Donald Trump was absent from Fox News' Republican debate Thursday night, presiding at his own event seven minutes' drive away featuring cameo appearances by the two previous Iowa Republican caucus winners exiled now to the undercard debate, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. But the issue Trump raised to high-decibel level at his announcement last June was front and center at the main event: immigration.
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
Will this November's presidential election come down to a choice between a felon and a pied piper?
Of all the many things said about Donald Trump, what was said by Roger Ailes, head of the Fox News Channel, said it all in just two words: "Grow up!"
It is amazing how many people have been oblivious to this middle-aged man's spoiled brat behavior, his childish boastfulness about things he says he is going to do, and his petulant response to every criticism with ad hominem replies.
Full disclosure: If New York's primary were held today, I'd vote for Bernie Sanders.
The conservative movement is starting to look a lot like Syria.
Baited, taunted, mocked by Fox News, Donald Trump told Roger Ailes what he could do with his Iowa debate, and marched off to host a Thursday night rally for veterans at the same time in Des Moines.
From someone whose title is senior political analyst you might be expecting a forecast of who will win the Iowa caucuses next Monday night. Will Donald Trump voters turn out in enough numbers to give him the narrow win over Ted Cruz that polls indicate he has now? Will Hillary Clinton withstand the challenge and excitement generated by Bernie Sanders?
As the 2016 presidential race officially begins, both party contests are in a place that we, and many others, did not expect them to be. On the Democratic side, frontrunner Hillary Clinton faces a stern challenge from a stronger-than-expected foe, Bernie Sanders. And the Republicans could be on the verge of nominating Donald Trump. Still, no votes have been cast. Pulling down the curtain on a contest yet to begin is both premature and foolish.
The crack media buzzed this week with the discovery of a totally front-page, news-breaking, breathtaking videotape.
Beware the latest nasty virus sweeping the East Coast, particularly the most elite citadels of New York City and Washington, D.C.
It is a fast-moving disease, highly contagious and attacks the nervous system. Early stages are inexplicable, fast eye-blinking, light palsy, stammering and overbearing snobbery. Sometimes redness of the face and shortness of breath accompany.
Cars run on fuel. Politicians run on votes, and they'll do almost anything to get them. That includes supporting mandates that force us to use ethanol, a fuel made from corn that Iowa farmers grow.
With the Iowa caucuses a week away, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, who leads in all the polls, is Donald Trump.
The latest tempest in a teapot controversy is over a lack of black nominees for this year's Academy Awards in Hollywood.
How stupid and vicious do they think we are? That's a question that I think explains a lot of things about politics and society today -- and about this year's unpredicted presidential race.
The "us" in that question are ordinary citizens and the "they" are political and media elites who hold them in contempt -- which they do over and over again by trying to obfuscate and cover up the source and motives of terrorist attacks.
The independent senator from Vermont says the economic system is rigged against working-class Americans. He's right.
The electoral political system is a subsidiary of those who rule the economy. Which is why Bernie Sanders never stood a chance. The political system was rigged against him.
The lights are burning late in Davos tonight.
Those of us who like to believe that human beings are rational can sometimes have a hard time trying to explain what is going on in politics. It is still a puzzle to me how millions of patriotic Americans could have voted in 2008 for a man who for 20 years -- TWENTY YEARS -- was a follower of a preacher who poured out his hatred for America in the most gross gutter terms.
The economy has been staggering, with stagnant or no growth, for several years, after a financial crisis. Loud complaints have been raised against Wall Street financiers and the concentration of great wealth in few hands. Rapid technological development is generating massive economic change, with many old-line jobs vanishing. Majorities disapprove of the Democratic president, as they had of his Republican predecessor.
The presidential nomination process has a history of being fuzzy. For much of the nation’s political existence, starting in the 1830s, national party conventions selected nominees for the highest office in the land. At these events, the oft-used term “smoke-filled rooms” described the sometimes behind-the-scenes activity that led to the final selection of a nominee. Sometimes this person was an obvious, well-known national figure; other times, an unexpected, relative unknown captured the nomination.
Because the crime rate is zero, the potholes are all fixed and homelessness has been completely eradicated, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio now has time to focus on what really matters to Big Apple taxpayers:
“Two Corinthians 3:17,” said Donald Trump, misstating the traditional way American Christians most commonly refer to the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.
You would have thought Mr. Trump had slandered a disabled minority, based on the horrified and merciless reaction from the press.
