Mike pence

Are congressional Republicans absolutely determined to forfeit this November’s midterm elections? It sure looks that way. The GOP would hardly be acting any differently if it were secretly run by its enemies. The election-security provisions of the SAVE Act enjoy overwhelming popular support. According to CBS/YouGov polling, requiring photo ID to vote is literally an 80-20 issue, commanding the support of four out of five voters. Yet the Republican Senate, with a 53-47 majority, is struggling to pass the law. Yes, the filibuster gives Chuck Schumer a powerful weapon to use against the GOP, but there are ways around that – ways the GOP chooses not to take. Democrats are killing the bill without even having to be held accountable for voting against it.

The Republican establishment is on the verge of extinction. Donald Trump’s first term wasn’t enough to kill it off: Trump came into office in 2017 with establishment figures such as Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan leading the party in Congress, and Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, had been chosen for that role as a reassurance to the old guard. Trump made some efforts to staff his administration with outsiders, but the likes of Steve Bannon or the ill-fated Rex Tillerson were heavily outnumbered by Republicans who would have been just as happy – or a great deal happier – to serve in another Bush administration.  This time, though, things are very different.

It’s Thursday morning as I write. Has The Wall Street Journal weighed in with another attack on Kevin Roberts yet, the besieged president of the Heritage Foundation? No? Be patient. It’s early hours yet. Another fusillade is due any minute.  I have written about that tempest-in-a-teapot myself. I agree that Roberts’s brief video statement defending the Heritage Foundation’s friendship with Tucker Carlson was ill-advised. I say why in that column. I also think that his efforts at damage control have been ineffective. But given the incontinent fury of the response to that two-minute and thirty-nine-second video, I am not sure that anyone could have calmed the storm.

You don’t have to be a Trump supporter (I am not) to be deeply troubled by Colorado court decision to keep Donald Trump off the primary ballot. Let me count the ways. First, the reason Trump is being excluded is new, untested, and profoundly controversial in its application here. Basically, the court is saying Trump cannot appear on the primary ballot because of a subsection of the Fourteenth Amendment meant to exclude Confederate officials who waged a civil war against the United States. Using that provision to exclude Trump is utterly novel. Its unprecedented use here invites the conclusion that it is being wielded as a political sledgehammer by Trump’s opponents and that some of those opponents wear judicial robes.

Mike Pence was never likely to win the Republican nomination for president, and today he recognized the inevitable. He withdrew from the race. Now is not the time to focus on why his candidacy never gained traction. It is the time to remember his great contribution to our nation on January 6, 2021. On that fateful day, Pence did the right thing, despite enormous pressure from Donald Trump and a rioting mob to do the wrong one. He resisted that pressure at great risk to his political future and personal safety. He deserves our praise and gratitude. On January 6, Pence was presiding over the Senate as the electoral votes for president were counted. The duty was a limited, constitutional role assigned to the vice president.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where a week and a half after the chilling attacks on Israel, the American people have had time to digest the scenes from across the world — from the Middle East and fiery scenes at embassies, to protests on campuses and now on Capitol Hill, fueled by lies from progressive Democrats — and their concern is enormous. The polls show 85 percent of Americans are concerned the Israel-Gaza conflict will erupt into a wider war in the Middle East. And while supermajorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents still believe it's important to support Israel, Republicans approve of sending Israel weapons by a roughly twenty points more than other factions. (The Quinnipiac numbers are here.

Let me tell you a ghost story. We are, after all, only a month out from Hallowe’en. It’s about a titan of American politics, who reshaped the nation’s, and the West’s, history over the tail-end of the last century. His leadership helped thaw the Cold War and transform the country’s languishing economy. And now, four decades later, his specter still looms large over the party he recalibrated. Tonight, the GOP’s undercard contenders will clash at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. And you can be darn sure his name will come up a lot.In last month’s debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, America’s 40th president was the subject of one of many flashpoints between former VP Mike Pence and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where at long last, the 2024 debate is joined by our would-be champions. And also Asa Hutchinson was there. The night held surprises for several candidates, including going against much of what prognosticators thought would happen. But how much does it mean without the presence of Donald Trump, who ditched the debate, did a pre-taped interview with Tucker Carlson that produced no news, and had his squad of surrogates rejected at the doors of the spin room? We discussed all of this, winners and losers, and more on the latest podcast — listen and subscribe today!

A Georgia district attorney operating in Fulton County unveiled a sprawling state indictment Monday charging former president Donald J. Trump and his allies with violating a mafia-era state law — modeled after a federal law known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) — for their alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Weighing in at ninety-eight pages, the forty-one-count indictment charges nineteen defendants with more than 161 overt acts in furtherance of a conspiracy “to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.” The indictment is stunning on its face for several reasons.

It’s hard not to weep for the Republic as trust in our institutions collapses — and collapses for good reasons. Washington cannot retain public confidence when the frontrunners in both parties represent the dregs of public life and are credibly charged with serious malfeasance; when those charges have surrounded both parties’ presidential nominees in every election since 2016 and do so again for 2024.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where this week it’s yet another indictment for former president Donald Trump, this time over argle-bargle about the 2020 election which violated the laws of truth-telling that apparently only matter when Republicans do them. Let’s be clear: Donald Trump lied about 2020 — and he lied a lot. But Democrats lied about 2016, about 2004, about 2000, all at rates that were just as high but didn’t result in riotousness. The Department of Justice and the Joe Biden team at the White House seem confident that this is the path to go down to ensure re-election next fall. But we’ve seen this dangerous game played out before — and in 2016 it had shocking results.

Welcome to Thunderdome! We are a month away from the first presidential debate, and the big news this week was that Mike Pence is dead. Not legally or physically mind you, and certainly not spiritually, where he’s probably the only living politician ensured of a spot in the heavenly choir, but electorally? The former vice president’s fundraising and donor numbers are so low, he may not even make that first debate... and Doug Burgum will! Listen to the podcast, and stick around to hear why No Labels could actually matter… Reset Ron “All men who run for presidency of the United States are amateurs,” Theodore H. White wrote sixty years ago.