After the Bridge Collapse, Baltimore is Still Standing
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Robbe Reddinger
9h ago
It was shocking in its silence: no bombs bursting in air, land, or sea. Just the grainy footage of a hulking container ship as its shadowy figure slowly forced itself through the tree-trunk legs of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. Then, like a sped-up scene from the silent film era, an entire pile of matchsticks tumbled into the dredged depths of the Patapsco River. A boxer’s knees buckling in the tenth round of a title match. How did it happen so fast? How did it happen at all? Just…How? Those answers are still coming, but some we’ll never get. We know that a bridge that stood for ..read more
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The Supreme Court Hears Abortion Drug Arguments or Why Samuel Alito Wants To Be Your Gynecologist
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Garrett Epps
1d ago
American women, who have in recent years been given plenty to worry about, can, it seems, breathe easier in one respect—it seems less likely that they will wake up one morning in June and find Samuel Alito, M.D., ready to discuss their reproductive choices. Not that the justice would object to such duty—indeed, he is quaveringly eager for it—but his fellow Supreme Court justices’ questions during argument on Tuesday in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine suggest they are not quite ready to assign it to him. Even other members of the hard-right conservative bloc o ..read more
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The Washington Monthly Newsletter: March 26, 2024
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Bill Scher
2d ago
Two weeks ago I argued national pollsters should not include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate, in their presidential trial heats until we had more reason to believe he would appear on most state ballots. As part of my argument, I cited reports that Kennedy’s vice presidential search was zeroing in on two “fundamentally unserious … bona fide kooks”: anti-vaccine football player Aaron Rodgers and wrestler-turned-governor-turned-conspiracy-theorist Jesse Ventura. Today, Kennedy announced his pick, who is as ridiculously unqualified as Rodgers or Ventura yet la ..read more
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The Roberts Court Really Could Give Trump Blanket Immunity
Washington Monthly Magazine
by James D. Zirin
3d ago
Retired Justice Stephen Breyer is worried. He worries that the Court he served for 28 years is facing a “decline in trust… as shown by public opinion polls.” No wonder. Even conservative lawyers say that the Supreme Court has its thumb on the scale to prevent Trump from being prosecuted before Election Day, or at any time, for his participation in the events of January 6, 2021. The early 20th-century journalist Finley Peter Dunne created a fictional character, Mr. Dooley, who cynically quipped, “[N]o matter whether th’ constitution follows th’ flag or not, th’ Supreme Court follows th’ ilicti ..read more
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Steve Garvey’s New Field of Dreams
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Steve Kettmann
3d ago
Maybe the oddest thing about Steve Garvey’s squirrelly U.S. Senate bid is how long it took him to run—about 50 years. Ross Newhan, the Hall of Fame baseball writer, summing up Garvey’s 1974 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, wrote at the time that “Garvey’s year was best characterized by wife Cyndy, who was doing chores at the couple’s new home in Calabasas, [California], when she learned of Steve’s selection” as league Most Valuable Player. “‘When you think about the kind of year Steve had, it’s too bad you can’t shoot it, stuff it, and put it in a corner to show off for all time,’” Cyndy ..read more
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Trump as Death of a Salesman’s Willy Loman
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Deanne Stillman
4d ago
Donald Trump has been likened to many people and figures, including Adolf Hitler, Satan, Queen Esther, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, and most recently, Alexei Navalny (the latter five are comparisons that either he or those around him have made). I once compared Trump to a substance in response to a question that the author Walter Kirn had posed on X (then Twitter). “What I wanted,” Kirn subsequently wrote in his Harper’s column, “was an image of Trump’s first year that would stimulate the imagination without paralyzing the will. The writer Deanne Stillman put it best, I think, when ..read more
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Stop Ageism: A Call for Action
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Dr. Gail C. Christopher
1w ago
If a presidential hopeful decried their opponent because they were LGBTQ+, Latino, African American, or had a disability, voices of outrage would denounce it immediately. Movements for the rights and equality of these previously marginalized groups have generated advocates who protest in the face of mistreatment and injustice against these groups. Where are the voices against ageism? Ageism is a bias against, discrimination against, or bullying of individuals and groups based on their age. Where are the advocates standing up for the rights and dignity of older and elderly Americans? Mass medi ..read more
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Fear and Loathing as Trump Payment Deadline Looms
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Jennifer Taub
1w ago
We were somewhere around Donald Trump’s third Truth Social rant on Tuesday morning, on the edge of his court-ordered deadline to secure a $464 million bond, when I remember saying, “I feel a bit lightheaded; I think Trump really is broke.” I’m no Hunter S. Thompson, but I smell fear and loathing in Mar-a-Lago. To wit: Judge Engoron actually wants me to put up Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for the Right to Appeal his ridiculous decision. . . Nobody has ever heard of anything like this before. I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I w ..read more
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The Washington Monthly Newsletter: March 21, 2024
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Bill Scher
1w ago
How the right frame can box in Trump In my Washington Monthly column today, I discussed the frustrating debate around what Donald Trump really meant when he said “it’s going to be a bloodbath” if he doesn’t win the 2024 presidential election. I warned that debating semantics only works to Trump’s advantage. Trump can often lean on his penchant for word salad to argue he’s been taken out of context, and then you’re left with a string of TV segments debating what he meant, leaving many voters with a shrug of the shoulders. Instead, the Joe Biden campaign should be ..read more
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No More “Bloodbaths” or How to Avoid Stupid Debates Over Trump’s Semantics
Washington Monthly Magazine
by Bill Scher
1w ago
During a Saturday rally in Ohio, Donald Trump said, “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole—that’s going to be the least of it—It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” But before and after that statement, he spoke of slapping huge tariffs on imported cars built in Mexico by Chinese companies. Acyn Torabi, the senior digital editor of the liberal MeidasTouch.com, posted a video clip of the “bloodbath” quote, shorn of most of the surrounding verbiage, garnering 22 million views on X.com. As reported by Semafor, Joe Biden’s campaign posted a similar clip soon af ..read more
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