Just at the end of April, Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China offered to help negotiate a peaceful end to the war Russia has been waging against Ukraine. This news put me into a bittersweet mood. I remembered that moment — in 1905 — when American President Theodore Roosevelt offered to mediate the Russo-Japanese War. The Russian Empire and the Empire …
With the war in Ukraine entering its fourth month, the 27-nation European Union is working toward what would be its sixth round of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia since Feb. 24. While outside of Governing’s usual coverage areas, the war in Ukraine has impacted domestic policy discussions here in the United States. To better understand the ongoing struggle, Governing Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson recently …
In 2014, Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Crimea, a peninsula of southern Ukraine that juts into the Black Sea. The West grumbled and imposed economic sanctions, expelled Russia from the Group of Seven (G7) political and economic forum but chose not to go to war against Russia. Although the sanctions hurt the Russian economy, and no doubt impaired the lives of the 144 …
As probably you know, the People’s Republic of China has a serious and robust moon landing program. Late this year or early next, China is preparing to land a probe on the moon that will dig up some rock samples and then return safely to Earth. China has made it clear that it intends to send men and women to …
Hello, everyone. I’m urging you to do me the following favor. Get a copy of Robert Kagan’s recent book, “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World,” and read it over the next few weeks. It’s a short book. It’s a brilliant book. It’s an exceedingly important book. And it explains a lot of things that may seem puzzling …
My first independent post on the Fish — whoopee! No more advertisers squawking about me picking on poor Donald Trump. I get to say what I think, not what others think and not softened to avoid stepping on advertisers’ toes. I used to think that good advertising meant that the advertiser wanted to make its products known, not to control …
It can happen to the best of us — to the worst of us, even. You say one thing, but you meant something completely different. Like that time Churchill meant, “We shall always surrender!” President Trump, fresh off of his triumphant Surrender Summit in Helsinki, says what he meant to say when asked whether Russia had undermined the 2016 election …
It was 1956, and the world seemed simple. Our big, boxy Emerson TV, with its puny convex picture tube, streamed all kinds of benign pleasures into our little house on the prairie: “Make Room for Daddy,” “The Milton Berle Show,” “Hopalong Cassidy” and — the high point of that entire year for me — the moment when Captain Jim Rohn …
The word “humanity” is often tossed around, but I wonder if the term is understood. Definitions abound. Here’s how Merriam-Webster explains it: A) the quality or state of being human; B) the quality or state of being kind to other people or to animals. Another word that also seems to be understood is “sanctions.” Again, the dictionary’s definition: A) a …
It didn’t take POTUS 45 long to once again deflect attention from the interference of Russia with our election by bombing a Syrian air base. That’s resulted in some proclaiming him a hero. Apparently, our president tweets when he ought to be watching the news he’s quick to call “fake.” If he had paid attention to the real world, he …
Lee Harvey Oswald would be proud. Not one, but a disturbing number of Americans, including Donald Trump, are choosing to believe Vladimir Putin over our intelligence agencies. Some even believe that the Russians did us a favor. Kneeling during the National Anthem causes a huge amount of angst among a swath of citizens, but siding with Russia in a case …