A Supreme Court decision giving presidents wide protection from facing charges after leaving office has sparked fears voiced by President Biden and Democratic critics that former President Trump will be further emboldened should he be elected to a second term. Trump and allies have eyed more ambitious plans for a second term, pledging to more forcefully use the levers...
As he frantically fights to salvage his re-election campaign following last week's disastrous debate performance, the next couple of days may determine if President Biden can survive
President Joe Biden‘s slack-jawed, rasping, floundering, and all-around incoherent dumpster fire debate performance has drowned out any iota of substance from the news cycle in the aftermath. Not even barbs about former President Donald Trump‘s pending criminal sentencing or whether the soon-to-be 2024 Republican nominee once had sex with a porn star have penetrated the […]
Americans need less “have a nice day” and more “strive hard.” Tolerance of mediocrity and an openness to slouching through each day is not the route to productivity growth. It’s the path to Western European-style economic stagnation. The United States is the world leader in advanced technologies and possesses the world’s most productive economy. But […]
“The Constitution which we now present,” George Washington wrote in 1787 after completing his duties as the presiding officer over the Constitutional Convention, “is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.” If it seems like the Constitution’s spirit of […]
The picture neoconservative foreign policy intellectual Robert Kagan paints in his new book, Rebellion, is dark and foreboding. As he sees it, a competition between liberalism and anti-liberalism has “been fought within the American system since the time of the Revolution.” And things are now coming to a head. Although the present crisis “seems unprecedented, […]
I never planned on writing about literary it-girl Honor Levy. I knew Levy would get tons of press in the lead-up to the publication of her first book, the brilliantly titled My First Book, marketed as “A Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Good Morning America, W, Nylon, SheReads, and LitHub.” So I wasn’t particularly […]
When a biographer is confronted with a reclusive or recalcitrant subject, there are two ways to proceed. One option is to charm, cajole, or at least play along with the subject to achieve cooperation. The other is to hector and pester the subject, and when the subject shows some signs of interest, to refuse to […]
Jimmy Breslin was an archetype, a white ethnic working-class New York journalist who spoke his mind, stuck his thumb in the eye of authority municipal, financial, and criminal, and found his story in the people of his city. Except that archetypes are supposed to be eternal. It’s not just that cities change fast and New […]
During Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Europe in May, China and Hungary signed several agreements, including a $2.1 billion rail project that will be part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Announced in 2013 under the name One Belt, One Road, the initiative has been central to Chinese foreign policy, even though the program […]