Aug 17, 2021
Who is the president of Afghanistan? Well, it’s not the guy it was last week, right? Don’t worry, there is an acting, interim, caretaking president keeping things going smooth over there, perhaps not so smooth over here.
How do we nice guys end up in situations like this so often?
David Waldman hoped to get away from such vexing questions for a couple of weeks in Costa Rica, when he confronted a not-yet-torn-down historical monument to his bête noire, the filibuster. No, not the parliamentary procedure, but the military term, or more precisely, those damn Filibusteros, who recruited, organized, and plotted raids through Mexico and Central America, under the unofficial auspices of the US.
The most filibusterous of them all, William Walker, hoped to conquer vast regions of Central America to establish new slave states. He succeeded in taking Nicaragua, making himself president, re-instituting slavery, writing a book, and getting executed.
Then Joan McCarter called in and snapped us all back to present-day: Republicans gave Dems the finger and a declaration of non-cooperation on a debt ceiling vote. Unemployment benefits for 7 million are about to lapse, and no one in Washington is doing much about it now that Joe Manchin became disinterested. House Democrats also want to play Manchin and Sinema’s game, and who knows, maybe Nancy Pelosi will give them something.