In these times of near civil war, Americans agree on almost nothing. Yet sometime in 2019, almost all of America finally got "woke" on China. For years, our leaders had yawned about Silk Road neo-imperialism in Africa and Asia, and gross abuses of human rights against Chinese religious minorities and political dissidents. Almost every assumption Washington made, both by Democratic and Republican administrations, was logically flawed at best. And at worst, these calculations were a weird mix of conservative commercial greed, liberal political correctness and shared screwball naivete. American trade and political appeasement were never interpreted by Beijing as magnanimity…

In his September 14 article, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius made a revealing comment about Donald Trump, writing: "The problem with Trump isn't (as some critics have argued) that he's a reckless and potentially genocidal aggressor. No, the danger is that he's precisely what he says he is — a dealmaker who thinks he could craft agreements with despots that could bring peace and security." [1] Since Ignatius's specialty is international relations — he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations — we can assume that he has some understanding of that field; in addition, we may expect him to avoid the contradictions that…

                The bombshell allegation was buried in a federal extortion lawsuit against Dmitriy Movsesyan, who worked on Nessel’s campaign at various points in 2017 and 2018. (Full disclosure: This columnist funded an independent expenditure against Nessel’s eventual 2018 Republican opponent, Tom Leonard, during the GOP nomination campaign.) The Detroit Free Press, a politically liberal newspaper that endorsed Nessel in 2018, published an extensive report on the lawsuit early Friday, but omitted any reference to the allegation of election manipulation. This columnist first reported the allegation. The lawsuit, filed by Executive Car Rental owner Maher Waad in the U.S. District Court for…

Since when does a (mostly) respected press pundit sound just like an army general? Well, for a while now, in fact. Politicians and reporters will argue viciously about all kinds of issues: immigration, healthcare, race, et al. There’s only one sacred cow that mainstream insiders – both "left" and right – dare not challenge: the runaway Pentagon budget and America’s forever wars. So it was, this Sunday morning, lounging in my hotel room in Spokane – I was in town for the national Veterans for Peace convention – that I happened to watch CNN’s Fareed Zakaria droll on about the supposed risks of…

I don’t think the Democratic Party should be surprised so many Americans believe yada yada yada.” That was indeed one of the lines thrown out during Tuesday’s second round of Democratic debates, and came from none other than spiritual writer Marianne Williamson who manifested a surprising amount of love from the Detroit audience (speaking of love, Williamson again used her closing speech to advocate for spreading more love around the country…). The Seinfeld reference, intended or not, was also a tidy summation of the evening, which gave candidates the time to really debate with—and yell over—one another but still kind of…