Columnist.
President-elect Donald Trump has already committed a grave offense against our system of government by forming a "junta," according to his critics. The Trump junta consists of three former generals whom the president-elect has tapped for top national-security positions, with others still under consideration. Like much of what Trump does, the military selections have inflamed people who pride themselves on their knowledge and discernment into flights of self-discrediting outrage.
One of the Obama administration's core competencies is suspending pipeline projects with no cause.
In the course of a couple of tweets, Donald Trump may have ended the image of the GOP as the party of corporate America.
One of the Obama administration's core competencies is suspending pipeline projects with no cause.
It wasn't quite "build the wall" or "lock her up," but "drain the swamp" was a signature Donald Trump slogan. It evoked visions of pinstripe-suit-wearing influence peddlers getting pulled from their Georgetown cocktail parties en masse and tossed into the Potomac River, as Washington returned to the once-sleepy burg it was 100 years ago, a humbled and more righteous town.
For the Democrats, no activity is immune from reflexive accusations of sexism and racism, not even soul-searching.
The Mayflower had a harrowing two months crossing the Atlantic. Its mast splintered in rough water and two people died, as supplies dwindled and passengers grew sick. It arrived in the New World later than expected, on the cusp of a punishing winter.
The first thing to know about Donald Trump's alleged proposal for a Muslim registry is that it isn't a Muslim registry.
President Barack Obama won't explicitly say that Donald Trump is on the wrong side of history, but surely he believes it.
Pity the anti-Trump protesters thronging the streets of American cities. Apparently, no one ever told them that they live in a geographically, economically and ideologically varied nation, and that about half of its inhabitants might support a Republican candidate for president. They mistook the country for the campus of Oberlin College.
In the course of about six hours, what was supposed to be a Republican existential crisis turned into a Republican wave. What was supposed to be a victory of the coalition of the ascendant became a dispiriting rout of the coalition that didn't show up. What was supposed to be the crowning political achievement of Barack Obama's presidency set the predicate for the unraveling of his legacy.
The Republican nominee for president is a racist, sexist threat to American democracy — and this time, we really mean it. In a nutshell, this is the Democratic argument against Donald Trump. In a wild, topsy-turvy political year, it is the one exceedingly familiar piece of the political landscape — because it is a version of the argument the left makes against every Republican nominee. That this line of attack is so shopworn, just when Democrats think we need it most, has led to self-reflection and regret from one of the harshest commentators on the left. The HBO host Bill Maher said the other day that "liberals made a big mistake" when they attacked George W. Bush "like he was the end of the world," and did the same thing to Mitt Romney and John McCain.
James Comey surely had no idea what he was in for. The FBI director knew that his decision to notify Congress of the reopening of the Clinton email investigation would cause a firestorm. But even he must be taken aback by the tsunami of obloquy that reaches all the way up to the president of the United States. The day before yesterday, James Comey was the ultimate argument from authority, cited by every Democrat for the proposition that Hillary Clinton's private email setup was no big deal. Now, he is accused of violating the law, of being tantamount to a sex offender, and of returning the specter of J. Edgar Hoover to Washington, D.C.
It's as if Bob Dole began doing ads for Viagra before the 1996 election was over. With less than two weeks before Election Day, Donald Trump evidently wants swing voters to know that the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort got recognized by Successful Meetings Magazine for its renovation, among many other honors and distinctions. This is something genuinely new under the sun: Abraham Lincoln didn't use the 1860 campaign to promote the fine legal representation available through the firm of Lincoln-Herndon. Mitt Romney in 2012 didn't try to persuade investors to go with Bain Capital.
Hillary Clinton may be the first candidate in American history to win a contest of personalities without having one. She has been content to make the election all about Donald Trump's character, and Trump has obliged because, really, what else would he consider as fascinating and important as himself? In a more normal year, Obamacare would be a byword for the failures of liberal technocrat rule. Insurers have been exiting the exchanges, and many of those that are staying are hiking premiums by 20 percent or more. Even a Democratic governor, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, has said that Obamacare is "no longer affordable to increasing numbers of people."
No one can accuse Kellyanne Conway of complacency. She is already preparing for post-election recriminations. Donald Trump's campaign manager has recently cited Hillary Clinton's financial advantage, media bias and President Barack Obama's popularity as reasons Trump should be losing to Clinton even more badly. She also floated the stabbed-in-the-back thesis: "We have the Never Trumpers," she said in a MSNBC interview, "who are costing us 4 or 5 percent in places."
The website PolitiFact jumped all over Rudy Giuliani earlier this year when he said, "Hillary Clinton is for open borders." It spent about 700 words sifting through the evidence, and ended up rating the former New York City mayor's claim "false." Now we know that PolitiFact blew its call because it lacked access to the most important datum — Hillary Clinton's real view. For that, it would have had to be present at one of her paid speeches at a major financial institution, in this case the Brazilian bank Banco Itau. In May 2013, Clinton told her audience at the bank, "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders." Ding, ding, ding — there's the magic phrase, in Hillary's own words.
"The 'Access Hollywood' tape was a tipping point."
Lanny Davis must be dizzy from the deja vu. Davis was a stalwart defender of Bill Clinton during the scandals of the 1990s. Little did he know that the excuses and rationalizations made for Clinton then would be repurposed by some of Clinton's harshest and most moralistic critics for a Republican presidential contender.
Less than a month before the election, the Republican speaker of the House says he won't defend or campaign with his party's presidential nominee. The nominee has responded by slamming the speaker on Twitter, and his campaign manager is accusing some (unnamed) elected Republicans of sexual harassment against her.
