Politics

America is unraveling into an unhappy confederation of hostile tribes. Extremists on the right are murdering Jews in synagogues and African Americans in churches. The woke left is bullying us into a neo-segregation in which we’re judged by the color of our skin. We’re too obsessed with economic growth to recognize that the rising tide has swallowed entire regions. We’re too proud of our tradition of immigration to admit the failures of assimilation.At a time of such angry division, what can bind up our wounds and bring us together as a nation?A renewed patriotism would be a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough. Patriotism asks us to love our country. But what we need now is more than love of country. We must love our fellow citizens.

Of all the low-profile candidates vying for national attention in the Democratic debates this week, Marianne Williamson stood out. In coverage immediately before, she was derided for simply being an 'author and activist': descriptors, it's worth noting, that could be applied to everyone else standing. The 66-year-old was placed at the far edge of the Thursday debate stage and only got four minutes and 58 seconds of speaking time. But she made those seconds count. First, she struck out against her arch-nemesis: plans. 'I’ll tell you one thing, it’s really nice if we’ve got all these plans, but if you think we’re going to beat Donald Trump by just having all these plans, you’ve got another thing coming,' she said. 'Because he didn’t win by saying he had a plan.

The Pentagon is urgently reviewing just how and when the president might launch nuclear missiles as a dangerous new nuclear arms race breaks out. Hypersonic missiles are capable of flying at around 12,000 miles per hour, or Mach 20. That would reduce the US response time to as little as five minutes — too short for the president to enter the launch codes into the ‘football’ (actually a briefcase) that is never more than a few feet away. Instead, some officials argue that Artificial Intelligence should manage the US response. AI could gather information about launches, likely targets, and the most effective counter-responses — and be empowered to launch nuclear missiles without human intervention.

Who was the last person you felt genuinely sorry for? A newly unemployed blue-collar worker who’s been ‘innovated’ out of a job by mechanization, perhaps. Or that elderly widower in an old folks’ home whose family never seems to visit. Maybe even a single mother in the Rust Belt, trapped in the bleak throes of opioid addiction. There’s enough suffering in this country to go around – it’s not hard to pick someone. Then ask yourself this: what about the real victims? Those struggling through the hardship of sleepless nights and non-stop travel, met with at best indifference, at worst disdain wherever they go. When have you given them a moment’s thought?

On Friday, I had the pleasure of recording a podcast with Michael Wolff at his hotel in Mayfair. Wolff is on a tour for his book, Siege, the sequel to Fire and Fury, his mega-bestseller about the Trump presidency. We talked Trump, the Trump-Russia inquiry, media screw-ups, Steve Bannon and Boris Johnson. You can listen here: https://audioboom.com/posts/7295917-michael-wolff-the-mueller-indictment-document-sits-on-my-desk Perhaps the biggest bombshell in Siege is Wolff’s claim that Mueller laid out an indictment of the president, a long document detailing how such a move would work. Mueller’s office has denied the document’s existence. But Wolff insists he has it ‘in my hands … I tell you: it sits on my desk.

The president of the United States weighed retaliatory airstrikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran before pulling back at the eleventh hour, he confirmed Friday morning. 'We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,' Donald Trump tweeted. He said the planned response was not 'proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone,' referring to the recent malign activity from the regime. 'I am in no hurry,' he caveated. 'He just tweeted it out,' Alex Ward, defense reporter at Vox, joked. Ward refers to a swirl of chatter that engulfed Washington Thursday night.

‘I have loyalty to ideas,’ said Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, a network of young conservatives that has seen liftoff in the Trump era. ‘Of course I love the Grand Canyon. I love the Rocky Mountains. And I love Boston. And I love Chicago. But if all that disappeared, if all I had was ideas, and we were on an island, that’s America. That’s Israel.’ ‘And that’s what people have to realize,’ Kirk continued. ‘America’s just a placeholder for timeless ideas. And if you fall too in love with, oh, the specific place, and all this...that’s not what it is.’ For good measure, Kirk added: ‘Israel would be the exception. There is a holy connection to this land.’ You heard the man.