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Washington Monthly
With Vance Selection, Trump Doubles Down on America First
Last week, amid the NATO summit in Washington, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell boasted that he had effectively stymied the America First movement by helping pass a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. Republicans, he said, were starting to realize that supporting assistance to Kyiv was “not some kind of political suicide mission.” The 82-year-old Cold Warrior went on to condemn Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his intimate ties to Russia and China, and he suggested that Donald Trump and other conservatives might be having “second thoughts” about cozying up to the authoritarian leader.
Chief Justice Roberts’s Rule of Disorder: Where the Trump Legal Cases Stand
On Monday, Donald Trump became the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. The same day, a federal district court judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, threw out the Mar-a-Lago documents case in which the evidence was overwhelming that the former president obstructed justice. The Republican nominee remains a convicted felon in New York State, where he’s also been barred from doing business, found liable for sexual assault, had his charity dismantled, and other penalties in what’s fair to call a crime spree. He has been charged with multiple additional felonies in federal and Georgia state court.
Doctors Should Leave Their Politics at Home
In addition to fighting cancer and heart disease, doctors at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF) are fighting each other. On one side are pro-Palestinian doctors and medical students, some wearing keffiyehs while on duty, who say it is crucial for UCSF to take a stand against the Israel-Hamas war and to call for a cease-fire. Their chants of “Intifada, intifada, long live the intifada!” can be heard in patients’ rooms.
JD Vance is the Rarest of VP Picks: The Double Down.
Last month I reviewed Donald Trump’s reported short list of vice presidential picks, noting that the choice would be of great import since “whoever he picks could shape the post-Trump Republican Party.”. Senator JD Vance was clearly picked to ensure the post-Trump Republican Party looks just like Trump’s...
The Roberts Court’s Chevron Ruling and Darkening Clouds Over the Administrative State
With Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court has finally interred the so-called Chevron doctrine, named for its 1984 decision, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The Roberts Court’s ideologically predictable 6-3 decision garnered headlines as a victory for legal conservatives hoping to curb federal regulation. However, the difference Loper Bright will make in the win-loss rate of agencies challenged in court remains uncertain. Other Supreme Court decisions, usually far less celebrated, are likely to destabilize the administrative state more than Loper Bright.
Why Trump’s Veep Pick Matters
Bill Scher, our ahead-of-the-curve politics editor, penned this column last month. We thought Republican Nominee Donald Trump’s selection of Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate merited reupping the column as it originally appeared. –The Editors. Once a non-incumbent secures the presidential nomination, the political media obsesses over...
Get a Grip, Democrats. You Can Still Win This
“The presidential contest ended last night,” an unnamed “veteran Democratic political consultant” told NBC News the day after former President Donald Trump was grazed in the ear by an attempted assassin’s bullet. “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency,” said an anonymous “senior House Democrat” to Axios.
Trump’s Democrats-Support-Infanticide Trope Is an Infuriating Lie
Quick question: Have you ever known a woman who was nine months pregnant and who just showed up unpregnant one day? Who simply shrugged and said she’d decided she wasn’t cut out for motherhood after all and took care of her little problem at her neighborhood abortion clinic?
Wilson Didn’t Resign. The World Suffered. Biden Need Not Repeat That Mistake
Medical historians debate what exactly happened to President Woodrow Wilson in April 1919. What we do know is that he wasn’t the same afterward. Wilson was in Paris leading post-World War I peace talks and overseeing European relief and reconstruction. The first American president ever to leave the country while in office, he stayed abroad for seven months between December 1918 and July 1919, save for a three-week break in late February and early March, when he sailed to America to sign legislation, meet with senators, and deliver three speeches. In Paris, he was clocking in 15-hour days, desperate to forge a new international organization—the League of Nations—to prevent future world wars.
How Kamala Can Win (Without Mini-Primary Madness)
In the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s debate debacle, the Democratic Party has divided into roughly three camps. After many years of defending Biden and his approach to politics, often in the face of naysayers who said his belief in bipartisanship and norms was antiquated, I joined Team Pass-the-Torch in my most recent column.
You Think This Year’s Presidential Conventions Will Be Crazy? 1924’s Fights Over the Ku Klux Klan Were Wilder
After Joe Biden’s uncertain performance in last month’s debate, the upcoming Democratic convention in Chicago should stir interest in past contentious conventions –not so much the tear gas-soaked disaster of Chicago 1968, but the epic fiasco in New York one hundred years ago. Sorry, Chicago—when it comes...
Pay Attention to Trump’s Every Cruel and Crazy Syllable
In the wake of Joe Biden’s debate performance last month, it’s easy to lose sight of Donald Trump’s marked surge in extremism, vindictive cruelty, and contempt for democracy. The presumptive Republican nominee has also demonstrated a marked decline in mental acuity more alarming than Biden’s slowness during the debate.
What Joe Biden Could Learn from Nelson Mandela About Knowing When to Quit
Picture a career politician well into his seventies who runs for and wins his nation’s highest office. His election as president marks the end of a dark era in his country’s history, and it will surely warrant prominent mention in the first paragraph of his obituary. In his inaugural address, the elderly president promises a new beginning to his compatriots and vows to heal the deep divisions that plagued his beloved country.
The Supreme Court’s Naked Power Grab
The Supreme Court has become the most dangerous branch. Once again, at the end of its term, the Supreme Court issued major decisions that will have significant ramifications for how government functions and for society at large. A common thread connects the rulings: the justices handed more power to themselves.
I’ve Defended Biden for Years. Now, I’m Asking Him to Withdraw
I’ve been making the case for Joe Biden for a long time. In 2017, when many Democrats presumed a progressive form of populism was the antidote to then-President Donald Trump, I wrote for Politico that Biden could snag the party’s presidential nomination as “the voice of anti-populism.” Soon after he entered the presidential primary in the spring of 2019, I argued his early poll lead was not illusory, and his embrace of bipartisanship was not delusional. And I’ve credited Biden with following through on his campaign pledge to restore bipartisanship in Washington, which is how he racked up wins on infrastructure, Ukraine aid, the debt limit, semiconductor manufacturing, gun safety, and even postal service reform.
From Abigail Adams to Jill Biden, We’ve Been Arguing about First Ladies since 1787
Most people assume that first ladies have played a central role in politics since First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt served as her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt’s eyes and ears on the road across America. And, of course, Jill Biden plays an important role as a sounding board and advisor for her husband, never more so now when his renomination is questioned by so many Democrats. In reality, Americans have dissected the appearances, portfolios, and political influence of first ladies since 1797, when John Adams took the oath of office, and Abigail Adams became the first political first lady.
If Biden Quits the Race, He Should Resign the Presidency
A chorus of pundits is calling for Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race after his disturbing, if not frightening, debate performance last week. Some elected officials, such as Representative Lloyd Doggett, the Texas Democrat, have gotten there. But if Biden does choose to end his reelection bid, it might well be best for the Democratic Party and the country if he not only declined the nomination but resigned from the presidency.
This Horrible Supreme Court Term
On the last day of its term, the Supreme Court flew its flag upside down. It gave the man from Mar-a-Lago, the immunity of a monarch and held that bribing a public official is okay so long as the money changes hands after the official act. While they were at it, they kneecapped the administrative state.
The Polls Matter More Than Ever Now
We at the Washington Monthly have long counseled against panicking over early trial heat polls of the contest between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Just last month we showed how June polls are notoriously not predictive of the November outcome. But the first batch of polls sampled...
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