Sure, but would Donald Trump’s legal team reject a motion to dismiss at this point? Jay Sekulow, lead attorney for the defense, says he “I don’t rule out anything,” but this sounds very much like marching orders for his client. Trump has champed at the bit to go on the attack ever since the House began

To cleanse the palate, it feels like the right moment culturally for Planters to finally phase out Mr. Peanut. This is a populist era. Not for us, a top-hat-sporting, monocle-wearing peanut aristocrat. The new Mr. Peanut should be a peanut of the people. Blindly trustful of authoritarian leaders. Skeptical of expertise and vaccines. Big —

Count Mark Penn among those unimpressed by the House Democrats’ impeachment of Donald Trump. Penn, who worked as Bill Clinton’s pollster during the 1998-9 impeachment and later on Hillary Clinton’s Senate and 2008 presidential campaigns, blasts Adam Schiff as a political hitman for Democrats angry over Donald Trump’s win in 2016. Americans may not like

Call this the Witnesses? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Witnesses gambit from Donald Trump’s legal team. Jay Sekulow argued yesterday in the opening presentment of the articles of impeachment that the entire process has been tainted by the House’s unconstitutional approach to impeachment. Nominally, Sekulow was arguing for the adoption of Mitch McConnell’s rules for the

When I say “hacked by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia,” I don’t mean by Saudi state intelligence services in the prince’s employ. I mean by the prince himself. If you believe the Guardian’s sources, Mohammed bin Salman was the operative who delivered the virus that infiltrated Bezos’s phone. Someone on Twitter a few days

Sure, but … in which year? I kid, I kid. Thanks to Mitch McConnell’s new rules and schedule — and perhaps sheer exhaustion — Donald Trump might address Congress on February 4th as an acquitted president. That depends on whether McConnell can keep the Senate on track, and whether any Republicans cross over to subpoena witnesses,

Once Berned, twice shy? Not if you’re Hillary Clinton. Four years after Bernie Sanders’ improbable trajectory from socialist crank to heavyweight Democratic presidential contender, the previous nominee still sounds bitter about Sanders’ attempt to block her coronation. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter promoting a new four-hour documentary on Hillary’s favorite subject, she blasts

A first-time author wrote a science fiction story about sexual identity and got it published in a monthly magazine. Critics of the piece attacked the author until she asked that it be taken down. Writing in the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf called it a case of “self-cancellation.” Recently, Clarkesworld, a monthly science-fiction and fantasy magazine, published a short

President Trump addressed the convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation in Austin, Texas Sunday. Thousands of farmers and ranchers were in attendance. It was Trump’s 14th visit to Texas since he took office and he was fresh off a victory with the passage of the USMCA in Congress. The trade agreement is a beautiful

“Just to remind our viewers” — of what? Today’s gun-rights rally does have the FBI on alert for trouble in Richmond, Virginia, but despite CNN’s characterization of the event, it’s not a white-supremacist rally. The rally in Charlottesville three years ago was explicitly staged by neo-Nazi anti-Semites focused on an effort to remove statues of

The official impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump will gavel into session on Tuesday, for better or for worse. And that means that several of the current candidates hoping to replace him will need to be sitting attentively in their seats, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and that other guy. This pretty

A few weeks ago we looked at the fact that Venezuelan interim president Juan Guaido and his supporters in the National Assembly were blocked from entering the legislative chambers by allies of Nicolas Maduro. This resulted in the Socialist Party assembly members holding a clearly illegitimate election of new legislative leaders loyal to Maduro, with

Wow. I thought Joe Biden was the one plagued by “senior moments” on the campaign trail. But maybe we should be keeping a closer eye on Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts Senator seemed to lose track of the plot briefly during a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday night. When asked how she would wield executive

The 4th annual Women’s March is taking place today in cities around the country. Crowds in Washington DC were expected to be smaller than previous years due to bad weather. Reporter Alejandro Alvarez had coverage of the march: Pink-hatted women have parked a big cage with a doll wrapped in a space blanket behind the

