the spending bill hostage over his wall but has backed down on that threat as he doesn't even have enough Republican backing.  No one really wants this wall, but Trump continues to insist it will get built. That pretty much sums up his presidency to this point.  Sound and fury signifying nothing.  His attempt to get his first major bill through Congress similarly ended up getting yanked , as there wasn't enough support for it either.  However, Republican leaders seem to think they have come up with a compromise solution that essentially scales back the current Affordable Care Act. Trump's signature travel ban remains in limbo.  Jefferson Beauregard Sessions seems more upset that a Hawaiian federal judge could block it than he does the legitimacy of such a bill.  Thank god this guy never ended up on a federal court! The...

His Trumpness seems to have no idea what the Purple Heart stands for.  When a veteran offered him a medal on the campaign trail, Trump loudly proclaimed he always wanted one .  It is hard to say what was going through the mind of Lt. Col. Louis Dorfman when he gave his medal to Trump.  Maybe he thought it was an easy way to score a photo opportunity. If Trump so badly wanted a Purple Heart, he could have easily picked one up on ebay, as there are over 1,5 million in circulation.  These so-called " medal peddlers " have been doing a brisk trade ever since the Supreme Court rejected a ban on the sale of military medals in 2012.  Veteran Zach Fike has been trying to get the "Stolen Valor" ban reinstated ever since.  In the meantime, he buys back medals and tries to track down their original owners or their families. The medal has a long history dating back to the Revolutionary War.  Hence, the silhouette of George Washington.  It is awarded...

I was trying to figure out in my head how many Vice Presidents there have been and came up with 48.  I knew FDR had at least 3 and Nixon 2 but beyond that I couldn't think of any other President with multiple VP's.  Not that they served concurrently.  FDR went with different VPs in three of his four election bids, hoping to consolidate the Democratic base.  When Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in October, 1973, Nixon picked Gerald Ford to be his right-hand man.  As it turns out, there were other Presidents who had multiple VPs and Presidents who didn't have VPs, but the number remained 48. Thomas Jefferson got rid of Aaron Burr when he became a burden in 1804, opting for George Clinton in his second run for office.  Clinton would also serve under Madison, but when he died in 1812, Madison picked Elbridge Gerry to fill his place in the next election.  Clinton was first of seven VPs to die in office. Andrew Jackson got rid of a toxic John C. C...

His Trumpness has discovered the power of the military to deflect attention away from the scandals swirling around his White House.  If the Tomahawk chop on Syria wasn't enough, we now have the Mother of All Bombs, MOAB for short, to contemplate.   Our fearless commander-in-chief has also set up a High Noon situation with North Korea, vowing retaliation if the country's "boy king" goes through with his inter-continental ballistic missile test in honor of his grandfather Saturday.  All this anxiety has certainly served the purpose of attracting media attention far and wide.  Not all good, mind you, but that doesn't matter as long as the media is talking less about the allegations of his administration's Russian connections. The icing on the cake is how the attack on Syria has served to alienate his administration from Russia, with several top Kremlin officials voicing their outrage .  If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say this is too good ...

Suffice it to say, there is never a dull moment at the White House.  No sooner does the Donald drop the bomb on Syria than a civil war break out between the evil Dr. Bannon and Diamond Jared Kushner.  Even odder is that Ivanka is apparently taking credit for the Tomahawk chop on Syria.  Meanwhile, Spicey tried to explain just how bad a guy Bashar al-Assad is to the media.  At some point you would think these guys would get their act together, but for now we are forced to witness what may be the most dysfunctional White House in history! Trump seems to think he is still in the midst of a heated campaign and that the missile strike would give him a bounce in the polls.  Whatever favorably he managed to garner (surprisingly a lot) has already waned, with the Chinese media calling it "the act of a weakened politician who needed to flex his muscles."  Xinhau news agency went on to say that this was no more than a diversion from Trump's ongoing scanda...

Over the years, this forum has gone from being a history book club to a political blog, so it is nice to return to the roots once in a while.  I picked up a copy of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders.  He's best known for his quasi-science fiction books like CivilWarLand and Pastoralia , where he looks at history through the lens of demented amusement parks.  In his most recent book, he digs into the depths of Lincoln's despair after losing his son Willie at the age of 11. Willie goes through a bardo, a form of purgatory, in his crypt, which Lincoln visits.  Saunders blends historical pieces with what he imagines Willie was going through as his father had a very hard time letting go of him.  Saunders brings in a number of "speakers" from the cemetery, who work to move Willie onto the next stage.  Certainly a unique perspective on this tragedy, and I think a more satisfying one than Seth Grahame Smith's vampire novel . Saunders' story is not ...

The Los Angeles Times posted the first in a string of editorials entitled Our Dishonest President .  I see Part II is now available.  I was a bit put off by the first installment because the editors implied they didn't see it coming.  They, like many others in the media, were expecting some sort of "pivot," or as the editors believed, " ... the White House would act as a check on his worst instincts, or that he would be sobered and transformed by the awesome responsibilities of the office." I suppose it was easy to give Trump the benefit of the doubt when he sat down with the President in the White House back in November and made a big show about how impressed he was with Obama.  However, there were plenty of indicators shortly after that meeting which showed Trump had no intention of honoring Obama's legacy.  It was a painful transition in which Trump put up many dubious picks for cabinet posts that gave a very clear indication he would be pushing ...

