Chris Weigant
The war between the U.S. and Iran has now become nothing more than a classic war of attrition. The key question is: which side will run out of missiles first? Nobody knows the answer to that, but every day that Iran and the U.S. trade attacks with each other brings the answer closer and makes it...
Chris Weigant
Last week, we warned everyone that July was going to be a sketchy month for us, in terms of our ability to write these Friday columns. So we begin today with a program update. Today's offering is not a complete Friday Talking Points column. It is bare-bones, at best. We're not even really...
Chris Weigant
If anyone needed any further proof that everything that Donald Trump touches turns to schlock (or worse), this week's opening of the Great American State Fair certainly provided some. The initial idea wasn't too bad a concept -- have all 50 states send an exhibit to the National Mall, and it...
Chris Weigant
It's pretty easy to see who won Donald Trump's war of choice with Iran -- and who lost. All you have to do is look at the deal both sides just signed, which is obviously heavily tilted in Iran's favor. In fact, it is pretty much impossible to claim otherwise -- to claim that somehow the U.S. won...
Earl MacDonald
Two of my UConn jazz students plan to enter the Herbie Hancock Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition. It’s a competition that has launched the careers of outstanding young musicians under the age of thirty, and the featured instrument changes from year to year. I told them something...
Chris Weigant
It's an old joke, but it's still funny: "The Republicans are revolting!" Amusing wordplay aside, it is rather shocking (and heartening) to see how at least some Republicans in Congress are increasingly in open revolt against Donald Trump's agenda. At first a few cracks appeared in the dam, but...
Chris Weigant
The term "shell shock" was initially used to describe what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder (P.T.S.D.). It was created in World War I, to describe how the soldiers engaged in trench warfare felt from being continually bombarded by artillery fire and the sometimes long-lasting mental...
Chris Weigant
The national average of the price of a gallon of gasoline now stands at $4.05. It broke through the $4-a-gallon barrier today after spending roughly a week hovering just below it. This isn't really a major change for consumers (it is only the difference of a few pennies), but it is a big...
Chris Weigant
Maybe we need a new word for the way Donald Trump seems to be running the country: "chaocracy." Rule by chaos. The "Madman Theory" writ large. Nobody has any clue what's going to happen next, from Trump himself all the way down to average Americans and the rest of the world. Of course, this has...
Chris Weigant
Donald Trump seems to be determined to break as many campaign promises as he possibly can, in the shortest period of time possible. Conveniently (for Democrats), he is doing all of this right at the start of the midterm campaign season, as the first states conduct their primaries. This seems...
Chris Weigant
In assessing how Donald Trump's war of choice is proceeding, we turn once again to the metric most Americans are using as their chief measurement: the average nationwide price of a gallon of gasoline now stands at $3.91. That is up $1.16 from the mid-January lowpoint of this year, and it is up 97...
Jon Danzig
After the EU referendum, suspicions grew about the role of Russia in clinching the narrow ‘win’ for Brexit.Evidence was mounting that there had been deep involvement and interference by Russian ‘agents’ whose aim was to destabilise the EU by enabling Britain’s departure from it.It was no secret...
Jon Danzig
Britain’s Children’s Newspaper – subtitled, ‘The Story of the World Today for the Men and Women of Tomorrow’ – was a remarkable and mature publication for youngsters.On 8 October 1938, with dark clouds of war looming, the newspaper ran a visionary editorial describing Europe as ‘one...
Jon Danzig
Conservatives, have you forgotten what your party in power used to stand for regarding Europe?For most of the past seven decades, Tory governments did more than any other to bring us closer to our continent.After all:It’s because of the Conservatives that the UK applied to join the European...