Simple maps can teach a lot. Presidential election maps show at a glance where the nation was at four-year intervals beginning in 1824, when popular voting (of a very restricted sort) became established. John Quincy Adams lost that vote but won the White House anyway in the House of Representatives.
Historians and archivists call our times the "digital dark ages." The name evokes the medieval period that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, which led to a radical decline in the recorded history of the West for 1000 years. But don't blame the Visigoths or the Vandals. The culprit is the ephemeral nature of digital recording devices. Remember all the stuff you stored on floppy discs, now lost forever? Over the last 25 years, we've seen big 8-inch floppies replaced by 5.25-inch medium replaced by little 3.5-inch floppies, Zip discs and CD-ROMs, external hard drives and now the Cloud -- and let's not forget memory sticks and also-rans like the DAT and Minidisc.
Biography is one way -- often the most vivid way -- in which people understand history. The beautifully written biographies of Franklin Roosevelt that rolled off the presses and rose in the bestseller lists in the 1950s and 1960s created a template in which the New Deal was central to American history. It was the culmination of what happened before the 1930s and the model for what should and would happen next.
If you think “The Art of the Deal” was a yuuuuuuuuuuge success — and it was — just wait until Donald Trump comes out with his latest masterpiece, “The Art of the Schlong.”
In “The Art of the Deal,” the real estate mogul tutors budding young mogul wannabes on how to make deals so that they, too, can build giant glass skyscrapers emblazoned with their names in gold.
When driving on treacherous roads, guardrails are useful. If you fall asleep or maybe you're just a bad driver, guardrails may prevent you from going off a cliff.
Some observations on the 2016 presidential race as we head into the dark period, i.e., the two weeks of Christmas and New Year's holidays in which no one has ever dared, at least in the past, to conduct any polls. Those of us who pick over poll results will have to fly blind until the week starting Jan. 4.
"I worry greatly that the rhetoric coming from the Republicans, particularly Donald Trump, is sending a message to Muslims here ... and ... around the world, that there is a 'clash of civilizations.'"
The political left has been trying to run other people's lives for centuries. So we should not be surprised to see the Obama administration now trying to force neighborhoods across America to have the mix of people the government wants them to have.
Donald Trump likes to call people "stupid." And/or "loser."
Political analysis of the Las Vegas debate immigration dust-up between Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio is missing a key ingredient: the money factor.
All around the political blogosphere you can find folks smacking their lips over the prospect of a "brokered" Republican national convention. They look forward to the spectacle of delegates assembling in Cleveland with no candidate having a majority, of multiple ballots with governors, floor demonstrations after nominating speeches, congressmen running as favorite sons and delegates demanding that state delegations be polled.
"If you're in favor of World War III, you have your candidate."
So said Rand Paul, looking directly at Gov. Chris Christie, who had just responded to a question from CNN's Wolf Blitzer as to whether he would shoot down a Russian plane that violated his no-fly zone in Syria.
Here’s a thought experiment: What if Republicans nominated the 2012 version of Mitt Romney — same fundraising, same baggage, same everything — at their 2016 convention? What sort of odds would that candidate have in 2016?
I wish I were as confident as many politicians and news commentators. They know what America should do about ISIS and terrorism.
Gaping holes in the K1 fiance visa interview process. Reckless bans on scrutinizing visa applicants' social media posts. Ignored alarms over marriage fraud. New details keep seeping out about all the "red flags" Obama's immigration officials missed in the case of the San Bernardino jihadists.
Stop the madness. These debates cannot go on.
There were, literally, more candidates on stage for Tuesday night’s Republican debate than there were at a Jeb! Bush debate watching “party” in Miami.
"Buchanan, if you ever hear of a group getting together to stop X, be sure to put your money on X."
Among the many sad signs of our time are the current political and media attacks on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for speaking the plain truth on a subject where lies have been the norm for years.
On Sept. 14, 2012, three days after the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods in Benghazi, Libya, Hillary Clinton appeared at Andrews air force base, where she spoke with family members of those slain.
George Stephanopoulos, ABC News: "You're increasingly being compared to Hitler. Does that give you any pause at all?"
Donald Trump: "Because what I'm doing is no different than what FDR [did]. FDR's solution for Germans, Italians, Japanese many years ago. This is a president who was highly respected by all. He did the same thing -- if you look at what he was doing it was far worse."
When it comes down to core values, you can never make an exception.
