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Washington Monthly
Trump’s Sordid Case Goes to the Jury
It is the 21st day of trial in New York during the 22nd week of the year. It is a historic trial, perhaps the trial of the century—the first ever of a former president charged with criminal conduct. The prosecution’s case is that documents were falsified to make it...
California’s Stifled Voice on Foreign Policy
California’s technological and demographic power is unmistakable, with one notable exception: We’re underrepresented in shaping foreign policy in Congress. That is bad for us and the country because California’s Pacific perspective, born of 840 miles of coastline and a wave of immigration from across the Pacific and around the Pacific rim, is crucial. Too often, D.C. policymakers overemphasize the importance of issues in Europe and the Middle East and frequently misunderstand or underappreciate threats and opportunities in the more distant Indo-Pacific.
Trump Trial, Day 20: Hoffinger Slices Up Costello on Cross
For a week and a half, MAGA world had been clamoring for Bob Costello to testify, and last Monday, he finally did. I sensed from the start that his arrogance left a poor impression on jurors, even if the judge sent them out of the courtroom before tongue-lashing him. But if Costello was hardly a net plus on Monday, he wasn’t yet a serious liability to Trump as the trial moved toward its conclusion.
Today’s Supreme Court is Anti-Voter
The Supreme Court has done it again. It has placed its thumb firmly on the scale in favor of politicians, deferring to their election rules at the expense of voters. The latest harm comes in a case from South Carolina, where the 6-3 conservative majority rejected an argument that the state’s redistricting map hurts minority voters. The lower court had found that the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, but the Court reversed the detailed factual findings that underpinned the lower court’s decision.
Are Gaza Protests Happening Mostly at Elite Colleges?
Student protestors at college campuses nationwide, united by their outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza, can rightly be described as diverse. Despite the masks, it’s clear that they come from different racial backgrounds, and their views range from the belief that Israel should give up on its war effort to the conviction that Israel should be destroyed entirely.
How Democrats are Winning the Race for the Lower Courts
While Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been letting his freak flags fly, President Joe Biden has been quietly transforming the lower courts. As I write today for the Washington Monthly, Biden just notched his 200th lower court judge, a faster pace than Donald Trump. While we don’t know yet...
Day 19: Trump Stumbles Near the Finish Line of the Hush Money Trial
I knew it would be a weird day in court when I saw that Chuck Zito was in the house. Zito is the Hells Angels hell-raiser who served time on a drug charge, attended his friend John Gotti’s wake, and punched out Jean-Claude Van Damme—among other qualifications for being in Donald Trump’s entourage. He was wearing cool, pointy blue-suede boots. That made me prefer him to Alan Dershowitz, who told the row in front of me during a break that “this is the weakest case I’ve seen in 60 years of teaching.” Sure, Alan.
Another Biden Accomplishment: 200 Judges and Counting
On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s 200th and 201st federal judge—including one Supreme Court justice and 200 lower court judges. Biden reached that milestone faster than Donald Trump did in his term, but whether Biden can top Trump’s total of 231 lower court judges in the remaining eight months of his tenure remains to be seen. The federal judiciary lists 69 vacancies and planned retirements, but as of today, only 24 nominees are in the confirmation queue.
This Isn’t Your Father’s Marijuana Use
A new study has documented a remarkable rise in Americans’ use of marijuana. Over the last 30 years, the number of people who report using the drug in the past month has risen fivefold from 8 million to 42 million. Through the mid-1990s, only about one-in-six or one-in-eight of those users consumed the drug daily or near daily, similar to alcohol’s roughly one-in-ten. Now, more than 40 percent of marijuana users consume daily or near daily. The increased use is important to recognize as President Joe Biden plans to reschedule marijuana from a Class I to a Class III drug.
How Biden Can Get Credit for the Economy
Polls not only continue to show Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump slightly, but also that public perception of the economy remains negative. A national Fox News poll released last week, with Biden trailing by a point in a two-way trial heat, showed only 30 percent of voters think the economy is “excellent” or “good,” with another 31 percent saying “fair” and 39 percent “poor.” Similarly, 30 percent said their family’s economic conditions were “getting better” and 64 percent said “getting worse.”
