Political Notes by Jon Fuhrman Sunday, June 7. ACT’s membership endorsed Xavier Becerra for Governor, and undoubtedly that was the key element propelling him into first place in the gubernatorial primary. Well, perhaps not the key element, but I suspect it was illustrative of the decision-making among Democrats writ large. Whether they knew him from his decades of public service, or saw him as steady and dependable, if not flashy or exuberant, or they figured that, after 35 y

Political Notes by Jon Fuhrman Wednesday, May 13. Describing the Cuban Missile Crisis back in 1962, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said, “We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked.” It would seem that President Trump was counting on that. He and his advisers seemed sure that Iran, after huge damage and the threat of apocalyptic bombing of civilian infrastructure, would blink. The problem is that, even in 1962, the Russians didn’t really blink. They took the

Political Notes by Jon Fuhrman Wednesday, April 8. Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was the linchpin of Cold War strategy. Both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed enough nuclear weapons to annihilate each other – truly to destroy each other’s civilizations. Each side knew the other had those weapons, indeed enough weapons such that, even after a surprise first strike, the victim could still wreak utter destruction upon the aggressor. So it was a stalemate, bec