Weve waited almost two years now for a majority of Republicans to reach the tipping point: when they realize they backed the wrong horse in Donald J. Trump and that hes a clear and present danger to America. With Mondays stunning and stark revelation of Trumps treachery, that point may be nearer than ever. […]

  That pretty much sums up yesterdays summit between BFFs Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. As I predicted yesterday, it was a nothingburger. Afterwards, at the joint press conference, Trump boasted about deeply productive dialogue, the same way he boasts about Mexico building the wall or how great Joe Arpaio is: empty words, meaningless words,...

  When I was a kid, at the height of the Cold War, U.S.-Russia summit meetings were a big deal. Whenever Eisenhower and his successor, JFK, met with Krushchev, the nation waited with baited breath to learn what happened. LBJ summitted with Brezhnev in 1967; Nixon did the same six years later; and when Reagan […]

  Senator Dianne Feinstein handily won her fight for the Democratic nomination to run for a sixth term in June, but she faced some considerable opposition from within her own party. The reason: many perceive her as too centrist, too accommodationist toward Republicans and Trump. Diannes always been a moderate-liberal, not a flaming lefty. She ...

  Donald Trump promised to disrupt the normal course of events and hes doing exactly that. Its thrilling to his base, but I dont know why. Do they want drama for its own sake? Because thats what theyre getting. If youd asked rightwing Republicans two years ago if they were concerned about Russian expansionism, they […]

  There are many suspicious pro-Trump tweets and posts on social media. By suspicious I mean pro-Trump comments that all follow the same pattern: lots of graphic images (stars, American flags, fires) @s and #s referencing pro-Trump things the use of ALL CAPS disgusting, vulgar caricatures of perceived enemies, especially women: Hillary Clinton...

  Gudrun Himmler Burwitz died recently in Germany, at the age of 88. She was the daughter of the notorious Nazi, Heinrich Himmler, the second man in the Reich, after Hitler. Himmler ran the dreaded secret police and the concentration camps. He surely would have been sentenced to death at Nuremberg, except that he killed […]

  After Trump insulted 94-year old George H.W. Bush the other day, in a speech in Montana and then on Twitter, there was speculation that it wasnt just some random rant, but a carefully calculated move to continue the process Trump started a while ago: disparaging the Republican Party and its icons as only he […]

  Because theyre spoiled brats. Because theyre snobs. Because theyre tone deaf. Because theyre the poster boys for clueless rich punks who grew up with silver spoons in their mouths orto use the late Ann Richards beautiful metaphor about George H.W. Bushwere born on third base and think they hit a triple. Because theyre mean. […]

  Something a little different today, a peek inside the soul of the Trump movement, although soul perhaps isnt the right word. More like the lunatic asylum. The hatred and anger on Breitbart never cease to amaze me. At the risk of making you puke, here are some samples from yesterdayIndependence Day! The context of […]

  Last Aprils House Intelligence Committees report on Trump-RussiaGate was an unmitigated disaster for American democracy, a clumsily transparent attempt to assist Trump in covering up his crimes and misdemeanors. Devin Nunes, the Committees Republican chair, colluded with Trump and most likely obstructed justice, a federal offense. As for his...

  Joe Matthews is a second-generation soybean and corn farmer in western Indiana. He and his wife of 32 years, Cecilia (Cis), live in the small town of Fairview Park, not far from the Illinois border. They have one son, Joe Jr., who lives in nearby Covington. Joe Sr. voted for Donald Trump in 2016; […]

  The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations agency whose mission is to work with its 169-member nations to assist migrants and governments with the humane, cost-effective and orderly management of migration around the world. Founded in 1951, its founding purpose was to help with the movement of migrants in the chao...

In the late winter and early spring of 1945, as World War II ground to a halt in Europe, Nazi Germany was in the throes of collapse. In the West, Patton's and Montgomery's armies were flooding into the North German Plain. In the East, Stalin's troops were crushing the Wehrmacht and closing in on Berlin. […]

  One of the most important books to deal with the origins of World War II is AJP Taylor's "A Short History of Germany: 1815-1945"As  (1969). That war, which killed 60 million people, seems like something out of the dim past, especially to a generation younger than mine; today, the slaughter that had characterized Europe […]...

  AL.com, Alabama's biggest news website, just published an opinion piece on Moore. The columnist was careful not to take sides, but he did look at the situation Biblically, and he made the gentle suggestion that some people who are standing by Moore might be compromising their values, or might not fully understand just what […]

  I don't much trust evangelical Christians, for any number of reasons: first of all, the "evangelical" part of their religion makes them pushy bullies. I suppose it's because they feel they have a "mission" to spread the word. Well, lots of people don't believe in their religion, including me, and we object to them […]...

