Washington dc

Peter Thiel. Tucker Carlson. John Bolton. What’s most striking about the trio headlining the National Conservatism Conference is that none of the three has ever been elected to anything.Bolton may be national security adviser, but judging by his recent exile to Outer Mongolia and his stymied efforts to force regime change in Iran, his influence is ebbing. He may be rejoining the civilian corps soon enough.So why is a major new conference so honoring these folks? The question could be inverted. Why aren’t we hearing from over 200 Republican members of Congress? Sen. Josh Hawley, a freshman, will close Tuesday night at the NCC, but his address seems to have been a late addition.

The Washington, DC city council is having none of it. 'Tanks, but no tanks', it tweeted at Donald Trump. Trump may shy from actual warfare but he has arranged a military extravaganza masquerading as a July 4 ceremony. While there may be no 'brand new Sherman tanks,' as Trump promised — they were retired after the Korean War — the Pentagon is furiously trying to figure out if it can safely transport the 60-ton M1 Abrams tank over Memorial Bridge without collapsing it. A thunderstorm might also cause any tanks to sink into the ground of the National Mall. It would be awkward symbolism for the man who promised to drain the swamp.

If Donald Trump, as Susan Glasser shrewdly notes in her New Yorker column today, is running an ‘unreality show,’ then the latest installment arrived with his cancellation of a military parade in November on Pennsylvania Avenue. He blamed, as he always does, someone else. In this case it was Washington mayor Muriel E. Bowser who says that she ‘finally got thru’ to Trump about the exorbitant expense of his little parade. Trump stated on Twitter that the $21 million bill that the city wanted to submit for the cost of hosting the event would have amounted to a ‘windfall’ that he was unprepared to disburse.