This Week and Next

Seems like “Cut or UnCut” has new implications - and more from Trump’s America

There is a thing about being trapped, rather like those adhesive mousetraps set in old pantries. The more the struggle, the more firmly the adhesion. And so the nation finds itself stuck fast to October, watching another seven days of what might generously be called “governance” unfold with all the grace of a one-legged debutante tumbling down the stairs after several shots of gin.

The matter of the Nobel Prize must be addressed, though the exercise feels rather like explaining why the ocean is wet. The president, having spent recent months openly campaigning for the honor with the subtlety of a child demanding ice cream, was passed over Friday in favor of María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader who has spent years working for democracy while hiding from authoritarians. The White House, displaying the wounded dignity of a spurned suitor, announced that the Nobel committee had “proved they place politics over peace”. The irony stands there, naked and unashamed, for anyone w…