The Left Lurch of the Democratic Party: Revolution or Reform?

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has been in public office for 44 years, 35 of them as the US senator from Kentucky. He sees America entering “a new political era. …. I can pretty safely say this is the first time in my political career that I thought the essence of America was being debated.” […]

Life In The Boardroom Becomes More Difficult

If I go to Church on Sunday and ball all day Monday, Ain’t nobody’s business if I do” memorably warbled Billie Holiday. That’s fine for a sultry blues singer, but not certainly so for the founder and CEO of one of the world’s largest companies. Jeff Bezos has gotten himself involved in a scandal with […]

Trump’s G20 Meeting Was Better than Advertised

Actually, the president accomplished quite a lot. There is our president at the G20 meeting, center stage with Argentine president Mauricio Macri. There he is meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. And Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. And German chancellor Angela Merkel. There he is signing a trade treaty with Canadian prime […]

The Ghost of Thanksgiving Future

The Guardrails Hold, Almost Odd country, ours. Most of us are coming off a weekend in which we ate too much, shopped (on- and off-line), and celebrated the pause in campaign ads and the wide choice of football games on the flat-screen, high-definition television sets in 81 percent of American households (52 percent have multiple […]

Big Tech is in Trouble

The FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet) have real problems. To hear the moans on Wall Street, you’d think the end of the world is no longer coming-it has arrived. Successive waves of selling have pushed share prices down this year. To about where they were at the beginning of the year. Hardly a […]

How Trump Can Compromise with the Democratic House

Midterm elections that result in divided control of government typically are followed by pledges of cooperation. Last Tuesday’s, which shifted control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats, was followed by just such a love-in. Mitch McConnell, leader of Senate Republicans, immediately met with Nancy Pelosi, likely to resume her job as speaker of […]

Trump the Chump

We have now had several opportunities to see just what the president, practitioner of the art of the deal, can do when given an opportunity to negotiate with other heads of state. Short answer: give away the store. Start with North Korea. Trump gave Kim Jung-un the gift of prestige and credibility by meeting with […]

Foreign Policy by Dummies

There seems to be some confusion about the president’s foreign policy, so here is a guide that might prove useful. By the policy-maker in chief, himself, as told to this writer during a nightmare. * * * It starts with my devotion to the Rule of Awe. Unlike the wimps that proceeded me in office, […]

More Gleanings and Observations

Jews worry too much. That seems to be the point of a recent article in the otherwise sensible Economist. Sure, two German rappers won that country’s highest music award by bragging their torsos are “better defined than an Auschwitz inmate’s” and vowing to “make another Holocaust.” But, says the Economist, the intended targets of this […]

Boomerang kids, in-house “gender experts,” cigarette revisionism, and more.

Boomerangs can be harmful, especially if what comes back is an adult child, previously seen off with sighs of relief. A study of people over 50 in 17 European countries finds that the return of adult children to the nest-“multigenerational co-residence” in the jargon of the social scientist’s trade-causes a major decline in parents’ well-being. […]