Evening Roundup, May 22
Featuring Azza Cohen, Jeff Nesbit, Meredith Blake, Shalise Manza Young, Mimi Rocah, Michael de Adder, Brian O'Neill, and Jen Rubin.
Trump’s Oval Office is Dripping in Gold: Azza Cohen Explains
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Every President is able to customize the look and feel of the Oval Office. Trump’s choice of gold embellishments screams royalty, not democracy. Azza Cohen joins us to discuss Trump’s strange interior decoration decisions and what they say about his taste levels, and more importantly, his values.
Culture picks for the long weekend
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Memorial Day is here, marking the unofficial start of summer, at least according to Hollywood. Friday brings the release of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, in which 62-year-old Tom Cruise reprises his role as Ethan Hunt. The film, which has a running time of nearly three hours, de…
Good news, bad news
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Michael de Adder is an award-winning editorial cartoonist. You can find him on Substack here.
As one who taught American history for over 40 years, I’ve come to believe that one of our greatest weaknesses is our extraordinary short-sightedness. Two examples stand out in my mind.
The first, of course, is the creation of this nation with its founding ideals hopelessly compromised by the allowance of slavery. The cost of this one terrible compromise has been and continues to be incalculable. it is true that without that compromise, the United States would most likely have died a-borning, but it remains far too well defined as our Original Sin.
The other, far more recent example, of which this ‘big beautiful bill’ is just one facet, is the re-election of Donald Trump. Its cost, ike that of slavery, even as it is still in the operative stage is also utterly incalculable. And, comparable to slavery, it may well turn out to be our Final Sin.
Another bit that has come to me recently is the final couplet of John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn; “Beauty is truth, and truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know/“
Trump loves both words, but of course has utterly no concept of either.
Timing is everything, but sometimes it feels lie Father Time is taking sides.
If Congressman Connolly chosen not to run, or had been able to cast his vote the tally would have been 50/50.