Turnout at Davos was lousy this year. President Trump, preoccupied by the government shutdown, was a no-show at last week's World Economic Forum there. So were British Prime Minister Theresa May (Brexit) and French President Emanuel Macron ("gilets jaunes"). Chinese President Xi Jinping, Davos' 2018 star, and Russian President Vladimir Putin weren't there either. Neither were some of the usual financial and media big names.
Redistricting in the U.S. House of Representatives is not a unified process as is the case for most national legislatures, but the result of the cumulative actions in the states that have more than one representative. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at the entire House to see how the decisions in the states combine to form a fair or biased playing field for the parties.
Sunday is the Super Bowl.
I look forward to playing poker and watching. It's easy to do both because in a three-hour-plus NFL game there are just 11 minutes of actual football action.
Here we go again. If you think the manure-spreaders of sensationalism who masquerade as ethical practitioners of journalism learned anything from last week's MAGA-bashing Covington Catholic High School hoax, I have three words for you:
The government shutdown is over -- for now -- but the political ramifications are still being sorted out. The media has been chortling that Donald Trump "caved," and he may well have lost this battle with congressional Democrats. Their "victory," such as it is, is to notify American voters that they are so opposed to a wall and a secure border that they were willing to keep the government shut down for four weeks to ensure it doesn't happen.
"Pay the soldiers. The rest do not matter.
This was the deathbed counsel given to his sons by Roman Emperor Septimius Severus in A.D. 211.
Is it true that Donald Trump's bad habits are contagious? Is it true that his Democratic opponents and, even more, his critics in the press are increasingly given to terminological inexactitudes, if not downright lies?
If it was the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that black and white would come together in friendship and peace to do justice, his acolytes in today's Democratic Party appear to have missed that part of his message.
— There is at least one plausible Electoral College scenario that produces a 269-269 tie, which would throw the presidential election to the House of Representatives elected in 2020.
— If the House decides the presidency, you might think that Democrats would have the advantage, given their new majority. But it’s the Republicans that hold — and are likely to maintain — the advantage.
Sometimes, a three-point celebration is just a three-point celebration. Sometimes, a pep rally is just a pep rally. Sometimes, a smile is just a smile. And sometimes, a hat is just a hat.
It's School Choice Week.
School choice is a noble cause. In much of America, parents have little or no control over where their kids attend school. Local governments assign schools by ZIP code.
On Saturday, Donald Trump shrewdly flipped the table on Nancy Pelosi in the government shutdown standoff. He has now proposed a grand bargain on immigration: legalization of some 1 million so-called Dreamers -- the foreigners who were brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents -- and an immediate end to the shutdown, if she agrees to expand funding to $5.7 billion for the wall.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible ... make violent revolution inevitable," said John F. Kennedy.
It was no coincidence that Donald Trump scheduled a trip to Britain to promote one of his golf courses in Scotland, on June 23, 2016. That was the day of the Brexit referendum in which 52 percent of the electorate --17.4 million voters, more than any party has ever won in a general election -- voted for the UK to leave the European Union.
"Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last."
So said President Charles De Gaulle, who in 1966 ordered NATO to vacate its Paris headquarters and get out of France.
One of the world's most successful brands committed ideological hara-kiri this week. Recognized around the world as a symbol of manly civility for more than a century, Gillette will now be remembered as the company that did itself in by sacrificing a massive consumer base at the altar of progressivism.
This government shutdown is now longer than any in history. The media keep using the word "crisis."
"Shutdown sows chaos, confusion and anxiety!" says The Washington Post. "Pain spreads widely."
"Stop the ENDLESS WARS!" implored President Donald Trump in a Sunday night tweet.
Well, if he is serious, Trump had best keep an eye on his national security adviser, for a U.S. war on Iran would be a dream come true for John Bolton.
Oh how far the Democratic Party has fallen. In recent days, we've seen the new darling of the Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, crusading for a 70 percent income tax rate.
The televised presidential address from the Oval Office, a staple of communication between the chief executive and the people in the second half of 20th century, has recently been in desuetude. Former President Barack Obama delivered only three such addresses in his eight years in office. President Donald Trump this week delivered his first one, just days short of completing half his term.
