America

‘Oh, that’s Liz Truss,’ a conservative reporter says as the former British prime minister passes us in the corridor at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). ‘She sucks. What’s she doing here?’ Trying to sell books, apparently. Truss is one of two Brits – alongside mainstay Nigel Farage – addressing CPAC. Her visit forms part of the promotional tour for the US release of her book Ten Years to Save the West: Lessons From The Only Conservative in the Room, which has been handily retitled for US audiences: ‘Leading the Revolution Against Globalism, Socialism and the Liberal Establishment.’ Truss’s remarks were full of buzzwords: ‘woke-onomics’, ‘DEI, ESG’, broadsides aimed at the

Lord Cameron, bless him, is back striding the world stage. He wrote an article last week in Washington’s inside-beltway website the Hill, urging Congress to vote for more aid for Ukraine. The Foreign Secretary’s tone in that article was forthright in a way that, I expect, he imagined to be the tough talk of a respected international elder statesman getting down to brass tacks. Rather, than, say, the stamping of a butterfly in Kipling.   ‘As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine,’ he wrote, ‘I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties […] ‘I do not want us to show the weakness displayed against Hitler in

‘Donald Trump may have authored the Art of the Deal,’ said the New York Attorney General Letitia James, doing her best resolute voice. ‘But he perfected the art of the steal.’ There speaks the voice of American justice: biased, politicised, odiously trite. ‘Today, we proved that no one is above the law,’ said James, which is what every Trump prosecutor has said, over and over, for years now. ‘No matter how rich, powerful, or politically connected you are, everyone must play by the same rules.’ Despite all the strong words and massive fines, Trump’s candidacy is growing in strength That’s garbage and everybody knows it. The rules don’t apply to

Who does Vladimir Putin want to win the US presidential election this autumn? Last night, the Russian president gave an unexpected answer to that question. In an interview on the Russian state TV channel VGTRK, Putin was asked ‘Who is better for us, Biden or Trump?’ The smirk on journalist Pavel Zarubin’s face suggested he thought the question would be a slam dunk. And yet, to Zarubin’s visible surprise, Putin threw him a curve ball: Putin would, in fact, prefer Joe Biden. The enigmatic Russian president is a showman and he likes to stir the pot. Following a few moments of somewhat intense eye contact, Putin elaborated: ‘He is a

The Biden administration often appears more afraid of Iran than Iran is of the Biden administration. That is a very dangerous dynamic for the United States. While the military action President Joe Biden has ordered this week to counter the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its axis of resistance is degrading Iran’s capacity, it is not deterring its will. President Biden often appears uncomfortable speaking about Iran. Throughout his presidency, he has never delivered substantive, formal remarks outlining his Iran policy. This is unusual for a regime that poses a significant threat to American interests and values. On January 30, when the president was asked about his response to Iran’s axis

Joe Biden isn’t working. That much has been clear to anyone who has followed American politics for the past four years. The 81-year-old often has no idea what he is saying or where he is. Yet it’s only now, months away from his possible re-election, that the Department of Justice, apparently in an attempt to exonerate him for committing a crime Donald Trump is accused of, has admitted the obvious: he’s not really in charge of himself, let alone the country.  After interrogating Biden about his hoarding of classified documents, Special Counsel Robert K. Hur reported: We have also considered that, at trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to

The latest American drone strike in Iraq, which killed the commander of a powerful Iranian-backed militia group, is one more dangerous escalation in the increasingly unpredictable Middle East conflict. The US strike in the Iraqi capital Baghdad targeted Wisam ‘Abu Baqer’ al-Saadi – a senior leader of Kataib Hezbollah, which the Pentagon blames for the attack that led to the deaths of three American soldiers in Jordan last month. The rationale for the American retaliation is clear enough. It sends a powerful message that Washington will punish attacks on US forces in the region, using every means to hunt down those responsible. Everyone and everything – from military leaders to

The 28 January drone strike in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and wounded 40 more necessitated a US military response. Under no scenario was President Biden not going to retaliate. The question was how strong the retaliation would be. We now have the answer.  Yesterday’s series of airstrikes against the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian-supported militias was by far the largest US military operation we’ve seen in Iraq and Syria since Biden’s term began. Before yesterday, the US limited its operations to precision strikes to one or two militia facilities at a time. Those operations didn’t result in the deterrent effect the White House was looking

I’m an unlikely defender of Donald Trump. Politically, he’s not my boy. Most of the former president’s hyperbolic rants make me cringe. Yet last week, I had to agree with DT that a jury’s award of $83.3 million of his assets to E. Jean Carroll for defamation was ‘absolutely ridiculous’. Keeping track of all the cases against Trump can be challenging, so let’s review. In 2019, while Trump was still president, Carroll went public with the accusation that back in 1995 – or was it 1996 – he raped her in the lingerie dressing room of Manhattan’s upscale clothing retailer Bergdorf Goodman. Trump denied the encounter had ever occurred and claimed

It’s not yet February, and already we have a clear idea of what Joe Biden’s re-election will be all about: Donald Trump, abortion and, er, Taylor Swift.  The New York Times reported yesterday that Team Biden-Harris 2024 has made recruiting Taylor Swift as one of its endorsers a top priority. This, inevitably, has triggered a media storm because Taylor Swift is now a culture-war avatar. She’s the new Meghan Markle when it comes to dividing opinion, although Swift is arguably more controversial because she was once a conservative darling and a hate figure among left-liberals. Today she’s the opposite.   The Guardian called Swift ‘an envoy for Trump’s values’ Right-wing

Donald Trump said yesterday that we’re ‘on the brink of world war three’ after a suicide drone killed three US soldiers and injured a further 34 in Jordan. ‘This attack would never have happened if I was president, not even a chance – just like the Iranian-backed Hamas attack on Israel would never have happened, the war in Ukraine would never have happened, and we would now have peace throughout the world,’ said Trump. ‘Our country cannot survive with Joe Biden as Commander in Chief.’ It’s cynical, of course, to score political points over military deaths. Yesterday’s US combat fatalities were reportedly the first in three years under Joe Biden.

Let’s park for a moment the morality of the death penalty. You know what you think. It’s one of those issues that is as divisive as it gets, and along all the predictable lines. It’s the method that exercises me. Last night, Alabama executed Kenneth Smith by the administration of nitrogen gas. Smith, who murdered a pastor’s wife in 1988, was strapped down as officials put a tight fitting, commercial industrial-safety respirator mask on his face. A canister of pure nitrogen was attached to the mask and set flowing. One local journalist who witnessed the execution said Smith struggled and thrashed about – well as much as the restraints on

Donald Trump has, like a boa constrictor, squeezed the life out of the Republican primary cycle. Last night, he swallowed New Hampshire and possibly Nikki Haley too.  Haley did better than many of the late polls suggested. But that’s not saying much. She won 44 per cent of the vote, finishing 12 points behind Trump. She now has the momentum to move on to South Carolina, where she is thirty points behind in polls. But if she couldn’t win here in New Hampshire, where independents can vote in the Republican primary, it seems unlikely she can win anywhere. Or, as one Trump campaign official at his campaign’s election night watch party in Nashua put

The Florida governor has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race