It seems the April Fools joke of the day was Trump walking out on his own signing party without signing his latest executive order.  He was distracted by questions surrounding his former national security adviser, "Iron Mike" Flynn.  Vice-President Pence tried to grab His Trumpness by the arm only to be brusquely brushed aside. The signing party was nothing more than a distraction anyway.  An attempt to push the on-going investigation into Trump's Russian connections to the sideline.  It failed badly.  He had to know these were the first questions that would come from the pool of reporters yet chose to ignore them.  He didn't even use the opportunity to fly off into a rant on "fake news" like he did the announcement of his new Labor Secretary pick a few weeks back.  Rather, he chose to gather his thoughts in the back room and take to twitter to voice his indignation with the press. It is hard to assess what Iron Mike's request for immunity m...

or The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight Leave it to W to sum it up perfectly.  He was referring to Trump's inauguration speech but it just as easily describes Trump's time in office.  Not a day goes by without some weird shit happening. While we are still digging ourselves out from Devin Nunes " deep throat " contact on the White House grounds, Ryan Zinke tells us clean energy is a hoax and that he is all for his commander-in-chief lifting the temporary bans on coal mining leases on federal lands.  Dig, baby, dig! The Secretary of Interior doesn't say that wind energy requires a certain amount of fossil fuels to get the turbines moving, he cites the loss of migratory birds as an inhibiting factor.  This has been an argument tossed out by birders, anti-wind groups and conservative pundits for years now.  The energy department devoted a paper to this during the Obama years, noting that efforts were being made to better locate turbines so that the...

His Trumpness has tried to imply there is a silent coup going on, pinning much of the blame on the former Obama administration.  Spicey in a March 21 press conference sent everyone googling the term "Ramspecking," claiming the Obama administration had planted moles in bureaucratic positions who are now thwarting Trump's agenda by leaking information to the public.  The Ramspeck Act, which he was referring to, expired in 1997 and has not been renewed, so it would be illegal for Obama or any president to do this.  But, of course that doesn't stop this administration from slinging wild accusations. However, the idea of a "deep state" has been around for a long time, although such conspiracy theories usually refer to the national security departments teaming together or working independently to push their own agenda counter to that of the President.  This season's Homeland is exploring just such a "deep state" during the transition of...

It's a rare day when a conservative radio talk show retracts a statement much less what he regarded as a "major story," but Alex Jones did just that.  He has apologized for spreading the inflammatory "pizzagate" conspiracy theory that had actually drawn former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn into its web .  We are still waiting on Jones to drop his long standing view that Sandy Hook was a " false flag ." These faux news outlets are coming under increased scrutiny now that we have a President who draws heavily from them.  Trump's wiretapping claim was pulled from Breitbart, and Spicey spread a story aired by Judge Nap that Obama outsourced surveillance on Trump Tower to the UK Government Communications Headquarters.  Fox News later took action against Judge Nap for spreading a false story. The basis for much of this fake news emanates from Russian and Eastern European sources.  Some of it is child's play like these Macedonian k...

It's been a another rough month for the Donald.  This Presidential thing isn't working out quite like the flamboyant one thought it would.  Granted, he wasn't too keen about the health care bill GOP Congressional leaders were offering, but he threw his support behind it, even tried to strong arm wavering House Republicans into accepting it or face the consequences at the polls.  Anti-climactically, the bill couldn't even get through committee, leading Trump to tell Ryan to pull it from a floor vote so that was spared the ultimate indignity for "Trumpcare." This is what happens when you have no game plan but rather try to do things on the fly.  Of course, Trump can blame Paul Ryan, which I'm sure he will do, as he is the one who came up with this noxious health care plan that no one wanted.   Only 17 per cent of Americans showed support for it, and it is highly doubtful any of these persons knew what was in it.   Republicans had been met ...

Last year Tony Toccone and Lisa Petersen adapted Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here , into a play at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.  They avoided updating the setting to reflect the ongoing election, preferring to stay in the Depression era when fascism was a palpable threat.  Lewis had teamed up with John C. Moffitt to first stage the book in 1936. Since the rise of Trump, many periodicals have called attention to the novel.  However, critics then saw Lewis' principal inspiration as being Huey Long, who was toying with the idea of a run for President before being assassinated  the same year.  Lewis certainly gave "Buzz" Windrip a down-home feeling, but he was projecting the rise of autocratism in Europe on America. Oddly enough it was Roosevelt who took on an authoritarian air after his victory in 1936, as he tried to stack the Supreme Court  in 1937 to obtain favorable rulings on his New Deal legislation.   Congress blocked ...

There seems to be an odd alignment taking place in politics.  Listen to Dennis Kucinich defend Trump's allegations that he was wiretapped.  Kucinich also came out very favorably on Trump's first major speech to Congress.  He has become a Leftie apologist for Trump on Fox News, defending numerous positions the President has taken, including Syria. Kucinich views Trump as a " transitional figure ," although it is pretty hard to discern what that means.  It seems our erstwhile legislator thinks Trump will force a reassessment in traditional party alignments.  He is oddly optimistic that the new President will take a softer approach to climate change and foreign policy than his rhetoric suggested during the campaign.  However, Trump's first two months in office has pretty much made it clear that this will be a pro-fossil fuels administration and that its foreign policy will not be a radical departure from that we have seen the last 60 years. ...