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Federal Government

A Necessary Public Policy Question

Now, and ending one knows not when, public policy proposals that involve human interaction should address, as a necessary element, the question of whether the coronavirus pandemic affects the proposal. A person might assume that he could walk through a forest without ever encountering a wolf, and even convince himself that, by power of suggestion…

Frontline‘s Covering Coronavirus: A Tale of Two Washingtons

What the feud between President Trump and Washington Gov. Inslee reveals about federal-state tensions in the coronavirus fight. In his conversation with Gov. Inslee, FRONTLINE correspondent Miles O’Brien discovers that “what should be a partnership with the federal government is like this hostile relationship.” Inslee describes a scenario in which states are left competing with each other for…

Trump: 2016 to 2020

Trump in 2016: “I alone can fix it.” Trump in 2020: “I don’t take responsibility at all.” Here's the clip. On the lack of testing #Covid_19 and the "failure" of the response, @realDonaldTrump: "No, I don't take responsibility at all." #COVID pic.twitter.com/rpTh5DcILr — Kyle Morse (@Kyle_A_Morse) March 13, 2020    

Over 1,100 Department of Justice Alumni Call on A.G. Barr to Resign

Over one-thousand DOJ alumni have issued a statement on the events surrounding the sentencing of Roger Stone: We, the undersigned, are alumni of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) who have collectively served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration…

Bill Barr: Trump’s Man on the Inside

Bill Barr has now been Trump’s attorney general for a full year. He’s spent that year helping Trump weaponize the Justice Department for his personal benefit—showing that, like the man who appointed him, Barr is an urgent threat to American democracy.https://t.co/Xtr0BE6fVJ — The Moscow Project (@moscow_project) February 14, 2020      

Brain Drain Plagues Key USDA Research Service After Trump Administration Orders Relocation

When the Trump administration relocated the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service to the Kansas City area last year, about two-thirds of its employees quit their jobs rather than move. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, called the mass resignations a “wonderful way to streamline the government.” These departures have…

Sure enough…

Ron Johnson really is America’s Dumbest Senator™: MIDDLETON – U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Thursday there’s nothing improper about President Donald Trump’s call on Chinese officials to investigate his top political rival in his 2020 re-election bid. Trump extended the invitation Thursday to the foreign country as he faces impeachment over a similar request of the president of…

Wastrel

Embed from Getty Images John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett report Deficit Don? Red ink gushes in Trump era (‘The president endorsed a bipartisan budget deal without any of the spending restraints previously demanded by Republicans’): With a new bipartisan budget deal that does nothing to cut federal spending, Trump is on track for another $1 trillion…

The Biggest Story of Our Time

In life – at least life in a well-ordered, free society – the highest matters are not political. They are familial, cultural, social – involving greater pursuits than contending over the role of the state. Under this view, one contends over politics (as libertarians do) not because it is too important but because it must…

Major Supreme Court Decisions (And Where to Find Them)

There were two major United States Supreme Court decisions handed down today, on partisan gerrymandering and on a possible citizenship question for the 2020 census form. There will be significant commentary – some informed, some not – about these decisions, but it’s worth reading them in full.  Like most decisions, they’re lengthy, yet always worth…

The Cost of Trump’s Tariffs

Heather Long reports Trump’s steel tariffs cost U.S. consumers $900,000 for every job created, experts say: President Trump has shown little interest in removing the steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed more than a year ago despite growing evidence Americans are paying a hefty price for these tariffs and increasing pressure from Republicans in Congress…