Politics Archives

Sunday

May 25, 2025

How Biden became Trump’s useful political milksop

It turns out that Joe Biden is one of the best things ever to happen to Donald Trump. Sure, Trump was so peeved by his loss to Biden in 2020 that he inspired an abortive insurrection against Congress, but his defeat gave him a grace period of four years to prepare for a fresh term. If the rapidity with which he is upending the federal government is anything to go by, Trump benefited immensely from his protracted exile in Mar-a-Lago, not to mention the welter of court cases, federal and state, that he endured. Now Trump is exploiting Biden once more to provide a further fillip to his political fortunes.

Benjamin Giltner & Justin Logan

Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ will raise the risk of attack on US

President Trump and his administration are advancing plans for their version of a homeland missile defense system, dubbed the “Golden Dome.” Proponents of the Golden Dome, such as Air Force Chief of Staff General David Allvin, claim that it is required to protect the US homeland. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth praised the project, arguing it is “a generational investment in the security of America and Americans,” and that the Golden Dome would be capable of intercepting “cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, whether they’re conventional or nuclear.” While this all sounds good, there are reasons to worry about the genesis of the idea, its cost, its feasibility and its risks.

Friday

May 23, 2025

Teresa Mull

DoGE should make ending the opioid crisis its legacy

As President Donald Trump trots the globe shopping for a new Air Force One and takes long-distance phone calls in a quest to end the “bloodbath” in Ukraine, a clear and present – and costly, in more ways than one – danger persists on his own country’s soil. A new, first-of-its-kind study from Avalere Health has found the annual average cost of each opioid use disorder (OUD) case in the US “is approximately $695,000 across all stakeholders analyzed.” Per the report’s executive summary: The costs to the federal government, state/local government, private businesses, and society are driven by lost productivity for employers ($438 billion), employees ($248 billion), and households ($73 billion).

Damian Reilly

CNN can’t kill Tim Dillon

“I’ve been researching comedy,” CNN’s Elle Reeve announces grimly at the start of her hour-long interview with comedian Tim Dillon, released this week more than a month after it was recorded. What follows is an extended whine about the manner in which legacy broadcast media in America has ceded its status as the gatekeeper of the American cultural narrative to podcasters. Is it the most satisfying piece of television I've ever watched? Possibly, yes. The irony – and it’s almost too perfect to articulate – is that had Dillon not demanded, while appearing recently on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, that CNN release the interview in full rather than packaged into a tightly edited segment to fit a specific narrative, it probably would never have seen the light of day.

Charles Lipson

What to do about Iran?

China is surely America’s most dangerous threat over the medium term, but Iran is surely the most dangerous right now. The Islamic Republic would be even more dangerous if the Israelis had not decimated the Mullah’s deadly “ring of fire,” the proxy forces across the Middle East funded, armed, trained, and directed by Tehran. But removing these proxies (all except the Houthis in Yemen) does not remove Iran’s nuclear threat. That threat now faces the Trump administration and Netanyahu’s coalition in Israel, leaving only difficult choices. To understand the current problems, we need to grasp a series of fundamental issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. • What are Iran’s objectives?

Thursday

May 22, 2025

Geoff Hill

Donald Trump should visit a black beer hall in South Africa

If Donald Trump and Elon Musk really want to know if there is a “white genocide” happening in South Africa, as they claim, I’d suggest they start in a beer hall. Such speakeasies are common in the black townships around Jo’burg and in rural areas. Size varies from a shed to a small aircraft hangar, some are licensed, others not, and as a journalist, it’s where I read the pulse of the nation. The townships are where millions scrape by on next to nothing, crowded in shacks with few street lights and open sewers, while the political elite enjoy their mansions in the city.I am always the only white face in a sea of black. I don’t own a gun and move about engaging with drinkers who are mostly under the age of 30, the majority unemployed.

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump – the Orange Mandela?

Diplomatic heads are still spinning following Donald Trump’s extraordinary Oval Office press conference with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday. The media has taken to using the word “ambush” to describe the way Trump sprung his evidence on Ramaphosa to make the point that white South Africans are being violently persecuted. The scene turned into gemors, as they say in Afrikaans, or chaos, and reminded many observers of the wild meeting between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the same room back in February. Ramaphosa had wanted to perform the usual niceties, flanked by a delegation including three white South African golfers, Elon Musk, some of his officials, his minister for agriculture John Henry Steenhuisen and the luxury goods billionaire Johann Rupert.