  After making an ass of himself in Asia, Trump returns to Washington, with his tax bill in shambles, his poll numbers deteriorating, and Special Counsel Mueller probing ever closer to the Oval Office. The Asia tour was panned around the world and everywhere in this country, except in bastions of Trump World, like Breitbart […]

  Jan. 3 Hi Dear Diary, I really threw ˜em a curveball when I said I have information on the hacking that the intelligence agencies don't. I love it! They still can't figure me out, which is exactly where I want ˜em: off-balance. Keep ˜em guessing. They never know what hits ˜em until it's too […]

  Over the New Year's weekend, Trump made two statements. Both reveal conjoined facets of his personality. Both are deeply disturbing, and call into question, once again, his mental fitness to be President. The first, concerning #Electiongate”which Trump still denies had anything to do with his BFF, Vladimir Putin”was: The whole age of compute...

  Did you ever read an op-ed piece that made you so angry, you wanted to rip it up and flush it down the toilet? I did, yesterday”not once, but twice. The first was called Does a ˜Never Trumper' need to be forgiven?? and was in the National Review. It was authored by Jonah Goldberg. […]

  One of the first things I learned when I started blogging and engaging on social media was to avoid C.U.I., or commenting under the influence.? We all know that people get into trouble when their judgment is impaired and they say and do stupid things online. Anthony Weiner is a good example. But there's […]

  I'm going to tell you a little bit more than I did yesterday about the pernicious influence that rightwing Jews have, both here in America and in Israel. Yesterday I explained how the presence of about one million Russian ultra-orthodox Jews (out of Israel's total population of eight million) has poisoned Israeli politics and […]

  The Jewish vote in America, while not particularly large, is influential. Jewish voters have traditionally been Democrats since Franklin D. Roosevelt created his coalition in the 1930s. Republicans have long attempted to wrest control of the Jewish vote for themselves, but have failed, for two reasons. First, Jewish sympathies tend toward li...

  When the wine comes in, I review. If it doesn't, I don't. For the last few weeks, it's been coming in. I still get a kick from reviewing wines. Here are a few new ones. Rock Wall 2014 Jack's Dry Creek Petite Sirah (Sonoma County): $35. Alcohol 14.8%. An absolutely first-rate Petite Sirah that […]

  I know a lot of liberals who are depressed these days, and I feel it's part of my job to boost their morale and let them know that this is not the time to give up. It's the time to resist. People don't know what to do. They feel so overwhelmed, so powerless. What […]

  I hate those terrible words, which from time to time I'm forced to utter, by dint of circumstance. In this case, on Monday I found, to my horror, I could not get into what's called the back end? of my blog website”the administrative side. Nor could the public access the front end, which is […]

  Like many of you, I was puzzled by Obama’s curiously passive response to Electiongate at his Friday press conference. While most Democrats, and even many Republicans, view Russia’s actions as a form of cyberwarfare—some have called it a digital Sept. 11—Obama’s message seemed to be: This sort of thing happens all the time. No […]

  This is a short post. Trump is off to the worst start of any President-elect of my lifetime, and I’ve seen a lot of them. He will take the oath of office—if he indeed does—under a dark cloud of suspicion. Democrats clearly are concerned about his massive conflicts of interest, which he has done […]

  When it comes to criminal investigations, there are two kinds of Republicans. The first kind is ALL Republicans when the alleged criminal offense concerns a Democrat, namely, Hillary Clinton and her private email server. The second kind is VERY FEW Republicans when the crime concerns a Republican, namely, the Trump campaign’s use of Russia [...

  Many of us expected Trump to fail sooner rather than later. His lies and incompetence, his sheer cynicism, the banality of his thinking, his vengeance, the way he’s already selling out his supporters, stacking his administration with billionaire bankers, and—last but not least—the fact that a hell of a lot more people voted for […]

  I hate to play the “I told you so” game, but as far back as Oct. 30, I described “a conspiracy…hatched in darkness and anonymity, [whose] leaders are the foursome of Donald Trump, Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, Vladimir Putin and James Comey,” the latter being, of course, the discredited head of the FBI. Their little […]

  Some years ago I got my name on an electronic mailing list from an organization that calls itself “Public Advocate of the United States." Despite its official-sounding name and logo, it has nothing to do with the U.S. government but is in fact a rabidly right wing hate group whose primary obsession is promoting […]

