August of 2017 was the nadir of the Trump administration. At that point impeachment was on the table. Trump was mired in racist controversy over violence at Charlottesville. He had a falling out with Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. Robert Mueller’s investigation was ramping up. Members of his cabinet turned against, notably Gary Cohn. He was…
The killing of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic at the suspected hands of Arabic-speaking turbaned rebels suggests that the country is at risk of repeating the Malian scenario of 2012 when Islamic terrorists hijacked a local insurgency in their bid to build a proto-Daesh caliphate. Details are still streaming in about the…
After a multi-year see-saw between an overwhelmingly Christian EU and Muslim Turkey seeking membership, in 2015, 1.5 million people illegally crossed into Europe, many by hop-scotching from Turkey to Greece. Although desperate for a solution to this growing problem, the EU did not finally offer Turkey accession, which would have brought it under Brussels control,…
Last week, mid-July, Trump threatened $500 billion in tariffs on China imports, escalating his prior threat to impose $200 billion on China. He then threatened hundreds of billion in tariffs on world auto parts imports, targeting Europe. But Trump’s threats and announcements do not constitute a trade war. Threats and even announcements of tariffs are…
The AP headlined on July 27th “#MeToo reaches Vatican as nuns denounce abuse from priests” and reported that the Vatican has continued to tolerate rape by its priests, and: Revelations that a prominent US cardinal sexually abused and harassed his adult seminarians have exposed an egregious abuse of power that has shocked Catholics on both sides of the…
Here we are in the middle of the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency and if there’s one thing we know by now, it’s that the leader of the free world can create an instant reality-TV show on geopolitical steroids at will. True, he’s not polished in his demeanor, but he has an unerring way…
