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Politics

On 'From the Edges of a Broken World'

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

The essay was published by Guernica, which until this week I would have described as a highly regarded literary journal. (It can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240305095742/https:/www.guernicamag.com/from-the-edges-of-a-broken-world/.) This week, they retracted the essay, saying they regretted publishing it. Why? Because it ...Read more

In His Own Words

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

The man can't control himself.

In a nearly two-hour speech at a rally in Georgia this weekend, he told the audience: "I just posted a $91 million bond -- $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story. Ninety-one million based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn't know, never heard of. I know ...Read more

The State of the Union

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

The Republicans should be mortified. In fact, by all accounts, they are. Rolling Stone featured an entire article quoting their reactions to Alabama Sen. Katie Britt's embarrassing response to the president's State of the Union speech. Describing the speech as "feeling more like a rejected audition tape for a supporting role on 'Grey's Anatomy...Read more

When Is Rape Not Real Rape?

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

It's a question I've been writing about for more than 40 years, since I found myself in the back of a police car explaining what happened to me when a Black man held an ice pick to my throat and threatened to kill me. I was, I learned that night, a lucky victim, lucky to be alive and lucky that racism meant that mine was considered a "real ...Read more

Trump Scores with the Supreme Court

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

The Supreme Court did not have to take up Trump's immunity case. When Jack Smith went to the court and asked them to fast-track the case -- avoiding the delay that an appeal to the D.C. Circuit would entail -- the court said no. The result was that the appeal, which took months to decide, put the trial on hold. If the court thought the case ...Read more

Good for Gavin

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

Asked last Sunday if he was ruling out a run for the presidency in 2024, California Gov. Gavin Newsom shot down the idea -- again.

"You gotta be kidding," he told Kristen Welker on Sunday's "Meet the Press." "I am here celebrating the extraordinary accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration, making the case that we need to make to ...Read more

Embryos Are Not Children

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

The decision of the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos are protected as children is being viewed as a major victory for the anti-abortion movement, which is ironic, to say the least, since its most immediate impact is to make the hellish trip to having children through in vitro fertilization even more difficult. So much for pro-life. So...Read more

Trump Is No Navalny, and Biden Is No Putin

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

Donald Trump has been outrageously silent about the brutal murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. No, correct that. Silence would have been outrageous. Comparing himself to the slain hero is beyond outrageous. Trump, and his supporters, have had the audacity to compare Trump's indictment by four grand juries to the imprisonment ...Read more

The Culture of Gun Violence

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

"Turn on the TV," my friend Annie said. No hello -- it has to be something bad. "The Super Bowl." At first I thought Las Vegas. But no, this must be Kansas City. A shooting. One woman dead. Twenty-two people shot. Eleven children. Here we go again. What could be more American? The schools were closed. A million people gathered to celebrate. ...Read more

A Supreme Compromise

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

If there was one lesson to be learned from Bush v. Gore, and its impact on the Supreme Court's credibility, it is that the court should not decide presidential elections. That job belongs to the people: in the case of Donald Trump, to voters and juries. What that means in practice is that the court needs to find a way to decide the two cases ...Read more

A False and Unfair Confusion

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

One of them confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi -- both are, after all, women, whose first initial begins with an "N." One of them confused the president of Mexico with the president of Egypt, while the other confused the leaders of Hungary and Turkey. What does it prove? Basically, nothing. Certainly nothing about who should be the next ...Read more

Citizen Trump

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

On Tuesday, as expected, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected in the strongest possible terms former President Donald Trump's claim that he is absolutely immune for crimes allegedly committed while he was in office. "For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become ...Read more

The Power of Women

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

The gender gap is growing.

According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, President Joe Biden has opened a six-point lead over Donald Trump -- powered by the votes of women.

In a press statement, the university's polling analyst Tim Malloy said, "The gender demographic tells a story to keep an eye on. Propelled by female voters in just ...Read more

The UN and Hamas

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

What were United Nations employees doing on Oct. 7?

According to reports assembled by Israeli intelligence and shared with Western media this week, at least a dozen employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, actually participated in the terror attacks that murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, and took ...Read more

Loose Lips

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

Donald Trump is on a roll. No, I'm not talking about his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, although of course he won them both. I say "of course" because he's a president running for his second term, and if you judge him like you would an incumbent -- who you would expect to do better than 80% or more -- the fact is that he underperformed, ...Read more

No Labels, No Trump

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

The Dursts are right. The chairman and president of the wealthy New York real estate company brought suit this week in New York State Supreme Court against the group that is threatening to run a third-party candidate for president. It is not a bipartisan, pro-good government effort, which is what the Dursts contributed to when No Labels was ...Read more

How Not to Fix the Immigration Crisis

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

No one -- or almost no one -- can deny that there is an immigration crisis in America. New legislation is needed, including more funding for a fair and effective system for controlling the border and handling the asylum process. In the Senate, key Republicans and Democrats are at least talking together about how to deal with the problem.

Not ...Read more

Donald Trump Wins

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

What does it mean that a majority of Iowa Republicans braved freezing cold weather to go out and caucus for a man who is facing 91 criminal counts, not to mention another defamation trial from a woman who a jury already found he sexually assaulted and defamed?

It means he could win the presidency and endanger the future of our democracy.

...Read more

How to Lose a Lawsuit

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

No lawyer would ever advise a client to do what Donald Trump has done. He has perfected the art, if you can call it that, of attacking and trying to intimidate the judges who will decide his fate. In New York, at the conclusion of his fraud trial -- which is not a jury trial, but will be decided by the judge -- he stood up and declared the ...Read more

Where Was Lloyd?

From the Left / Susan Estrich /

It is exactly what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III did not want.

Clearly, he didn't want anyone to know that he, like millions of American men, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. By not telling his commanding officer, the president, and not disclosing his surgery and his infection, and insisting on keeping secret his hospitalization ...Read more

 

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John Cole Bill Day David Horsey Bart van Leeuwen Bob Gorrell Dana Summers