The surprise announcement from the Taliban that we’re about to sign a peace deal with them is being slightly overshadowed this week. While I’m sure plenty of people have been waiting for us to pull out of that quagmire, the release of a stack of Pentagon documents regarding the war will provide even more reason

I’m old enough to remember when it didn’t take anything more than Donald Trump saying he’d like to make America great again to see ten thousand people out in the streets of any major city screaming about how the Bad Orange Man was bad. And orange. But these days, if you’ve been getting the impression

You’ve got to be kidding, Dersh. He’s trying to spin his participation in Trump’s defense as some sort of quasi-academic exercise more so than advocacy on behalf of a particular client. It’s not that he’s for Trump, you see, it’s that he’s against the idea that a president can be impeached for exercising power which

I tried gaming out the possible schedule in a post a few days ago and couldn’t figure out a way for the trial to end before February 4, the day of the State of the Union. This, I thought, was the most aggressive timetable realistically: It begins on the 21st, followed by a two-day break

Almost exactly a month ago, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) issued a rare public rebuke of the FBI in the wake of the Michael Horowitz report on Operation Crossfire Hurricane. At the time, Judge Rosemary Collyer demanded a response from the bureau over the way the court had been misled by

You would think that the perpetually outraged would have learned by now, but no. There is a new story out about a photograph of Washington DC Fire Department/EMS recruits that is now under investigation. The investigation is over a hand gesture made by a few of the recruits when the picture was taken – stop

Robyn Polak worked as a dental assistant at Precision Dental MKE in Milwaukee until this week. She claims she was fired because someone was offended by pro-Trump messages she posted on social media in her off-hours: Robyn Polak, 35, of South Milwaukee, posted an article from the conservative Daily Wire website praising Trump on Facebook

It’s a temporary injunction, but don’t expect this case to fare any better for the White House after a full hearing. Federal judge Peter Messitte issued the TRO late yesterday enjoining states and localities from vetoing refugee resettlement under a new policy from the Trump administration. Messitte made clear in his order that he believes

A religious freedom group is condemning the blessing of a King James Bible last Sunday in a ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral. The Bible was used to swear in the commanders of the Space Force. Some are criticizing the ceremony as a violation of the separation of church and state. The story goes that

Could it get any worse for Michael Avenatti? Apparently, yes. The man who briefly embodied the La Résistance dreams of defeating Donald Trump faces extortion charges on one coast while battling fraud charges on the other. In the middle of the court hearing in California, where the State Bar Association wants Avenatti’s license pulled, federal agents

The BernieBros have #CNNisTrash trending, and after watching this exchange in last night’s debate, it’s not tough to see why. Moderator Abby Phillip made sure to press Bernie Sanders on the topic du jour, which was CNN’s own scoop that Sanders told Elizabeth Warren that a woman couldn’t win the presidency. Sanders gave a detailed denial

We shouldn’t be surprised. This position is shared by North American liberals of all stripes, after all. The defense will be that Trudeau was making a statement of straightforward fact. “I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their

Two days later, I’m still trying to figure out if this tweet was an empty pander to MAGA Nation or if Trump really meant it. Because if he meant it, he and McConnell are waaay far apart on the optimal outcome from this trial. Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial

Nancy Pelosi may not know why people are protesting in the streets of Tehran, but it appears that the leadership in Iran has figured it out. After days of demonstrations where Iranian police unleashed tear gas and live ammunition on the protesters, state media announced that “arrests” have been made in the case of the

He got a pair of good polls today, which is noteworthy, but even more noteworthy is the effect that those two had on the RCP average tracking all polling. For all the hype about the Warren surge in October and the Buttigieg surge in November and the Bernie surge in December, ol’ Joe not only

Ten minutes before I read this post: “Nothing could make me watch the debate tomorrow night.” Ten minutes later: “I should knock off work early tomorrow to make sure I can watch the debate.” It is … convenient that a news story that’s potentially helpful to Elizabeth Warren in drawing progressive voters away from Bernie