Category: Uncategorized
-
Trump and the Separation of Powers, Part II–The Military Power
I was planning to do a blog like this even before the US and Israel struck Iran about week and a half ago. Now it is imperative to me that I must do it and do it as soon as possible. First, some basics–1) The power to declare war belongs to Congress–this is not an…
-
Trump and Separation of Powers
The President’s recent actions in two main areas have started him(or advanced him)on a road toward conflict with the US Congress. They have also brought to national attention questions concerning what our constitution says and what it means, what assumptions have been made about it, and what our leaders should do about those assumptions, about…
-
Some Noir in the North
There was once an American suspense writer named James Thompson who attracted some attention back around mid-20th century times. At least one of his books was made into a film by that master of what Pauline Kael once described as “A Fascist Work of Art,” Sam Pekinpaw. When I ran across a book in the…
-
Confronting Trump–Greenland and Minnesota
I have often spoken about how much I admire the British weekly publication, “The Economist.” Well, I’m going to do it again. The current one arrived in Monday’s mail and it has on the cover a picture of a shirtless Donald Trump riding a polar bear. In its top-of-the-page list of this issue’s features, the…
-
Two different movies, similar reaction
Well, I hope my title isn’t too misleading–it is the truth but as is usually the case with titles, not the whole truth. I’ll not be able to tell you the whole truth, of course, but I’ll take a swing at getting close to it. About a week or so ago TCM had one of…
-
LBJ, DT, Vietnam and some history
Don’t worry, this won’t be real long. I’m too hyped on everything that’s going on now to stay patiently at the computer for too long. But I have to get some of these opinions down in print and out there to be read. The situation seems to change almost hourly, but as nearly I I’m…
-
1929-A Christmas of Hope and Doubt
No one, I suspect, will ever explain totally satisfactorily the Great Crash of 1929. It occurred , more or less, in late October(bad month for the market) and wiped out trillions(maybe billions?) of dollars of invested wealth. Many books have been written on this from John Kenneth Galbraith’s “The Great Crash” about 2 generations ago,…
-
Dems Disssenting–From Each Other
I think you may know that I admire greatly the TV work of Fareed Zakaria who is on CNN just about every Sunday morning and some other times. I don’t agree with him all the time, but I’d say I agree 90% or more. This past Sunday morning was different. I disagreed strongly with his…
-
Hey, What Does That Mean?
As a former instructor in history and political science I have a few comments to make about the meanings of words and how people are likely to interpret them. This includes a real concern about how just about all aspects of the media use some words without any explanation of what the words mean. They…
-
A New Mystery About Old(er) Times
Marie Benedict, “The Queens of Crime,” copyright 2025, St Martin Publishing co Most books which are told in a narrative manner(mainly, I guess, I mean where usually one thing follows another)are roughly divisible in to two types–Fiction and Non-Fiction. Occasionally you get one that is part each and I have one here. It is mostly…
john's thoughts 