Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I think the theme for last week was the return of adult supervision. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, finally showed a spine by staring down Marjorie Taylor Greene and joining forces with Democrats to pass critical foreign aid bills. And Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, authorized the […]
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Last year, the United Auto Workers announced an ambitious plan to organize workers and unionize foreign-owned auto plants in the South. “One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before,” Shawn Fain, the president of the U.A.W., said after winning significant wage and benefit […]
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After former President Donald J. Trump was kicked off Twitter in 2021, conservative entrepreneurs rushed to promote social media alternatives tailored to him and his supporters. There were Parler and Gab, Twitter-like sites popular among the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Then came Gettr, a social media app created by one […]
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Last Monday, Donald Trump said that abortion rights were best left to the states. “The states,” he said, “will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.” The next day, as if answering a captain’s call […]
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Shortly after congressional leaders met with Japan’s prime minister in Speaker Johnson’s ceremonial office in the Capitol on Thursday morning, the conversation turned to Ukraine aid. Mr. Johnson was in the middle of another agonizing standoff with the ultraconservatives in his conference, after they had blocked legislation to extend a major warrantless surveillance law that […]
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Justice Ann Walsh Bradley of the Wisconsin Supreme Court said on Thursday that she would not seek a fourth term next year, setting up another heated contest for majority control of the closely divided court. Justice Walsh Bradley is one of the four liberals on Wisconsin’s highest court; the three remaining justices are conservative. Justice […]
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Donald Trump has added something new to the practice of extracting money from major donors: fear. Traditionally, high-dollar contributors write big checks for a mix of reasons: to curry favor, to support their political party, to promote an agenda, to win favorable tax and regulatory policies, to defeat the opposition, to be seen as powerful […]
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Allies of Donald J. Trump are discussing ways to elevate third-party candidates in battleground states to divert votes away from President Biden, along with other covert tactics to diminish Democratic votes. They plan to promote the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “champion for choice” to give voters for whom abortion is a […]
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The Supreme Court reputedly has a long-awaited conservative majority committed to enforcing the meaning of the Constitution as it was understood when it was adopted. This commitment to originalist interpretation will soon be tested in two cases now before the court that have what lawyers call “bad optics.” One case, United States v. Rahimi, involves […]
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Former President Donald J. Trump said in a video statement on Monday that abortion rights should be left up to the states, remarks that came after months of mixed signals on an issue that he and his advisers have worried could cost him dearly in the election. Mr. Trump said his view was that the […]
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The Vatican on Monday issued a new document approved by Pope Francis stating that the church believes that sex-change operations, gender fluidity and surrogacy all amount to affronts to human dignity. The sex a person is born with, the document argued, was an “irrevocable gift” from God and “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks […]
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A few weeks ago, Mike Pence did what no other vice president in the modern era has done: He refused to endorse the re-election of the president under whom he served. When it comes to alumni of Donald Trump’s administration, Mr. Pence is hardly alone; the list of high-ranking officials who worked for Mr. Trump […]
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When the Judicial Conference, the national policy-making body of the federal courts, announced last month that plaintiffs would no longer be able to engage in “judge-shopping” — choosing to file major lawsuits at courthouses where they could be sure that a sympathetic judge would hear them — the policy sounded like a done deal. Instead, […]
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In 1999, a Florida lawyer, Anuraag Singhal, represented a man convicted of gunning down a police officer. Singhal had to somehow persuade a jury that his client, Jeffrey Lee Weaver, should face life in prison rather than the electric chair, the punishment the hard-charging prosecutor sought. “I hope you can find some love in your […]
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Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a hard-right Republican from Florida, has proudly described herself as a “pro-life extremist.” “My husband is a byproduct of rape,” she told a conservative student group in 2022, explaining her support for abortion bans with no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Nobody, she said, deserves “to be the […]
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Chris Inclan, an alcohol and drug counselor from Sonoma, Calif., voted for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016. In 2020, he backed Andrew Yang in the Democratic primary, and then cast a ballot for Donald Trump in the general election. Joe Biden, he said, was “so ingrained in the establishment and politics as […]
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Long known for his improvised and volatile stage performances, former President Donald J. Trump now tends to finish his rallies on a solemn note. Soft, reflective music fills the venue as a hush falls over the crowd. Mr. Trump’s tone turns reverent and somber, prompting some supporters to bow their heads or close their eyes. […]
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