Politics

With less than eight hours to go before the first presidential debate in Cleveland, the Trump and Biden campaigns are still sparring over the rules for the debate. If the spats are unresolved before the 9 p.m. start time, it sets the stage for each campaign to blame the other for any faults in their candidate's performance. The latest argument, which has played out primarily through leaks and statements to the press about negotiations over debate rules, started with a Fox News report that claimed Biden's team requested a break every 30 minutes during the 90-minute debate and refused to submit to checks for electronic ear pieces.

President Trump and Joe Biden will face off in the first of a series of presidential debates on Tuesday night. Team Trump says he has been preparing by watching videos of Biden and by regularly squaring off with unfriendly press, while Biden is reviewing Trump's tweets and engaging in practice sessions with a group of aides and strategists at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The President's rather informal preparations have apparently worried the campaign, which is now trying to raise expectations for the candidate that they've repeatedly painted as cognitively impaired. 'We’re prepared to see the same Joe Biden who won his vice presidential debates in 2008 and 2012 on stage versus President Trump.

The compulsive and self-righteous bellicosity of the Democratic leaders in Congress over the Supreme Court vacancy has opened an opportunity for President Trump to strike decisively. It is admittedly controversial for a president to fill a high court vacancy starting six weeks before a presidential election, but it is entirely constitutional. What’s more, it has applicable precedents, including most conspicuously the elevation of Chief Justice John Marshall by President John Adams after he had been defeated in the 1800 election. This is not a provocation to justify the extreme belligerency of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Suburban women are understood to be one of the most crucial demographic groups in the presidential election on November 3. Many pollsters currently predict that President Donald Trump will lose due to his unpopularity with that category of voters. But have the Democrats really reclaimed the suburbs? Or are there more likely Republican voters than the polls suggest? The Spectator tracked down a series of so-called ‘closet Trump’ voters, women from the suburbs who would never publicly voice their support for the President for fear of recrimination in their social circles. These are their stories.CaliforniaBefore Donald Trump arrived on the political stage, I felt like I was living in an alternate universe, politically speaking.

Here we go again. President Trump has announced a big healthcare proposal that amounts to none at all. If anything, it will have a positively insalubrious effect upon the health of Americans.On Thursday Trump declared, ‘The historic action I'm taking today includes the first-ever executive order to affirm it is the official policy of the United States government to protect patients with pre-existing conditions. This is affirmed, signed, and done so we can put that to rest.’Umm, no. The fact is that Trump can’t simply issue a healthcare ukase and expect that it will have any practical effect. He can’t force insurers to provide coverage unless he wants to nationalize them.

Joe Biden's presidential campaign called another early morning press lid at 9:20 a.m. on Thursday, leaving strategists and reporters wondering what the hell is going on. It was the ninth time this month that Biden had no public events on schedule and thus told the press before lunchtime that they would not be needed for the rest of the day. It's downright bizarre that a campaign would squander nine perfectly good days that could be spent on the trail just two months out from the election. What was Biden doing during this time instead? Sitting at home with his wife in Wilmington and hopping on the occasional Zoom event? Sam Stein, who is a Daily Beast reporter and purportedly not a campaign spokesperson, insisted that Biden must have been prepping for Tuesday's debate against Trump.

Montana’s Republican state auditor Matt Rosendale and Democratic former state legislator Kathleen Williams meet tonight in their first debate for the Treasure State’s sole House seat. The moderators should ask Williams about her suspicious use of campaign funds, despite her many statements denouncing the very behavior in which she seems to be engaging.Williams presents herself as a paragon of personal virtue and fiduciary probity.‘Reforming our broken campaign finance system will be a top priority for her in Congress,’ her campaign website declares. ‘She leads by example and never forgets who she’ll work for — you.

‘Oh the hypocrisy!’ cried the Democrats after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring President Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee to the floor for confirmation hearings and a vote ahead of the election. The screeching continued as swing vote after swing vote — Sens. Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley and Mitt Romney, for example — said they also supported taking a vote. Republicans are indeed treating the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away on Friday night, far differently than they did the one left by Antonin Scalia in 2016. The GOP had control of the Senate then, too, but refused to advance President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, citing the proximity of the presidential election.

I believe it was John Fremont who once exclaimed in astonishment that one could ride a horse at full gallop in the Forests of the Sierras in California. Well, one can do that again now — not among the towering conifers, but over the ashes.Right now I'm seeing the mountains I grew up in — where I went to school, where I hung out, camped, backpacked, boated, cheated death and generally formed the foundation of my character — burning down. It makes me sad and angry.  This didn't have to happen. Once upon a time, forests in California were logged, grazed, and competently managed. It wasn't always perfect, but generally it worked.Fires, which are a natural part of that ecosystem, were generally small — not just benign but beneficial.

Dear America,Two-hundred-and-forty-four years ago, the resolve, courage, and wisdom of your Founding Fathers forever changed the course of history. For the first time, with the ratification of your Declaration of Independence, mankind was offered an unmatched societal ideal. Human beings were recognized for what we truly are by nature: all created free and equal, endowed with unalienable rights derive from our Creator. With your Constitution, your Founders sealed these God given rights, and protected them by instituting a limited form of self-government along with a robust justice system.This, America, is what makes your nation exceptional. It is why you have stood as a beacon of democracy and hope for all subjugated peoples over the past two centuries.

When you have power in Washington DC, use it. That saying is true for both parties. There has been much distress on social media in the past few hours, with people declaring that a Supreme Court vacancy prior to this election will tear the country apart, putting unimaginable stress on the Republic as it attempts to hold together in the face of Trumpism. TikTok users are screaming into their phones while driving. CNN personalities are threatening to ‘burn the entire thing down’ if Mitch McConnell attempts to push through a nominee. Writer Laura Bassett proclaimed that ‘if McConnell jams someone through, which he will, there will be riots.’ That seems a threat more than a prediction.