Trump’s Plans for Mass Deportation Would Be an Economic Disaster
Donald Trump’s fierce enmity towards immigrants is a central theme of his campaign, as it was in 2016. This time, though, he is offering detailed plans that, if carried out, would inflict misery on a mass level and major costs for taxpayers and the economy. Trump’s plans include once...
Trump Trial, Day 18: Cohen Crushed on Cross
Thursday, May 16, was a very good day for Donald Trump. If he’s acquitted (unlikely) or skates with a hung jury (quite possible but not probable), a 14-year-old prankster will enter American history. It’ll be my fault, of course. On Day 18, I slightly altered my daily ritual, breaking...
Jack Smith’s Original Sin
Ask any former prosecutor. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s decision to bring the purloined documents case against Donald Trump in the Southern District of Florida instead of the District of Columbia was a strategic, if not catastrophic, error. While the acclaimed prosecutor couldn’t have anticipated as hostile a jurist as...
The Era of Debates is Fading
Today for the Washington Monthly I wrote about the decision by President Joe Biden to propose two debates with Donald Trump in late June and early September, which betrays a sense of worry inside the Biden campaign, but could provide the jumpstart Biden is looking for. One aspect of the...
Trump Trial, Day 17: Cohen Goes Deeper and Survives Early Cross
Note: I’m posting this after Michael Cohen started getting hammered on cross-examination on Thursday morning, May 16, but it reflects my perceptions of the way things went on Tuesday, May 14. Early last week, Donald Trump was still trapped alone inside the decrepit courthouse, forced to use an ancient...
The Court v. The Voters
In his new book, Joshua A. Douglas argues that the Supreme Court has taken a “hard turn toward anti-democracy and unequal voting rights in the last fifty years.” In making his case, Douglas canvases several infamous Supreme Court decisions—what he terms an “anti-canon of election law.” Some cases, like Citizens United v. FEC and Rucho v. Common Cause, are well known. But others are less familiar to most readers, such as Richardson v. Ramirez, the 1974 case that upheld the facial constitutionality of felon disenfranchisement laws. In Douglas’s view, the thread that connects these cases is a Supreme Court that has abdicated its responsibility to protect the right to vote and has adopted an unduly deferential approach to state regulation of elections.
The Biden Campaign Is Worried
President Joe Biden’s decision to take Donald Trump up on his “anytime and anywhere” debate offer and propose June and September debates is a clear sign of worry among his reelection campaign team. Two months ago, Biden cracked the door open to not having any debates, which...
Trump Trial, Day 16: On Direct, Cohen Lands Some Big Blows
For the first two weeks of this trial, we’ve heard one constant theme: a play on Ray Romano’s old TV show Everybody Hates Michael. It wasn’t just Donald Trump’s defense team that trashed Michael Cohen at every opportunity. The prosecution encouraged a few witnesses to take shots at the former Trump Organization attorney and fixer so that the blistering cross-examination everyone knows is coming would raise fewer blisters. For instance, on direct last week, Keith Davidson, once the lawyer for Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, made it sound like Cohen was a bad guy he wanted to avoid. Hope Hicks also slammed him.
Can the Declaration of Independence’s Ideals Hold America Together?
Can America stay together? It’s a question that seems less abstract each year as red and blue states diverge on fundamental issues, like whether citizens have the right to travel (to obtain an abortion where it’s legal, for instance) or to cast a ballot (if it’s likely to be for an opposition party), or if a presidential election loser should suffer consequences should they launch a coup attempt to retain power.
Trump Promised 100% Tariffs on Chinese EVs. Biden Did It. Will It Work?
Trump Promised 100% Tariffs on Chinese EVs. Biden Did It. Will It Work?. The big political news today, as was the case yesterday, is Michael Cohen’s testimony in the Donald Trump hush money trial. The big policy news today is Joe Biden slapping stiff tariffs on a wide range...
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