While we have two major parties, operating under the same names since 1856, they have not only not stood for the same things over time, they have on several occasions traded positions on the big left-to-right ideological spectrum.
We have a pretty major crisis just now between two extremely important U.S. allies, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, over the apparent kidnapping and likely murder, by Saudi agents in Turkey, of a prominent Saudi journalist.
The poll has DFL gubernatorial nominee Tim Walz leading Republican Jeff Johnson by 55 percent to 38 percent among likely voters.
Although a great many changes have made it easier to vote, our overall participation has not gone up. In fact, if anything, it’s drifted down a bit from the 1950s and ’60s.
Poll results have been called “crack cocaine for political junkies.” The point is not that it gets you high. The point is that it gives you the momentary feeling that you can see the future of the political season. Then that feeling blows over and you need another hit.
The tale of Henry Stanbery involves an outrageous and, in a way, hilarious power play by Congress. It’s also a reminder that the supposedly durable balance of powers is susceptible to mischief.
The Supreme Court has become, to some degree, a nine-member unelected super-legislature serving life terms whose policy preferences on many matters carry more weight than those of the actual elected legislators in Congress.
Why doesn’t President Trump try to do something about global warming? Matt Taibbi proposes an answer in a new piece in Rolling Stone.
Tuesday night at 8 on PBS, the great documentary series “Frontline” will offer a refresher course on the Russian interference story so far. It’s titled “Trump’s Showdown.”
Personally, I have viewed that “apolitical jurists” gag as a fairy story for years.
What was most strange was that the tribe that was angry was the one that controls all branches of the federal government. And its angriest tribesmen were Sen. Lindsay Graham and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who stands likely to take a seat on the Supreme Court.
That is hard to square. Trump has been publicly dismissing the truthfulness of Christine Blasey Ford’s account since it first became known.
We’re in new and troubling territory now. Or maybe I’m just an old-fashioned scold about liars, liars, pants on fire. Maybe I’m getting used to the new normal, but I don’t plan to get comfortable with it.
I would have guessed fewer than 10. But I looked it up.
A Washington Post “Retropolis” piece from earlier this month recapped the process for the very first spate of Supreme Court nominations.
The question is not whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. But the question of whether the Trump campaign was knowingly cooperating in the plot is left somewhat open.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar is less famous nationally than many other presidential bid eye-ers, but she got a nice mention this week from the handicappers at Vox.com.
The schedule has the advantage (from Republicans’ perspective) of keeping alive hopes of getting Brett Kavanaugh confirmed to a lifetime appointment before the midterm elections.
It’s really pretty hard to come up with a reasonable excuse to deny Christine Blasey Ford her chance to tell her story, under oath, and for Brett Kavanaugh to respond.
Trump is not the disruptive force that anti-Trumpers accuse him of being, Bacevich argues. He is merely a noxious, venal, and ineffectual blowhard, who has assembled a team of associates who are themselves, with few exceptions, noxious, venal, or ineffectual.
