I understand the impulse for Trump to pick Pence — an experienced pol, in good standing with conservatives, and not much of a lightning rod, at least not yet (the Left tends to make any GOP pick a lightning rod). But Trump’s running mate will have to be extremely deft at explaining away and deflecting Trump controversies. There is no reason to believe that Pence will be good at this, and I’m guessing he won’t be. Christie (comfortable at defending anything) and especially Newt (one of the most glib politicians of the last 30 years) would be much better by this metric. They both have downsides. No one will be excited by Christie, certainly not conservatives. Newt is famously ill-disciplined. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Trump team thinks it’s getting a safe choice in Pence and then when he inevitably has trouble defending Trump (he has never operated on this kind of national stage), it won’t look so safe anymore.
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Elise Stefanik Stood Out on Day One of the Impeachment Hearings
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York earned high marks for her questioning of U.S. diplomats on Wednesday, the first day of public impeachment hearings.
Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake called Stefanik’s questioning “very impressive.” Fox News anchor Bret Baier agreed, as did former Obama ...
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‘Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself’
It was just one more segment to fill out the hour, and thereby fill the long 24 hours of Saturday’s cable news on November 2. Or so it seemed. Navy SEAL Mike Ritland was on the Fox News program Watters World to talk to Jesse Watters about trained German shepherds like the one used in the raid that found ...
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AOC’s District Poll Numbers Are Bad
According to a Quinnipiac poll, 36 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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The GOP’s Jackson Pollock Impeachment Strategy
Maybe you’re a fan of Jackson Pollock’s paint-splatter stuff. That’s cool. My only point is that when you flick paint at a canvas, nobody expects the result to look like a tree, a person, or a bowl of fruit.
Similarly, in politics, when you throw everything against the wall to see what will stick, the ...
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16-Year-Olds Are Not Allowed Guns in California
Per the New York Times:
A suspect described as a 16-year-old male student was in custody and being treated at the hospital, the police said. Today was his birthday, and, according to the authorities, he pulled a handgun from a backpack and shot five people before turning the gun on himself.
Gun-control ...
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A Defining Statement of Modern Conservatism
The greatest documents in American history never lose their ability to astonish. They deserve, and repay, careful study, and inevitably have contemporary resonances no matter how long ago they were written or uttered.
There’s no doubt that Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” belongs in the top ranks ...
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New Bill Would Get Financial Institutions Involved in Gun Control
It comes via Representative Jennifer Wexton, the Democrat who recently replaced Barbara Comstock in Northern Virginia. The obvious inspiration is Andrew Ross Sorkin’s suggestion in the New York Times last year that financial institutions should reject or report gun purchases made on credit cards if they deem ...
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The Russian Conspiracy That Won’t Die
The Mueller report accomplished nothing.
Whether you thought that the two-year, $32 million investigation was warranted or not, the report promised to establish a factual record that both sides could accept, especially on the explosive charge that Donald Trump had conspired with the Russians to win the ...
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Impeachment Theater of Trolls
As a boy, I used to watch a television show with a weekly gag titled “MasterJoke Theatre.” A pompous egghead smoked a pipe in a leather-bound chair in a richly appointed library, told a joke, and got a pie in the face for his trouble.
What the Democrats launched on the Hill this week is their own variant, ...
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Elite Law Schools Shortchange Students by Veering Left
The conservative legal movement is in its golden age, but you wouldn’t know it from visiting America’s top law schools. At Harvard Law School, for example, which we both currently attend, originalist faculty and right-of-center educational opportunities are conspicuously lacking despite a tremendous amount of ...
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