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israeli Embassy terror suspect formed by hard-left and BLM

The murder last night of two young Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, on a street in Washington, DC was horrifying, but not surprising. The couple was gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum. A suspect then walked into the building, accepted water from those who thought he was a victim, and began chanting “Free Palestine.” He pulled a red keffiyeh from his pocket and invoked the old rallying cry: “There is only one solution. Intifada revolution.” The man now in custody, Elias Rodriguez, was once associated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a hard-left political group whose slogans echo in anti-Israel demonstrations across the country. In the hours before the shooting, the group posted: “End the genocide. Israel out of Gaza now.

Ben Domenech

One Big Beautiful win for House Republicans

The passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” early Thursday morning by the slimmest of margins in the House of Representatives is a clear victory for Donald Trump, but even more so for Speaker Mike Johnson, who managed to buy off both blue-state SALT Republicans and Freedom Caucus fiscal hawks, moving closer to their demands by just enough to thread the needle. This was by far the biggest challenge Johnson had yet to face, and the question if “Deacon Mike” was up to the challenge was back of mind for many in the GOP conference. Had Johnson failed to deliver, his speakership might not have ended immediately, but he would effectively be a dead man walking – and the next time someone decided to pick a leadership fight, Trump might not have his back.

Cockburn

The irony of Kim Kardashian and Ivanka Trump’s friendship

Cockburn was amused by the recent spectacle of Kim Kardashian’s law school triumph (after three “baby bar” exams and a grueling 5,184 hours of study) and the subsequent Instagram gushing from her BFF Ivanka Trump. “My favorite law school graduate!” the First Daughter cooed, cementing what must surely rank among Washington’s most peculiar alliances. This improbable friendship between America’s reality TV queen and Trump has flourished over a decade, evolving from perfunctory Met Gala pleasantries to intimate three-hour lunches at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. The pair reportedly bond over “motherhood” and “shared experiences” – Cockburn assumes the shared experience of juggling billion-dollar empires while tolerating men with problematic Twitter feeds.

Alexander Larman

We’re finally allowed to say Biden was senile!

So, Joe Biden spent a great deal of his term in office suffering from what might politely be called senile dementia, and those who enabled him led the Democrats to one of their most humiliating electoral defeats off the back of this subterfuge. This cannot in all honesty be called a revelation.When I first read the breathless headlines that came about from the publication of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s exposé of the Biden regime, Original Sin, I was reminded of Horatio’s words in Hamlet: “There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, to tell us this.” And although Biden himself may not be in the grave, the (suspiciously timed) announcement of his late-stage prostate cancer may mean that this book functions as an epitaph of sorts for him.

Charlie Gammell

Iran is feeling emboldened

After the cautious optimism of the early rounds of US-Iran talks, and Donald Trump’s Gulf roadshow, the US government has claimed that Israel is preparing for a possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, a parallel piece of political theatre to the ongoing talks between US and Iranian negotiators. This is nothing new. B-52 bombers and Israeli fighter jets have been rehearsing this for the past few months, and many years before that. This is some very public cold water being poured on the talks, just as they set to advance to the complicated bit. Aware that there is every chance the talks may not progress beyond these thorny rounds, both sides are preparing the ground for that failure.

Wednesday

May 21, 2025

Ben Clerkin

Exclusive: my son Elon and Trump are right about the ‘white genocide,’ says Errol Musk

Elon Musk stood silently in the Oval Office, eyeballing the South African President while Donald Trump tore into the ANC leader for permitting “white genocide.” The exiting Department for Government Efficiency (DoGE) chief said nothing as the President dimmed the lights and required an unsuspecting Cyril Ramaphosa to watch a short film about white farmers being targeted and South African politicians chanting “kill the farmer.”As Donald Trump berated Ramaphosa, Trump didn’t call on Musk, standing just a few feet away. He didn’t need to intervene: according to Elon’s father, Errol Musk, his son – an outspoken critic of Ramaphosa's government – had already briefed the President about what he agrees is “white genocide”.

Tuesday

May 20, 2025

Dr. Steven Quay

Why did Joe Biden stop testing for prostate cancer in 2014?

