A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

January 6, Venezuela and a Tale of Two Coup Attempts

Another "Mission Accomplished?"

January 6 marks the fifth anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Capitol as part of Donald Trump’s de facto coup attempt, which featured egging on insurrectionists as well as his less violent attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Contemplating that day, which will live in infamy as much as December 7, 1941, my thoughts turn to another assault on democracy that I witnessed, in the Philippines back in August 1987.

It was just 18 months after the country’s “People Power” revolution toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos and installed a fragile democracy headed by Cory Aquino. The widow of slain opposition leader Benigno Aquino, she’d recently beaten Marcos in an election he then stole to perpetuate his rule. People Power righted that wrong.

To rekindle those recollections, I dug up a letter I sent to friends days after the failed putsch. I quote parts of it here, and then offer some related reflections…

[Continue Reading]

Pardon Me

Stranger Than Fiction

The story could inspire a big-budget Hollywood political thriller. A cocaine kingpin – the corrupt president of a foreign country, no less – is convicted and jailed in the United States. But behind the scenes, right-wing tech billionaires persuade an equally corrupt American president to pardon the foreigner. In a violent side-story, the US president proudly orders illegal, lethal military attacks that kill scores of impoverished Venezuelan fishing villagers (some of whom may be small-scale traffickers) whose coke isn’t even destined for our shores and whose possible crimes pale in comparison with the kingpin’s.

In the hypothetical Hollywood version of this story, the truth comes out, the former president goes back to prison and his American counterpart resigns in shame.

In 2025, however, there is no shame and reality is stranger than fiction. Donald Trump publicly boasted of his planed pardon for former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández before then granting it. Lost in the swirl of Trump’s other transgressions, the story disappeared from the headlines soon after first surfacing.

[Continue Reading]

Democracy in Flames: Will Charlie Kirk’s Killing Be America’s Reichstag Fire?

But...Hope, California and George W. Bush

On the night of February 27, 1933, a massive fire – apparently set by a Dutch communist who confessed to the crime, though other accounts suspect other communists or even Nazis – severely damaged the German parliament building, the Reichstag. Arriving at the scene, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler declared, “If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.”

Within a month, Hitler incinerated German democracy.

[Continue Reading]

Funeral for a Friendship? Trump Spits at Polite, Pleasant, Insulted Canada

With Friends Like Donald...

And that’s not all we’re sorry about…

Strolling several years ago in Vancouver, Canada, I inadvertently crossed the street in front of a car after my light turned red but before the vehicle began moving. If you do this in the San Francisco Bay Area, the driver might toot and shout at you. In my native New York, you’d hear a loud honk and an even louder expletive.

The Vancouver motorist instead said, “Excuse me, did you know that you’re crossing against the light?”

Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Country

Canadians are among the nicest and most polite people on the planet. Americans are blessed to have them as neighbors.

Yet Donald Trump is spitting in these wonderful folks’ faces, on everything from fentanyl to immigration to tariffs to statehood. His spiteful barbs portend long-term damage to what once seemed our two nations’ unbreakable goodwill. This potential funeral for a friendship says much about America’s shrinking place in the world.

[Continue Reading]

Indian TV, Me and Trump’s LA Military Moves

It's Not Mainly About Immigration

Here’s my recent interview with the Indian TV network WION (World Is One News) about Trump’s deploying the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles. The interview starts at roughly 1:45 in the clip.