Politics
/ArcaMax
Commentary: Gaetz may not mind the law. DOJ staff must
Please stay.
That’s my message to the 115,000 career employees at the U.S. Department of Justice. As a former DOJ employee, my heart breaks for them with the news of President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Matt Gaetz to be our nation’s next attorney general.
The ranks of the Justice Department include prosecutors and civil attorneys, ...Read more
Tyler Cowen: How Musk's DOGE can actually do some good
The newly announced Department of Governmental Efficiency, to be known by the acronym DOGE (get it?) and headed by billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, is evidence that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will at least attempt to deregulate the U.S. economy. All memes aside, this could turn out to be a worthwhile ...Read more
Adrian Wooldridge: It's too soon to say wokeism is dead
It is easy to conclude that the woke revolution met its Waterloo on Nov. 5. The Republicans ran the most unwoke man in America for the presidency and were amply rewarded for it.
A post-election analysis by the polling company Blueprint discovered that the top reason why swing voters eventually supported former President Donald Trump over Vice ...Read more
Tyler Cowen: Trump is right -- Expat taxes are too complicated
President-elect Donald Trump pledged last month to eliminate “the Double Taxation of overseas Americans.” Never mind the clumsy wording — taxes on U.S. citizens working abroad aren’t excessive so much as excessively complicated — this is one campaign promise that may actually be fulfilled, given the Republican control of both houses of...Read more
Robin Epley: Feeling hopeless since the election? Experiencing grief over a political loss is valid
If you — like me — were deeply disappointed in the direction this country and our state went on Election Day, then you — like me — have probably felt emotionally drained for the last week or so.
I fell into a fitful sleep in the wee hours of the morning after the election as it looked increasingly clear that former President Donald ...Read more
Commentary: Harris' real error -- not bros, not Biden, not the border
Democrats are blaming Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris on everything from fake news that immigrants were eating American house pets to Elon Musk’s alleged manipulation of his Starlink satellite network to interfere with voting-machine counts. I have my own theory: Harris made the fatal mistake of abandoning the one thing that even her ...Read more
Editorial: RFK Jr. would be a disaster for America's health and should not be secretary of Health and Human Services
Get ready to welcome back polio and welcome back measles and other preventable viruses if Donald Trump has his way and makes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the secretary of Health and Human Services, endangering us all.
Bobby Kennedy is a dangerous crank, a vaccine-denier who is a threat to public health and who should not become the top person in ...Read more
Editorial: Justice is not revenge. The nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general cannot stand
“The implacable logic of retribution will prove as appalling as the crime itself,” observes the loyal-to-a-fault Macduff in William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” “consisting of the soul’s slow agonizing descent.”
That’s why philosophers and preachers have argued against seeking retribution since time immemorial. Judeo-Christian ...Read more
Commentary: In Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump has chosen the anti-attorney general
How detrimental will President-elect Donald Trump’s second term be to the rule of law? We got the answer with Wednesday’s announcement of his intent to nominate Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general: worse even than the worst-case scenario we had imagined.
This isn’t just hyperbole from a harsh Trump critic. It’s a sober ...Read more
Patricia Murphy: A Trump mandate -- cheaper eggs or a free Matt Gaetz?
The only difficulty with winning an election by a large margin, as President-elect Donald Trump did, is accurately reading the message that voters were trying to send you.
Focus on the fundamentals, and you could be the next generational leader. But overreach and aim wrong, and you and your party will be right back out of power.
The message of...Read more
Stephen L. Carter: Is the Republican Party still worthy of its name?
For those whose sense of doomy gloom has them searching for a ray of light, look no further than the amusing lawsuit filed by one George Kersey, arguing “that the political stance of the Republican National Committee is inconsistent with its name.”
Amusing — yet not uninteresting.
The complaint has been dismissed as frivolous, and given...Read more
Commentary: Might makes right. Welcome to the new world disorder
Donald Trump’s resounding election to a second term as U.S. president sealed the deal on a new world disorder.
The liberal, rules-based order that had shaped the rules of the game since World War II was already on its heels. It had proved wholly unable to prevent, punish or halt Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, a violent war in Sudan ...Read more
Beth Kowitt: CEOs think silence will save them from Trump. They're wrong
If the run-up to the election can be taken as a preview, don’t expect corporate America to act as any kind of check to the Donald Trump presidency redux.
The strategy most CEOs adhered to during the campaign cycle was to do and say as little about politics as possible. It’s the same approach they seem poised to carry over into Trump’s ...Read more
Editorial: Scrapping the federal government's rusty machinery
Elon Musk has wasted little time laying the groundwork for his job in the next Trump administration, overseeing the new Department of Government Efficiency. The billionaire entrepreneur says he can cut $2 trillion from the federal budget while holding federal bureaucracies more accountable for underperformance.
On Thursday, he and his co-pilot ...Read more
Editorial: Statehood for Puerto Rico deserves our respect
Once again, the people of Puerto Rico have voted in favor of becoming the nation’s 51st state. Last week’s vote was the fourth time in the past 12 years that the island’s voters have endorsed statehood, and the victory margin was a clear and convincing 56%.
On the same ballot, Puerto Ricans elected a new governor, Jenniffer González-Col�...Read more
Commentary: The black fog of bird flu -- Will animal agriculture bring the next pandemic?
After killing millions of birds worldwide, the H5N1 avian flu is creeping like a black fog of death through U.S. dairy farms. Dead cows and calves infected with the virus lie in piles along Californian roadsides, baking under the sun, surrounded by swarms of flies. The outlook is troubling for humans, too: Globally, over 400 people have already ...Read more
Editorial: The bombastic Matt Gaetz cannot become the US attorney general
Matt Gaetz, the House-wrecking Florida congressman, cannot be U.S. attorney general. No way at all. We know that this isn’t a joke because Donald Trump published the proposed nomination on his Truth Social at 3:24 Wednesday afternoon, surprising flabbergasted Democrats and Republicans.
It must not happen. Gaetz, who had been under a DOJ ...Read more
Editorial: Rubio as secretary of state -- Will he be able to rein in Trump's isolationist impulses?
President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Florida’s U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state on Wednesday will elevate the Miami native and son of Cuban exiles to the post of America’s chief diplomat.
It’s a fitting and clever choice — one that Rubio, 53, meticulously carved out by aligning himself with Trump after they ...Read more
Editorial: Helene's victims still need our attention and help as the cold creeps in
In western North Carolina, the cold is creeping in. Autumn usually gives way to winter early in the mountains, but this year it comes at a precarious time, when many residents are still suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
There is plenty going on in our nation in the aftermath of the recent election, just as families here in Hampton...Read more
Commentary: It's time for a tripartisan revolution
Former President Donald Trump has won a convincing Electoral College victory, although the swing states were decided by narrow margins. But when you take the 30,000-foot perspective of the election, it is very illuminating.
Forty percent of registered voters, according to Gallup, do not identify as either the Democrats or Republicans. Moreover,...Read more