My favorite moment from the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting so far:
Joe Biden
Trump was not a “crazy dream.” We must reckon with his presidency
Dahlia Lithwick is correct. Here is a taste of her Slate piece: “The Price of No Consequences for Trump”: I don’t have any prescription for how to reason with a radicalized GOP, a post-truth electorate, or a conspiracy-addled former president, […]
Biden administration says it wants to defend religious exemptions for schools
This is big news on the religious liberty front. I’m on the road, but hope to return to this story in the coming days. Here is Michelle Boorstein at The Washington Post: The Justice Department in a new court filing […]
Biden ends talks with GOP on infrastructure
Here is Politico: Bipartisan infrastructure talks between President Joe Biden and GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito are over, and the White House will now focus on working with a bipartisan group of 20 senators. Biden and Capito spoke for five […]
Local journalism is “civic infrastructure”
Over the weekend I wrote a piece here at Current arguing that there was historical precedent for thinking about infrastructure development as something larger than just roads and bridges. I quoted John Quincy Adams’s first annual message to Congress. Here […]
Conservative publishing is having a hard time turning Joe Biden into a “compelling villain”
Here is McKay Coppins at The Atlantic: In the conservative book world, nothing is supposed to set off a gold rush like a new Democratic president. Ever since Bill Clinton inspired a wave of right-wing best sellers in the ’90s, […]
More than half of Republicans believe Trump is the “true” U.S. president
According to a new Reuters/IPSOS poll, 53% of Republicans believe Trump is the “true” president. 3% of Democrats and 25% of all Americans believe this. Matt Bennett and Jon Cowan may be right about January 6, 2025.
Biden dumped Trump’s 1776 Commission, but its members are still meeting
If you are not familiar with the 1776 Commission, get up to speed here and here and here. Here is The Washington Examiner: The education advisory commission set up by former President Donald Trump will resume operations despite being disbanded by President Joe […]
What Obama and Biden thought about Trump’s election
Over at The Atlantic, Caroline Mimbs Nyce interviews Edward-Isaac Dovere, author of the upcoming book Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump. Here is a taste: Initially, President Obama seemed pretty restrained when commenting on the 45th […]
Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes” will not happen
Remember Donald Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes?” Joe Biden just canceled it. Here is Zeke Miller at the Associated Press: President Joe Biden on Friday put the kibosh on his predecessor’s planned “National Garden of American Heroes” and revoked […]
Kevin McCarthy: “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election”
The GOP House minority leader can’t be serious. Here is Paul Kane at The Washington Post: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday took a head-spinning tour through Washington. First, he oversaw the roughly 20-minute meeting of House Republicans […]
Obamacare sign-ups surge
Here is Margot Sanger-Katz and Sarah Kliff at The New York Times: Nearly one million Americans have signed up for Affordable Care Act coverage during the first 10 weeks of a special open enrollment period the Biden administration began in […]
Joe Biden did not mention God in his National Day of Prayer proclamation. Conservative evangelicals are not happy.
Yesterday was the National Day of Prayer. Biden issued a proclamation: Throughout our history, Americans of many religions and belief systems have turned to prayer for strength, hope, and guidance. Prayer has nourished countless souls and powered moral movements — […]
The DNC is collecting opposition research on potential 2022 GOP candidates, including Mike “MyPillow Guy” Lindell
Yes, you read that title correctly. Here is Alex Thompson and Daniel Payne at the Politico West Wing playbook: The Democratic National Committee has quietly assembled a core team that is focused not just on the 2022 midterms but on […]
Images of the Day
As a first-term senator from Delaware, Biden endorsed Jimmy Carter in 1976. Here is Biden and Carter in 1979:
What happens in a two-party system when one of the parties is delusional?
According to Charles Pierce, “the whole system goes out of balance.” Here is a taste of his Esquire piece on the GOP’s new initiation rite: It appears that the cult driving modern conservatism—and the Republican Party, which is its outward […]
Franklin Graham opposes Biden’s infrastructure plan: “I wasn’t aware that America needed rebuilding.”
Here is Graham at his Facebook page: As President Biden was giving his speech last night, I couldn’t help but think that the swamp has won. When President Trump came into office, he said he was going to drain the […]
Mitch McConnell petitions Education Secretary to remove the 1619 Project from federal grant programs
The 1619 Project is in the news again. Here is Ryan Nobles at CNN: In a letter obtained by CNN, the Republican leader asks Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to abandon curriculum in American schools that McConnell argues tells a revisionist history of America’s […]
Biden’s spending packages appear to have public support
$1.9 trillion for coronavirus relief $2 trillion for infrastructure. $1.8 trillion for American families, including child care and pre-K education. According to Nathan Rakich’s piece today at Five Thirty-Eight, a significant majority of the American people are on board with […]
Eric Metaxas responds to Joe Biden’s claim that the January 6 insurrection was the “worst attack on democracy since the Civil War”
Was Biden right? It’s hard to say. Historians will have different opinions about where the January 6, 2021 insurrection fits on the “attacks on democracy” scale. For example, one might find Jim Crow, Pearl Harbor, or September 11th somewhere on […]