U.S. Politics

Part I of this newsletter published a week ago, before we had enough U.S. states reporting election results to call the race. Now, barring something truly odd, Joe Biden has won a more than [...]

So…we had an election. It has gone down to the wire. At the time of this writing mid-day November 4 the votes are still being counted. America’s politics have significantly de-matured since [...]

The pullout of US troops in the Middle East is likely to continue after November’s presidential election. We’re already seeing significant changes in how the Middle East works, [...]

Mountain living can be…challenging. In the first of a series of video dispatches this week, I make lemons from lemonade and discuss the looming international challenges facing the American [...]

I normally try to stay out of American politics. My work is in the wider world, the American system is remarkably stable and self-regulating, and if I’m to be completely honest, making [...]

Last week the American ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, attempted to publish an op-ed with his assessment of American-Chinese relations. The Chinese Communist Part summarily squashed it, [...]

In the past five weeks the United States has thrown $3 trillion in new government spending at coronavirus-related bailouts, relief and economic stimulus. In total the US [...]

Let’s start with the headline good news. Since our last update on April 19, it appears the COVID-19 epidemic may have plateaued in the United States with direct COVID-caused deaths peaking on [...]

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Meatpacking is a messy business almost custom-designed to generate coronavirus outbreaks among the staff. When a cow or hog is brought into the [...]

Today, I’m not going to go through all the country-by-country details of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. My team and I are working diligently – franticly – to assimilate a huge amount of [...]