Until this week, it was possible to claim that perhaps this President was just an unhinged egotist, a bumbling criminal who stumbled into the top job but would be unable to enact a broad political agenda because of the cumbersome weight of his own stupidity and incompetence. That view is no longer tenable. Attorney General Bill Barr’s May 1st performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed that a complete takeover of government by Trump is in fact well […]

Well, it’s a setback. But what did you expect? Bill Barr sent an unsolicited 19-page memo to the Justice Department in June last year, arguing that Robert Mueller’s investigation was ‘fatally misconceived’, based on his belief that a sitting President cannot, by law, obstruct justice. It was widely viewed as a job application, and in due course Barr was indeed appointed Attorney General of the United States by the man who is the principal focus of Mueller’s report. That the […]

The headlines may have focused on salacious payments to porn-stars, but Michael Cohen made it clear during his recent public testimony that the primary reason for his appearance was a warning. “Given my experience working for Mr Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and that is why I agreed to appear before you today.” Cohen’s message was a stark reminder that the debate about which […]

One of the most mystifying aspects of this presidency is how a man with one of the most un-Christian resumes on earth retains the overwhelming support of America’s evangelical voters. Donald Trump has put thousands of children in cages, cheated on all three of his wives, and looked the other way when a US-based journalist was hacked to death by a so-called ally, yet born-again Christians seem happy to embrace a form of moral relativism for Trump, ignoring egregious personal […]

Donald Trump’s long-heralded decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal is, by some distance, the most consequential action of this abysmal presidency. Despite the best efforts of Macron, Merkel and Boris Johnson, nothing was going to stop the president this time. After all, Trump campaigned on a promise to do so, and it’s an Obama achievement – and Trump is opposed to anything that Obama was for. America is unilaterally exiting the agreement, and the rest of the world has […]