The holidays are fast approaching — only two weeks until Thanksgiving and six before Christmas, traditional family times of happiness, good foods, and reunions.
A week after that, the New Year arrives, and with it a new Congress assembles in Washington. But this time, voters with extremely short memories have decided that both chambers of the new Congress on Capitol Hill will be under the control of Democrats.
That's the party that gave us the shell of a president in Joe Biden, the mirage of a would-be commander in chief in Kamala Harris, inflation soaring to 9 percent, the lethal muddled troop exit from Afghanistan, and the scandalous web of lies covering up an incumbent president's rotting mental condition.
Since then, the Democrat Party has gone financially bankrupt and turned into a feuding pack of lost souls with aged leadership that can only attack President Trump with rote charges while offering zero valid alternatives or new ideas.
Among the rookie members will be a posse of ambitious socialists eager to spend other people's money and a militant Michigan Muslim who was happy to accept Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) campaign endorsement but now wants him ousted.
Their oft-stated goal is to use Congress, its committees, and a sympathetic media to wreak revenge on Trump supporters and, of course, try another House impeachment or two of Donald Trump. Political show business intended to smudge the GOP's image for the 2028 campaign.
For his part, Trump has offered to negotiate and work with Democrats on at least a few common goals, assuming some can be found.
Good luck with that!
But you know, just in case an amicable bipartisan working relationship is beyond reach, this president is lining up his forces for battle. Chief among these preparations is the naming of a new White House Chief of Staff in Stephen Miller, a longtime aide, veteran political communicator, and hardline conservative, especially when it comes to immigration enforcement. The intellectually ruthless Miller is already making some major moves.
That is the topic of this week's short audio commentary, which you can access by clicking on the nation's flag here. And as usual, down below is the space for your own written commentary on the topic.
This week's Sunday column examined the midterm results and the strange but inviting opportunity they represent for Republicans, if they see and take it.
Regular readers here will know of my enduring fascination with Space.
Wednesday is a big day. That morning at 5:16:07 Eastern Earth time, Voyager 1, the intrepid little space probe that's been flying away from Earth through Space for a half-century, will be one light-day away from home — 16,094,799,096 miles away and speeding 10 more miles away every second, going nowhere anyone knows at 38,028 miles an hour.
And still phoning home every day. Its raspy radio signals will take 24 hours to reach NASA's satellite dishes, each way.
Finally, my colleague Nick Arama offers a very intriguing post about Joe Biden, who went all the way to Ireland to see his prodigal son Hunter get an award for civic discourse. No, really.
Of course, the blessedly ex-president is pushing a presidential memoir written for him by someone else. But what struck me was Nick's quotation of a never really self-aware Biden explaining how he had heard that being president was such a demanding and simultaneously exhausting job.
Biden: "I read [others] like Harry Truman talk about [how] it’s the most difficult job in the world. I didn’t find it that way."
I guess spending literally 40 percent of it on vacation, much of it at the beach, will do that to you.
