I’m Lawrence Goldstone, a political and legal historian who wants to replace jargon and obfuscation with clear thinking and cogent analysis.
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In an interview in 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump proclaimed, “I whine because I want to win, and I’m not happy about not winning, so I am a whiner, and I keep whining and whining until I win.” In his ten years in politics, the nation has seen ample evidence that here was one of those rare occasions in which Trump actually told the truth.
Conservatives love to portray themselves as the champions of equality—true equality, fair equality, not the skewed, perverted versions espoused by the left. Their most basic and unshakeable premise is that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, should begin the race at the same starting line.
During previous administrations, a cabinet meeting at Camp David would have aroused only moderate interest. Past presidents used the retreat mostly to escape the frenetic bustle of Washington. They treasured the bucolic ambience and, when other government officials joined them, availed themselves of the opportunity for a more frank interchange of views than meetings in the White House would allow.
As America moves closer to what promises to be a feverish election season, the chances of Democrats defying the odds and winning enough seats in both the Trump-redistricted House and the Senate to take control of Congress appear surprisingly good. Judging by his frantic efforts to cheat his way to victory, Trump certainly sees this as a distinct possibility.
It was hardly a surprise when, in her memorable testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of the many blondes that Donald Trump has dumped, defended her selective release of the Epstein files by resorting to deflection.
Donald Trump’s touted Memorandum of Understanding with Iran seems to have been grossly misunderstood, mostly by him. Although he bragged that the sixty-day pause in the fighting was “a great deal for a lot of reasons,” and that the Strait of Hormuz was “going to be opening up soon in full over the next day or two,” while assuring the world that “number one by far—99.9 percent of it—is that they…
The Graham Platner circus seems finally to have ended, but in addition to the immediate fallout, the episode has raised questions of both strategy and leadership in the Democratic Party. This is a particularly critical moment for uncertainty to arise, since, defying the impossibly long odds that existed after the 2024 elections, Democrats had pulled themselves up to be close to an even money bet…
For at least a century, “white Christian nationalism” had been forced to lurk in the dark corners of American politics, but now, with the enthusiastic encouragement of Donald Trump, it has been thrust fully into the light.
That the Constitutional Convention was held under less than propitious circumstances is an understatement. Not only were delegates forced to sit cheek by jowl day after day in an unventilated hall with windows closed and barred to prevent eavesdropping, but they did so during a broiling summer in Philadelphia, where the temperature outside sometimes soared into the nineties.
It seems like just yesterday that Vladimir Putin was going take over Ukraine in a matter of weeks while bolstering both his popularity and his unquestioned rule at home; Benjamin Netanyahu had cleverly and effectively used Hamas terrorism as an excuse to take over Gaza, expand settlements in the West Bank, and launch attacks on Lebanon, all while avoiding a trial for corruption; and Donald Trump…
