Events

I'm spending a couple of days on two U.S. islands in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and Vieques. So posting is a little iffy. Right now I'm waiting for the island hopper to take me between the two islands, a flight that will spend less time in the air than it will taxiing on the ground. There has been a minor problem, though. It has rained every day, and the forecast calls for more rain every day. Here's Condado Lagoon from the roof of my hotel: Right now it's a little sunny but still not what I would call...

Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended a performance of "Hamilton" in New York last night, and at the curtain call, actor Brandon Victor Dixon (who plays Aaron Burr) had something to say: Tonight, VP-Elect Mike Pence attended #HamiltonBway. After the show, @BrandonVDixon delivered the following statement on behalf of the show. pic.twitter.com/Jsg9Q1pMZs — Hamilton (@HamiltonMusical) November 19, 2016 WaPo: Pence reportedly left the auditorium before Dixon finished speaking, but a show spokesman told...

If you look at the regimes of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia, you see pretty much the end state of democracies run by populists who value loyalty over, say, competence: runaway inflation, shortages, brain drain, and increasingly repressive policies aimed only at keeping the power structure intact. If you want to see what the beginning state of such regimes, look no further than Trump's transition team. Already they've defenestrated the policy wonks they'll need to actually do...

Despite everything awful happening around the country, here in Chicago we've had unusually gorgeous weather. We've had 81% of possible sunshine this month, well above the normal 43%. And we've also had near-record heat, with today predicted to be 22°C, a whopping 14°C above normal. Of course, tomorrow a cold front will come through to give us our first freeze since April, but hey, it's November.

Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat outlines the similarities between Trump and Mussolini. They're legion: “These people are mass marketers. They pick up what’s in the air,” Ben-Ghiat said. The film reel was to Mussolini as Twitter is to Trump. “They give the impression of talking directly to the people,” she said. They can be portentous and relentlessly self-assertive. In a way, authoritarians have to be, Ben-Ghiat explained, since they’re selling a paradox: a savior fashioned as the truest, most authentic...

They didn't even wait for the body to get cold: One day after President-elect Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka spoke to "60 Minutes" about her father's rise to power, her jewelry line alerted journalists to a surprising fact: The First Daughter-elect's bracelet could be bought for $10,800. The sales tactic marked one of the first moments since the election during which the Trump companies have sought to use Trump's presidential prominence to boost their private fortunes. There is nothing illegal about the...

In a sense, Donald Trump seems like the former President of the Galaxy ("a role that involves no power whatsoever, and merely requires the incumbent to attract attention so no one wonders who's really in charge"): narcissistic, vain, not terribly bright, and uninterested in details to an unprecedented degree for someone holding his office. That's all very funny in a Douglas Adams novel. But in real life, it's actually terrifying: President Barack Obama’s remarks about Donald Trump in his Monday press...

Throughout this past miserable campaign, I couldn't tell whether Trump was as frighteningly bigoted as his public utterances seemed, or if he were putting on a show to win the right-wingnut vote but was secretly just as establishment as his history suggested he'd be. And then two days after the election he appointed his running mate head of his transition team, yesterday appointed RNC Chair Reince Priebus his chief of staff, and in between named Steve Bannon a special advisor. Seriously, Priebus as...

I could post about Krugman's "Thoughts for the Horrified," Deeply Trivial's explanation of how the polling failure wasn't what you think it was, or how much rats like being tickled. Instead, I give you twins born on either side of the return to Standard Time: Emily and Seth Peterson of West Barnstable welcomed their sons in the early morning hours of Nov. 6 at Cape Cod Hospital. Samuel was born 5 pounds, 13 ounces at 1:39 a.m., shortly before the 2 a.m. hour when clocks were turned back an hour. Brother...

TPM's John Judis has a decent set of hypotheses: This year, Trump proved anything but hapless, and Clinton ran a campaign that sadly recalled Gore in 2000 and Dukakis in 1988. She was unable to distinguish her own approach from Obama’s – particularly on the explosive issues of Obamacare and immigration. She ran an almost entirely negative campaign focused on her opponents’ bigotry, sexism, and bilious temperament. To the extent that she made promises, her campaign consisted of appeals to particular...