During the presidential campaign, when he was still battling an array of Republican heavyweights for the party’s nomination, Donald Trump indulged in a bit of hubris that would have buried a more conventional candidate. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump said at a campaign… Continue reading Killer Presidents
James Mattis visited Asia this month on his first foreign trip as the new head of the Pentagon. It was less a get-acquainted visit than a damage control tour. His boss, President Donald Trump, had threatened to escalate tensions with China and prevent North Korea from launching a nuclear-capable ICBM. He’d accused Japan of currency… Continue reading Will Trump Complete the Pivot to Asia?
Donald Trump is holding up the severed head of the Statue of Liberty. It’s a striking image for a magazine cover. But it’s not the front of the Nation or the ACLU newsletter. It’s this week’s issue of Der Spiegel, Germany’s version of Time Magazine. To punctuate the point, one of Spiegel’s articles declares Donald… Continue reading Forget America First: It’s America Alone
The resistance to Donald Trump’s presidency has been strong, sustained, and multi-dimensional. The women’s march after the inauguration deluged DC in a sea of pink hats and generated companion protests in an extraordinary 670 cities around the world. My in-box has been full ever since with calls to converge on the White House to protest… Continue reading Dividing the Right and Conquering Trump
PAPER a new play by John Feffer Teacher and student argue over a remark in class. Or a remark about class. Or was it race? Or gender? Take Rashomon, add Mamet, mix in Black Lives Matter, and stand back. Venue: Trinidad Theatre at Fringe HQ (1358 Florida Ave.,… Continue reading Paper
Donald Trump is a worldly fellow. He travels the globe on his private jet. He’s married to a Slovene and divorced from a Czech. He doesn’t speak any other languages, but hey, he’s an American, so monolingualism is his birthright. His fortune depends in large part on the global economy. He has business interests in… Continue reading Globalism of the One Percent
For Obama supporters, the last eight years have been a victory of wise leadership over the forces of darkness in Congress and the world at large. For critics of the outgoing president, Obama could do no right as he plunged the United States into the worst crisis in its 200-plus years of history. Between the… Continue reading Obama the Time Traveler
[I wrote this article about Russian efforts to cultivate Donald Trump as an asset last week for a Korean newspaper where it was published on Sunday. Little did I know that news would break this week of allegations that Russia has a file of damaging information it can use to blackmail President-elect Trump. In that… Continue reading The Russian Honeypot
Part Field Notes from a Catastrophe, part 1984, part World War Z, John Feffer’s striking new dystopian novel, takes us deep into the battered, shattered world of 2050. The European Union has broken apart. Multiethnic great powers like Russia and China have shriveled. America’s global military footprint has virtually disappeared and the United States remains… Continue reading Splinterlands