Browsed by
Category: Politics

There are more of us than there are of them

There are more of us than there are of them

Garrett Graff writes: It’s easy to lose sight of how weak this administration’s popular support actually is. Two-thirds of Americans are not Trump voters — and even many who did support him are beginning to question or turn against what it’s like to live in Donald Trump’s America. Many days it seems like Trump is on an unstoppable roll; he’s not. He is historically unpopular. The percent of Americans saying the country is on “the wrong track” has hit a…

Read More Read More

In revolutionary times, it is the talent to stir public imagination that is at the heart of politics

In revolutionary times, it is the talent to stir public imagination that is at the heart of politics

Ivan Krastev writes: Late in life, the 18th-century French liberal thinker Abbé Sieyès was asked what he had done during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. He replied, “I survived it.” Reflecting on Sieyès, Michael Ignatieff counsels that it is through survival that liberals can withstand revolutionary times. They need to work hard to remain politically relevant, so that once the revolution has run its course (if they are lucky enough to have survived it), they can try to preserve…

Read More Read More

Judges have learned to mistrust the Trump DOJ

Judges have learned to mistrust the Trump DOJ

Politico’s West Wing Playbook reports: The Trump administration’s strained relationship with federal courts began as cracks in a windshield: refusing to identify the true head of DOGE; suggesting that a judge’s oral ruling in an emergency case wasn’t binding; dismissing the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in an apparent quid pro quo over immigration policy. Nine months into President Donald Trump’s second term, however, those cracks have spread across the glass. Judges are routinely skeptical of…

Read More Read More

Trump has influenced the culture of the church far more than the church has influenced Trump

Trump has influenced the culture of the church far more than the church has influenced Trump

David French writes: For all the talk of religious revival in American evangelicalism, there is an odd disconnect. Evangelicals might be growing in political power, but there is not much evidence that they are growing in devotion. For example, Ryan Burge, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis’s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, analyzed data from the Cooperative Election Study and found that the percentage of self-identified American evangelicals who “seldom” or “never” attend church has…

Read More Read More

Gaza must decide its own political future — before the world does for us

Gaza must decide its own political future — before the world does for us

Mahmoud Mushtaha writes: On Monday, world leaders gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh to promote what they described as a new “path toward peace” in Gaza. The summit was ostensibly intended to consolidate the phases of the ceasefire and outline a long-term governance and reconstruction plan for the Strip. Yet it ended with an ambiguous roadmap and an uncertain future for Palestinians — who, as usual, were entirely left out from the conversation. No representatives from Gaza were present in those meetings,…

Read More Read More

Gaza aid still critically scarce as Israelis kill Palestinians for crossing an invisible line

Gaza aid still critically scarce as Israelis kill Palestinians for crossing an invisible line

The Guardian reports: Aid remains critically scarce in Gaza one week into the ceasefire, humanitarian agencies have warned, as Israel delays the entry of food convoys into the territory. The Israeli government and Hamas continue to trade blame over violations of the truce. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it had brought about 560 tonnes of food a day on average into Gaza since the ceasefire began, but it was still below what was needed. Its…

Read More Read More

New York’s richest residents are shocked to discover they are out of touch with everyone else

New York’s richest residents are shocked to discover they are out of touch with everyone else

The Wall Street Journal reports: It was just after finishing a set of pelvic floor exercises that a Pilates instructor on the Upper East Side recently brought up one of the least popular men in the neighborhood: New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani. All of a sudden, the class, which costs $50 a pop, became something of a political confab. In between sets, some women strategized about helping former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who they see as more…

Read More Read More

We found that over 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents. They’ve been kicked, dragged and detained for days

We found that over 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents. They’ve been kicked, dragged and detained for days

By Nicole Foy This story was originally published by ProPublica When the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned. “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.” But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced. Americans have…