  It’s been cold in Oakland lately—cold by our standards, anyway, if not by those of the upper midwest. I heard an interview today on NPR with Thomas Friedman, who referred to his fellow Minnesotans as the “frozen chosen,” an apt description, I suppose, when the temperature is fourteen degrees below zero, as it will […]

  The Dakota Access oil pipeline is another of those issues I haven’t taken a solid stand on, until now, due to my philosophy: I’m not going to have a position on a complicated topic I haven’t studied and don’t understand. It seems to me that too many people on both sides, red and blue, […]

  Three days in the life of the developing necrosis of this incoming administration hardly leave one knowing where to start in writing about the Almanack de Gotha of horrors daily emanating from Trump Tower, or should I say, from the man himself, who to be precise occasionally ventures beyond the escalator of his gleaming […]

  I’ve followed Benziger’s fortunes for decades, and one thing I can say, they’re always striving to boost quality. The Benziger family began with the hugely successful Glen Ellen Winery, which pioneered “fighting varietals,” before launching their boutique Benziger brand, which they sold to The Wine Group in 2015. These five wines are the fir...

  A Mr. Jack Hamilton, from Silverdale, Washington, wrote a letter to The Wall Street Journal the other day that is so miasmic, so lacking in self-understanding, that I just have to reply. Hamilton’s letter is about a column by the redoubtable Peggy Noonan—a sarcastic right winger who worked for Reagan and the first Bush—who […]

  [The following is based on a true story] [Flashback: Winter 1963. The Wilshire Apartments, Queens New York. The apartment building’s owner, Fred Trump, is meeting with his rental agent, Stanley Leibowitz. Accompanying them is Fred’s 17-year old son, Donald.] FT: So how are we doing on rentals, Stan? SL:  Pretty good, Mr. Trump. We’re […...

  Some of us got into a bit of a kerfluffle at a Facebook page I won’t identify, to protect the owner’s privacy. S/he had written approvingly about the new “smart gun” technology that the New York Times recently editorialized about, urging that they at least be given a chance, if for no other reason […]

  Donald Trump’s addiction to lying is well-known to most Americans, so his recent assertion that “millions of people voted illegally" in the election will come as no surprise. After all, this is the person who said that "thousands and thousands" of Muslims cheered in New Jersey after the Sept. 11 attacks. The real question […]...

  Happy Nov. 28! What's your favorite part of the Thanksgiving holiday, Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday, or Black Friday? They’re all such fun days to spend money. I’d be hard-pressed to pick just one, but I’d have to say that, for me, personally, it’s Black Friday! The crowds, the traffic, the lines–it's all so […]...

  This isn’t a very thankful time for many of us. Our side lost. I, personally, believe the country as a whole lost, and furthermore I believe that History will agree. A friend of mine, a peaceful man of Latino heritage, told me today he’s thinking of buying a gun, for the first time in […]

  Don’t get me started on the irony—or hypocrisy—of the Wall Street Journal, which has a weekend section called “Mansions” that’s an eat-your-heart-out, too-bad you-can’t have it ode to pool houses, chandeliers and thread counts. Then, yesterday, they had a front-page article, “Advertisers Search for Middle America,” explaining how Americans a...

Part 1 A Pinot Noir tasting in San Francisco You can take the boy out of the wine business but you can’t take the love of the business out of the boy. Or something like that. Anyway, although I formally retired from my career on Sept. 2, I still have “wine in my blood,” so […]

  What is truth? Pontius Pilate famously asked, suggesting its slipperiness. Twenty centuries later, the comedian Stephen Colbert coined the word “truthiness” to convey the sense of statements that were not really true, but that nonetheless “felt right” to the speaker.  A dictionary, Merriam-Webster, chose “truthiness” as its word of the year ...

  I’ve been hard on the Republican Party for being such ideological purists that they can’t compromise with Democrats (or anyone else) on anything. So in my guise as the F.F.W.C. (former famous wine critic), along the same lines I have a few observances about In Pursuit of Balance. IPOB, as many of you know, […]

  For years, my town of Oakland has been at the center of the commercial marijuana business in America. Downtown is studded with medical marijuana clinics and small shops selling paraphernalia. (I, myself, have had a medical marijuana card for a long time.) Oakland’s pot entrepreneurs were forward-looking visionaries who never doubted that pot...

  She was in a front-page article, “The Places That Made Trump,” which purported to explain the point of view of Rust Belt voters who abandoned the Democratic Party to elect Trump President. Out of respect, I’m not using her name, although it’s right there in the link; I’ll call her Miss Smith. Dear Miss […]