Category: Politics

This Debt Crisis Is Not Like 2011’s. It’s Worse.

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On its surface, the unfolding debt-ceiling crisis looks a lot like the confrontation in 2011 between congressional Republicans and then-President Barack Obama. Once again, a new GOP majority in the House is using the threat of a national default as leverage to force a first-term Democratic president to agree to spending cuts in exchange for lifting the federal borrowing limit. A first-ever default could crash the markets and trigger a recession. But, as in 2011, the two parties remain far apart, with a deadline to act approaching rapidly. Eric Cantor…

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The Kyrsten Sinema Theory of American Politics

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Kyrsten Sinema knows what everybody says about her. She pretends not to read the press coverage—“I don’t really care”—but she knows. She knows what her colleagues call her behind her back (“egomaniac,” “traitor”). She knows how many articles The New York Times has published about her wardrobe (five). She feels misunderstood, and she would like to explain herself. We’re sitting across from each other in her “hideaway,” a small, windowless room in the basement of the U.S. Capitol Building. Every senator gets one of these subterranean, chamber-adjacent bunkers, and most…

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Joe Biden Isn’t Popular. That Might Not Matter in 2024.

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By almost any historic yardstick, President Joe Biden is beginning the reelection campaign he formally announced today in a vulnerable position. His job-approval rating has consistently come in at 45 percent or less; in several recent high-quality national polls, it has dipped closer to 40 percent. In surveys, three-fourths or more of Americans routinely express dissatisfaction with the economy. And a majority of adults have repeatedly said that they do not want him to seek a second term; that figure rose to 70 percent (including just more than half of…

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Chris Christie Doesn’t Want to Hear the Name Trump

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“How many different ways are you gonna ask the same fucking question, Mark?” Chris Christie asked me. We were seated in the dining room of the Hay-Adams hotel. It’s a nice hotel, five stars. Genteel. Christie’s sudden ire was a bit jolting, as I had asked him only a few fairly innocuous questions so far, most of them relating to Donald Trump, the man he might run against in the presidential race. Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, was visiting Washington as part of his recent tour of public…

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The New Pro-life Movement Has a Plan to End Abortion

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The unpleasant reality facing the anti-abortion movement is that most Americans don’t actually want to ban abortion. This explains why the pro-life summer of triumph, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, led to a season of such demoralizing political outcomes. Voters in Montana, Kansas, and Kentucky in November rejected ballot measures to make abortion illegal; just last month, in Wisconsin, voters elected an abortion-rights supporter to the state supreme court. Yet the movement’s activists don’t seem to care. Thirteen states automatically banned most abortions with trigger laws…

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The Tennessee Expulsions Are Just the Beginning

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The red-state drive to reverse the rights revolution of the past six decades continues to intensify, triggering confrontations involving every level of government. In rapid succession, Republican-controlled states are applying unprecedented tactics to shift social policy sharply to the right, not only within their borders but across the nation. Just last Thursday, the GOP-controlled Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two young Black Democratic representatives, and Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, on Saturday moved to nullify the verdict of a jury in liberal Travis County. In between, last Friday,…

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