Read More Read More

The GOP’s coordinated attack on the ‘No Kings’ rally is unhinged

The GOP’s coordinated attack on the ‘No Kings’ rally is unhinged

Michael Steele writes: In recent days, Republican leaders have warned darkly about the “No Kings” national protests scheduled for Saturday. Speaker Mike Johnson called it a “hate-America rally” that will ​​draw “the pro-Hamas wing” of the Democratic Party and “the antifa people.” House Republican Whip Tom Emmer claimed that “you’ll see the hate for America all over this thing when they show up” for the rally. Sen. Roger Marshall claimed protesters were being paid and suggested the National Guard might…

Read More Read More

Afraid of peaceful protests, Abbott sends National Guard to Austin for No Kings rally

Afraid of peaceful protests, Abbott sends National Guard to Austin for No Kings rally

Politico reports: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the state’s National Guard to Austin ahead of this weekend’s planned No Kings rally in the Texas capital, he announced Thursday, as top Republicans around the country vilify the protests as Antifa-linked and led by the radical flank of the Democratic Party. “Violence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement Thursday. “Today, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard to deploy…

Read More Read More

Top U.S. media, including conservative outlets, reject new Pentagon press restrictions

Top U.S. media, including conservative outlets, reject new Pentagon press restrictions

  The Department of Defense has introduced a new press policy requiring the Pentagon to authorize any reporting on itself. Top TV news outlets have rejected the pledge; only the far-right outlet One America News has agreed to sign on. Dozens of reporters with the Pentagon Press Association turned in their government-issued press badges and left the building Wednesday rather than agree to the rules. “The Trump administration has made the suppression of speech that it doesn’t like a governing…

Read More Read More

Tariffs to cost companies $1.2 trillion this year, mostly hitting consumers, study finds

Tariffs to cost companies $1.2 trillion this year, mostly hitting consumers, study finds

Axios reports: President Trump’s tariffs will cost businesses more than $1.2 trillion this year, with most of that cost being passed on to consumers, according to a new study from S&P Global. Why it matters: It’s the latest sign that Americans will end up bearing the brunt of Trump’s trade war. It also contributes to a picture of a much more difficult economy ahead. Driving the news: In the study published on Thursday, S&P Global found that companies are now expected to pay at least $1.2 trillion…

Read More Read More

Life in Gaza may go from utter hell to mere nightmare. What happens now?

Life in Gaza may go from utter hell to mere nightmare. What happens now?

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza demands atonement from Palestinians for the horrific acts of 7 October, not from Israel for the barbarity that followed. It calls for Gaza’s deradicalization but not an end to Israel’s messianism. It micromanages the future of Palestinian governance while saying nothing about the future of Israel’s occupation. It is riddled with ambiguities, devoid of timetables, arbiters or consequences for inevitable eventual violations. If all goes according to plan…

Read More Read More

Nationwide ‘No Kings’ rally has Republicans in disarray

Nationwide ‘No Kings’ rally has Republicans in disarray

The Bulwark reports: The upcoming anti-authoritarian “No Kings” rally, which is scheduled to take place across the country on Saturday, including on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, has set off klaxons for Republican lawmakers, who are scrambling to mount a preemptive defense. While many GOP lawmakers are describing No Kings as an astroturfed political operation meant to benefit Democrats in the continuing government funding fight, some in party leadership are going further by branding it a pro-terrorism demonstration—an…

Read More Read More

Trump authorizes covert CIA action in regime-change campaign targeting Venezuela

Trump authorizes covert CIA action in regime-change campaign targeting Venezuela

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, stepping up a campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian leader. The authorization is the latest step in the Trump administration’s intensifying pressure campaign against Venezuela. For weeks, the U.S. military has been targeting boats off the Venezuelan coast it says are transporting drugs, killing 27 people. American officials have been clear, privately, that the end goal…

Read More Read More

Why Trump’s bombing of alleged drug boats is illegal

Why Trump’s bombing of alleged drug boats is illegal

Asha Rangappa writes: So far, the Trump administration has killed twenty-one people using military strikes in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, President Trump has escalated his attempt to deploy the military in cities throughout the United States, on the heels of the Secretary of Defense informing his military brass that they are no longer going to be bound by “stupid rules of engagement.” And last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi assured Trump that the United States is “going…

Read More Read More