Dull Thursday

I’ve pointed it out before. I can only conclude that the opinion writers in the major outlets take long weekends. Thursdays have been dull for years and are only getting more so. Other than a few laments about Jussie Smollett, the actor who is now suspected of filing a false police report when he claimed to have been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack, there isn’t much going on in the opinion pages today. He’s now been arrested and, if it can be proved that he sent himself a threatening letter containing crushed aspirin, he’ll be in even greater trouble.

There’s increasing fulmination about President Trump trying to “claw back” money given to the State of California for high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I don’t know what the law on this is. It’s possible that the state does owe the federal government $2 billion.

Venezuela is still collapsing and we should still butt out. We’re still in a state of national emergency and, apparently, will be for some time. I doubt that those who oppose Trump and his wall will get what they want from the Supreme Court. President Trump handles things very differently than I would in his shoes. He’s a cipher to me. If I were he and were to receive an injunction from a lower court to halt construction of the wall, I would ignore it pending the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Europeans still think that Americans are terribly gauche and naive. That’s been the case for 200 years but every time we are presented with another example it’s treated as though it were new. It might help to remind people that the play Lincoln was attending when he was assassinated was about the condescending attitude of Europeans (in this case Britons) towards Americans.

Just because the Kurds are rooting out the last territory held by DAESH in Syria doesn’t mean that violent radical Islamists are gone. As I’ve pointed out before such movements are endemic in Islam. Any notion we can end that is doomed to failure.

We may (or may not) get a report from Robert Mueller about his investigation next week. I predict that if we ever do actually get a report neither Trump’s supporters nor opponents will be happy about it. The prospect of Mr. Trump being perp-walked from the White House recedes with each passing day but he’s unlikely to be fully vindicated, either.

We are learning that there is a Deep State and that it is plotting against the president but it’s apparently mostly composed of idiots so we have that going for us.

Maybe I’ll find more later.