[ Posted Friday, January 17th, 2020 – 17:46 UTC ]
This doublethink continued this week, as every sitting senator (except the one who was absent due to a family medical emergency) swore a solemn oath to be an impartial juror -- an oath that several Republicans have already publicly promised to utterly disregard. Because, you know, all that business about being for law and order and all that tut-tutting over the sins of "moral relativism" is so 1990s.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 15th, 2020 – 00:12 UTC ]
To use a sports metaphor, we're right at the end of the pre-season and about to start the actual games that count. Tonight was the last presidential debate between the Democratic candidates before Iowa votes in its caucuses. From now on, in each subsequent debate, we'll know not just who is up in the public opinion polling, but who has done better at the actual polls, where voters cast their ballots for the Democratic nomination.
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[ Posted Friday, January 10th, 2020 – 18:29 UTC ]
We've said it before and we're sure we'll have to say it again before the year's out, but President Trump is the personification of what Richard Nixon used to call the "Madman Theory" of foreign policy. Back then, it was a bluff -- if Nixon acted crazy enough, then perhaps the North Vietnamese would think he was so crazy he might just drop a nuclear bomb on them. This would tend to restrain them more than if they were sure he wouldn't.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 9th, 2020 – 18:23 UTC ]
Today, I'd like to step back from a day-to-day analysis of Donald Trump's actions in order to look at a slightly bigger picture. Because at this point, it almost seems like we should all start calling him "Precedent Trump," since he is setting so many of them for future presidents to either use or abuse at will. Republicans who now slavishly insist upon supporting anything and everything Trump does -- no matter how outrageous, no matter how disruptive -- should be warned that future presidents (Democratic ones most definitely included) may one day point to current GOP behavior while insisting that they have exactly the same rights that Trump has claimed for himself. Because this is always the ultimate test of supporting any expansion of presidential powers: would you support a president of the other party doing such a thing? Again, Republicans would do well to consider this in the Trump era, because it's my guess that some of these precedents are going to come back to bite them later on. And it'll be pretty tough for them to argue against these precedents after so wholeheartedly supporting them now.
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[ Posted Friday, January 3rd, 2020 – 18:23 UTC ]
As we sit down to write this, America is on the brink... of a lot of things, all at once. Largest among these: we are now on the brink of another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran. We could also be on the brink of a North Korean nuclear test or I.C.B.M. launch, which would probably signal a disastrous end to the Trump diplomatic bromance with Kim Jong Un. We're on the brink of a presidential impeachment trial in the Senate -- only the third one in our entire history. We're on the brink of a presidential primary season. And we're on the brink of a new political decade. All are pretty momentous, meaning that 2020 could turn out to be even more chaotic than the three years which preceded it. There's a scary (or just plain exhausting) thought, indeed.
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[ Posted Monday, December 30th, 2019 – 18:06 UTC ]
Is Nancy Pelosi now just openly trolling Trump? It certainly seems that way. At this point, Pelosi's refusal to send over the articles of impeachment to the Senate appears to be nothing short of a political stunt to keep the impeachment story raging over the holiday weeks at the end of the year, while causing Trump's head to explode (even more than normal, of course). By this measure, it is working out wonderfully well for Pelosi.
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[ Posted Friday, December 27th, 2019 – 19:41 UTC ]
Welcome back to the second and final installment of our year-end awards columns! If you missed last week's column, you should probably check that out, too.
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[ Posted Friday, December 20th, 2019 – 19:05 UTC ]
Welcome back once again to our year-end "McLaughlin Awards," named for the awards categories we lifted from the McLaughlin Report years ago. We've added a category here and there over time, but it's still the same basic list.
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[ Posted Thursday, December 19th, 2019 – 23:12 UTC ]
Tonight we saw the sixth in the series of Democratic presidential debates, and my first and strongest impression is that I for one am glad the field is being narrowed. Seven on the stage was enough, in other words, for me.
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[ Posted Wednesday, December 18th, 2019 – 17:44 UTC ]
Welcome to the second part of our look at how impeachment was seen by Alexander Hamilton, when he was arguing in the anonymous Federalist Papers for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Today, we have Federalist Paper Number 66, or "Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered." It was published in the New York Packet newspaper in March of 1788.
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