Attention to the Unseen

Timothy McNulty and Brendan McNulty write: Jack Brooks, Democrat of Beaumont, Texas, served in the United States House of Representatives for 42 years. His tenure in Congress spanned the terms of 10 presidents. His early career in Washington was shepherded by Texas legend and longtime Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. He was in John F. Kennedy’s motorcade when the president was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, and hours later, Brooks stood behind his close friend Lyndon Johnson when the…

Read More Read More

Politico reports: The Congressional Black Caucus may have found an answer to its Joe Biden dilemma: Vice President Kamala Harris. Some black lawmakers are agonizing over whether to back Biden or two members of the close-knit caucus — Sens. Harris and Cory Booker — who are also vying for the White House, according to interviews with a dozen CBC members. But with the former vice president jumping out to a huge, if early, lead in the polls, several CBC members…

Read More Read More

Masha Gessen writes: By the measure of the past decade, this year’s celebration of Victory Day in Moscow, on May 9th, was subdued. Vladimir Putin met with a group of surviving veterans of what Russians call the Great Patriotic War—the four years of the Second World War when the Soviet Union was at war with Germany—and raised a toast. The Russian President is not much of a drinker, so this was an indication of the importance of the occasion. Separately,…

Read More Read More

Jeffrey Toobin writes: Our constitutional system never contemplated a President like Donald Trump. The Framers anticipated friction among the three branches of government, which has been a constant throughout our history, but the Trump White House has now established a complete blockade against the legislative branch, thwarting any meaningful oversight. The system, it appears, may simply be incapable of responding to this kind of challenge. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: As President Trump and his inner circle appear increasingly focused on Ukraine as a potential tripwire for Joe Biden and other Democrats, officials about to take power in Kiev are pushing their own message: Leave us out of it. Supporters of Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky — who is expected to take office in the coming weeks — said in interviews Saturday that they feared they were being pulled into a domestic political conflict in the United…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, is encouraging Ukraine to wade further into sensitive political issues in the United States, seeking to push the incoming government in Kiev to press ahead with investigations that he hopes will benefit Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani said he plans to travel to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in the coming days and wants to meet with the nation’s president-elect to urge him to pursue inquiries that allies of the…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: Teresa L. Todd pulled over one recent night on a dark West Texas highway to help three young Central American migrants who had flagged her down. Ms. Todd — an elected official, government lawyer and single mother in a desert border region near Big Bend National Park — said she went into “total mom mode” when she saw the three siblings, one of whom appeared to be very ill. Struggling to communicate using her broken…

Read More Read More

Jim Baker, former general counsel of the FBI, writes: Politically, the current approach, anger and hatred, isn’t working for President Trump’s opponents: The president’s poll numbers have remained roughly constant over time. Some 90 percent of Republicans apparently support him. Morally, those who view the president as crass, hateful and demeaning do themselves and the country no favors by exhibiting such behavior to any degree in their own words or deeds. The evidence suggests a new approach is needed. I…

Read More Read More