quillsword

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Politics Ain't Fast

Politics doesn’t move at the speed of headlines. While the media spins every moment as a crisis, real change takes time. In this post, we break down why Trump’s fast start in 2025 is actually years in the making—and why staying informed doesn’t mean being glued to the news cycle. https://quillsword.net/politics-aint-fast/

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Will Europe Rearm Europe says it’s rearming—but is it really? Behind the headlines and ribbon-cuttings lies a continent still hooked on U.S. protection and allergic to tough choices. Read why real change might be a decade away. https://quillsword.net/will-europe-rearm/

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Tariffs: Bane, Boondoggle or Ballyhoo?

Yes. What? Oh, do you prefer ‘all of the above’? No, I will not tell you what the words mean, Whippersnapper! Isn’t that what Chat GPT is for these days? Pretending I’m not talking to a three year old… Yes, the tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration on practically the whole world are all three things. Which one to whom kinda depends on who you ask. Bane to friend and foe alike – no one…

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Zelenskyy Isn't President of the US

I’d have thought that much was obvious but evidently, not. For those of you who seem perpetually confused, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the duly elected president of Ukraine. I know, it’s hard to keep track sometimes but the US president is Donald Trump. Please make a note of it. Sheesh! Sure, I’m being snarky as all get out but this has gotten to the point of absurdity. Honestly, I’m not sure why…

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Calm Down, Europe

Seriously? One little kick in the proverbial behind and you’re convinced the United States is suddenly ‘unreliable’? Does your definition of reliability involve promising to do something and not bothering for twelve years? ‘Cause we Americans seem to recall you European NATO members promising to get your defense spending up to 2% of GDP back when Obama was still in office. Just so you know, 2%…

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Putin Doesn't Seem to Have Gotten the Memo

Good grief. If Putin thinks he’s bringing his A game he better have something special up his sleeve. Playing dominance games with Trump is playing with fire. Dominance games? The silly stunts like being late for meetings or in this case a phone call and making others wait for you. It’s the political version of fighting for pole position. There are a lot of times when this sort of nonsense…

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Can the Democrat Party Rebuild?

I forgot to mention this possibility in my last post. Yeah, it’s possible. Not probable at the moment and impossible to predict, but possible. If – very big if – it happened, what would it look like? Basically, there would be an internal fight for control of the party. It might start with a split between the Clinton and Obama camps with each trying to gain control of the party. Neither of those…

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The Democrat Party Is Dead

It officially died on Friday, March 14, 2025. Don’t look at me in that tone of voice! I didn’t kill it. The Democrats did that all by themselves. Yep, that’s a pretty specific date. Enjoy it. It’s extremely rare that an exact date gets applied to a political condition. So, why do I say it happened Friday? The Democrat leadership played themselves. The forced a situation where either they…

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Putin's Blunder

Bwahahahahahahaha! I swear, I thought about this possibility but would have had to edit a whole lot to include it in the earlier post and was way too lazy for that. Also, I’m slow enough as it is. But anyway, what a difference a day makes, huh? I did wonder if Putin was stupid enough to capitalize on the reduced intelligence that Ukraine was getting. Trump had made it crystal clear he wasn’t…

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Oval Office Meltdown - Much Ado About... Something?

So, that was fun, huh? I waited to do this blog because it’s almost never useful to analyze fast moving events. When events are going fast, it’s best to rely on real reporters (the few that still exist) and let events shake out if at all possible. That’s not to criticize commentators that weighed in earlier. I’ve found a lot of that commentary very useful. Special nods to Bill O’Reilly and…

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Will Trump Save the World?

No, of course not. Seriously, you have got to stop watching only action adventure movies. Well, sure, they’re the best but Man does not live by shoot ’em ups alone. Need some more fiber in that diet. No, you’re not going on a documentary diet. What kind of a fiend do you take me for? But we do need to round out your media diet so that you stop expecting that one hero will save the world. At…

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Immigration: The Two Edged Sword

The issues around immigration to the United States are mired in hype, hoopla and plain old snake oil. Ninety percent of the time legal and illegal immigration are conflated as if they were the same thing. They aren’t. Yes, America is a nation of immigrants. The American continents are entire continents of immigrants, if anthropologists are to be believed. There are no native Americans because…

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America Doomed or Party System Shift?

The latter. You can quit panicking now. Have a nice day. What do you mean you don’t understand? You don’t know what a party system shift even is? What are they teaching in graduate level Poli Sci nowadays? Oh, right. Not everyone took those classes. Which is a condemnation of the edumacation system. Seriously, this happens fairly regularly in American politics. It’s a feature, not a bug. You’d…

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Here Come the Rats: Proof that Neither Elites nor Oligarchs Rule America

Oh, settle down. I didn’t say that those rich boys weren’t powerful. They are, but they just found out that they aren’t as powerful as they thought they were.  How do I know?  Simple, look at how many of those guys were at Trump’s inauguration. They were all card carrying Democrats on November 5th but now they’re scrambling to get in Trump’s good graces.  Brown nosing is not the sign of either…

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Good Morning, America! How Are Ya?

Hi, I’m back. Old and cranky just needed a vacation – and some extra vitamins. Didja miss me? Figures. Oh well. So, how are you liking the new Trump administration so far? Are you convinced Trump will fix everything or that Trump will destroy the world? Neither? EXCELLENT! Don’t get me wrong, I voted for Trump all three times. Okay, I admit I held my nose the first time but the next two were…

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Is the World Going Crazy?

Footnote audio above Footnote section Nope, it’s just straightening out a few messes. Unfortunately, political messes are seldom straightened out quietly. So while there is a lot of stuff exploding at the moment, it’s a relatively minor readjustment. Major readjustments involve world wars. I vote we skip that this go around. At present, no one is doing anything that involves the US showing up…

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Biden Pardons Hunter: No One is Surprised

There was never any real chance that Joe Biden wasn’t going to pardon his son, nor any indication that the Justice Department wasn’t fully complicit in the judicial fraud. Let’s spend a few hundred grand or a million or more for all the proceedings just to time the trial so that Hunter Biden would have ample opportunity to plead guilty long before his father would leave the White House. Anyone…