Category Archive: American Politics
Reflections on America
President Donald Trump delivers remarks to staff during a Christmas Reception in the White House, Monday, December 1, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
[From our U.S correspondent, fresh back from the States] American voters wanted Trump, but they got something else Like Australia, the United States has endured years of extreme left-wing policies. Several states remain firmly entrenched in this ideology, with California serving as a prime example. Higher taxes, anti-establishment protests, a lenient approach to drugs, and weak immigration policies are just some of the issues plaguing the state. California also gave the world Kamala Harris. The state should thank its lucky star-spangled banner that the rest of the nation didn’t declare war on it. In the lead-up to the 2024 US…
Continue Reading →Season of Life (Jeff Janoda, 2022)
"Hancock at Gettysburg" by Thure de Thulstrup, showing Pickett's Charge
Jeff Janoda is a Canadian teacher, historian and writer whose ability to research and vitalise historical events disparate in time and space is admirable. His terrific 2005 novel Saga takes us into the world of old Nordic stories. Sundog (2019) is a gripping yarn set in the last days of World War Two. His third novel, Season of Life pulls the reader into the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. The American Civil War was known to The Varnished Culture through that historical textbook, Gone With the Wind and a few episodes of an interminable, sepia-coloured documentary tv series. Now…
Continue Reading →107 Days
(By Kamala Harris, 2025) Prologue On 15 November, 2022, former President Donald Trump announced his intention to run for the Presidential election in November 2024. In April 2023, indictments on Trump started revving-up, and in the same month, President Biden announced that he would run for re-election. On 5 February 2024, the Robert Hur report was released, effectively concluding that Joe Biden broke the law on classified documents but that there was no point in charging him because he was, effectively, off his rocker. By 12 March 2024, both Biden and Trump had become the presumptive nominees for President by…
Continue Reading →Charlie Kirk
14 October, 1993 – 10 September, 2025 Charlie Kirk was called a lot of nasty names during his life as a political activist, and that continued after he was shot and killed at an outdoor event on the campus of Utah Valley University on 10/9/2025. The New York Times reported that “it was easy to find left-wing posters reveling in Mr. Kirk’s death and suggesting he got what he deserved.” He was a Christian conservative, a supporter of Donald Trump’s re-election, and argued against abortion, overreaching gun-controls, open borders and trans-gender irrationality. He did not cancel or mock those with…
Continue Reading →The Windmills of His Mind
In the northern Summer of 2025, we learned that former President Joe Biden is writing a memoir of his Presidency. He also mentioned that a number of European leaders have kept in contact with him, seeking his advice and continuing participation in affairs of the World. We have commented (almost) enough on the Biden Imbroglio, and don’t want (too much) to kick a man when he’s on the ground, so instead let’s hum a little tune, with apologies to Michel Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Noel Harrison: “Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a…
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