After speculating that President Biden’s medical team must have been aware of his prostate cancer at the time of his last physical examination in 2024, we are now learning from his spokesperson that he has not had a blood test for the prostate specific antigen or PSA since 2014. Let’s recall that year. It’s the summer of 2014. The West Wing is buzzing. Crises in Eastern Europe, unrest in the Middle East, and deep concern for a resurgent threat overseas. Joe Biden, then Vice President of the United States, is flying between continents, doing shuttle diplomacy, leading panels, briefing NATO.And quietly, behind the scenes, his medical chart records a final PSA test. A routine prostate-specific antigen screening. It would be his last.Why?The question isn’t rhetorical. It’s clinical.

Ben Domenech

Don’t let SALT levels bring down the BBB, says Trump

The reaction to President Trump’s meeting with GOP members on Capitol Hill today was decidedly mixed, especially for the so-called SALT Republicans, with leading voices like Representative Mike Lawler of New York saying, “I’m not going to budge” on the issue despite Trump’s demands. Used to the opposition from the chamber’s last remaining fiscal hawks, much of the focus to this point has been on the typical intransigent wing of the House Freedom Caucus, which still doesn’t like the overall fiscal impact and wanted more significant Medicaid reforms. For them, Trump’s message in the meeting was clear: “Don’t fuck around with Medicaid.

Kevin Cohen

Mark Carney is ignoring the cartels – and Donald Trump

Donald Trump has declared war on the cartels. The southern border is now patrolled by the military, the wall is rapidly expanding and US intelligence is helping to target crime bosses on Mexican soil. Illegal crossings and drug seizures at key points have dropped by more than 70 percent in the last year.But, contrary to appearances, the cartels have not surrendered – instead, they have pivoted, applying Sun Tzu’s principle: attack your enemy's weaknesses, not his strengths.Led by the blood-soaked and ultra violent Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartel they are exploiting the soft 5,525-mile long northern border with Canada and its sparse surveillance, dense forests, inadequately staffed crossings and neglected checkpoints.

Kara Kennedy

Don Jr.’s Gold Rush

On the ground floor of Georgetown Park, Donald Trump Jr. is putting the finishing touches on his invitation-only club, the Executive Branch. When the doors open, reportedly in the next few weeks, it will become Washington’s new power hangout. Cabinet secretaries will mingle with tech billionaires and foreign investors, each having parted with $500,000 for the privilege. The launch party last month included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson. David Sacks, the President's crypto and AI czar, proudly announced himself as member number one. This tableau – celebrity, politics, profit – perfectly captures the Trump dynasty’s particular brand.

Monday

May 19, 2025

Ben Domenech

Can Team Trump’s most MAGA members end Jeffrey Epstein talk?

Few people can claim the mantle of being more identified with the anti-Deep State MAGA movement than Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the Director and Deputy Director of the FBI, who sat down for a lengthy conversation with Maria Bartiromo this weekend. Yet they responded with surprisingly out of character language to the continued conspiracizing around the death of Jeffrey Epstein – the New York financier – and the possibility of a wider plot to assassinate Donald Trump. If anyone was going to reveal hidden secrets of the Deep State, it would be these two, who have railed against its excesses on media platforms for years before taking their posts.

Ben Domenech

Democrats should call for more honesty about Joe Biden’s health

The announcement of former president Joe Biden’s diagnosis for advanced prostate cancer is of course a sad event, as it would be with any president’s cancer diagnosis. For the human side, the prayers and sympathies of the nation should be with him and his family. But coming as it does after years of hiding the true nature of Biden’s health – including repeated lies told by his staff, family and those closest to him to the American people – it should lead to even more questions about the truth of his condition, and what we were not told as voters who deserve to trust our top institutions to be honest to us.

Sunday

May 18, 2025

Dr. Steven Quay

‘Highly likely’ Biden had prostate cancer diagnosis in the White House

How does metastatic prostate cancer “suddenly” appear in someone like Joe Biden? It doesn’t appear overnight, it festers. In rare but dangerous cases, prostate cancer bypasses the usual slow growth and strikes fast, especially in older men. If he wasn’t screened regularly, or had an aggressive subtype that evaded PSA detection, it could have advanced under the radar. But how can we imagine that a President was not screened properly? Prostate cancer is the easiest cancer to diagnose. The PSA blood test shows the rate of cancer cell growth. Even with the most aggressive form, it is a 5-7 year journey without treatment before it becomes metastatic. Meaning, it would be malpractice for this patient to show up and be first diagnosed with metastatic disease in May 2025.