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Giuliani and Pataki and Hillary

Revelations Of 9/11 Toxic Toll Inflicting Fresh Damage On Giuliani's Reputation

I'm not a big fan of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, but this week, he did something important that his predecessors had refused to do. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, New York City released over 170,000 pages of documents about the toxic air quality levels after the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.

The numbers are stunning: more people have died from the toxic effects of 9/11 than from the plane crashes and building collapses on September 11. More than 140,000 people from all 50 states have enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program; 49,000 have been diagnosed with certified WTC-related cancers, according to the 9/11 Memorial. And more people are eligible but, according to Mayor Mamdani, now live outside New York and have not received any outreach.

The numbers of illnesses and deaths among firefighters are particularly tragic. According to the World Trade Center Health Program, 343 FDNY firefighters died on 9/11; almost twice as many have died since because of post 9/11 related illnesses. Most striking: According to ABC-TV in New York, almost a quarter of all 12,000 certified FDNY members have been diagnosed with a 9/11-related cancer or respiratory conditions.

The real significance of this week's disclosures is not the troubling numbers, but the lies by public officials behind them. We were lied to, openly and blatantly. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has been pushing for years for the truth about who knew what and when to come out. A multi-year lawsuit finally led to the internal memos coming out.

The newly released documents include records of then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and other city officials repeatedly telling residents and first responders that the air was safe, when their own data said it wasn't. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who succeeded Giuliani, said, "Every test that has been done says the air quality was in acceptable limits. I think some people are just never going to believe that." They shouldn't. Children went back to school under toxic clouds that could kill them later.

In one example, cited by CNN, on October 6, 2001, an internal memo written by Associate Health Commissioner Kelly McKinney on October. 6, 2001, warned that "air quality (for asbestos) at these locations is not yet suitable for reoccupancy." That memo was from the same day that Mayor Giuliani told the public that the air was safe and they should return to normal life.

It wasn't just the asbestos in the air. The government covered up major lead contamination at the Department of Transportation headquarters building and discouraged the use of respirators among first responders. According to the records, residents "returned to their ash-filled apartments because they were 'lulled by reassuring statements'" from Giuliani and EPA Administrator Christie Whitman; many of them developed "severe, persistent health problems," including nosebleeds, rashes, headaches, asthma and coughs from inhaling "the highly alkaline, caustic dust."

All of this has left New Yorkers rightly angered that it has taken 25 years, an outspoken Congressman, and a wide-ranging lawsuit for the truth — that we can't trust public officials -- to come out. It also leaves those of us who lived through the Los Angeles fires and heard the repeated exhortations of public officials that all was fine, the smoky air was safe, the soil ready for new building, and it was time to return to normal. Was it? Is it? Will we have to wait 20 more years to learn the truth, the way New Yorkers did?

On September 11, we will remember the heroes of 9/11, the innocent passengers, the sacrifices of the firefighters, the thousands who suffered later and are suffering still. And we will remember what else we lost — trust in our government and our public officials.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.


Darline Graham

'I Don't Speak Politician'! Nor Does Lindsey's Sister Speak Foreign Policy

Sen. Darline Graham, Republican of South Carolina, was appointed to serve out her late brother Lindsey's term and was endorsed by President Donald Trump in the Republican primary for the full six-year term. Hers is a test in many respects: a test of President Trump's reach, as well as a test of the value (or stigma) voters attach to experience versus a new face (Sen. Graham is running against Rep. Ralph Norman in Tuesday's Republican runoff; Norman is a five-term member of Congress who has on occasion clashed with Trump).

Perhaps the pivotal moment in the campaign came last week, when Sen. Graham stumbled badly on a straightforward foreign policy question:

"Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States and if so, why or how?"

That's not a tough one. The answer is yes. Lindsey Graham could go on for hours on that one. His sister didn't even know enough to say yes. And she told everyone that.

Her answer: Foreign policy is "not my thing. She is, she stated, "not that informed on national security."

She isn't. The obvious question: what is she doing in the United States Senate?

She is there for one reason alone. Who she's related to. Sometimes, that works out just fine. Lindy Boggs, the legendary Louisiana congresswoman, stepped into the shoes of her late husband Hale Boggs when he was killed in a plane crash and became one of the most powerful and effective House members. And sometimes voters just won't buy it, as they did recently in not voting for JFK's charismatic grandson, notwithstanding the widespread affection and sympathy for his family.

George Will wrote a famous column years ago about how when you've got a plumbing problem, what you want is an experienced plumber who knows how to fix it. Why is politics so different? At a time of grave danger worldwide, can we really afford leaders who don't understand international realities?

After the debate, Graham's opponent responded strongly on social media: "South Carolina deserves a Senator who UNDERSTANDS Foreign Policy." An ad, showing her struggling to answer the question, will no doubt follow.

For her part, Graham went on Fox to try to defend herself. "I don't speak politician — I was just honest. Of course Taiwan is our friend. But I think people in South Carolina are more worried about boys in girls' sports."

Do voters want their leaders to be open about their ignorance? Yes, of course, Taiwan is our friend, but China complicates that friendship in ways that challenge our relationships with both countries. A Senator needs to know more than a sixth grader.

And consider Graham's defense. Do folks in South Carolina really feel more threatened by trans girls playing sports than they do by China?

They have absolutely no reason to. South Carolina enacted its Save Women's Sports Act in 2022, barring students assigned male at birth from competing on female-designated teams at public elementary, secondary and postsecondary schools (and certain private schools competing against them).

In other words, South Carolina has already protected itself from a largely non-existent problem. When the issue was being considered in 2021, South Carolina High School League Commissioner Jerome Singleton testified that since the waiver procedure began in 2016, only four transgender students, two girls and two boys, statewide had requested permission to compete according to their gender identity; by the time the bill was passed the following spring, the League had approved one transgender female. One trans girl on a sports team.

Me? I'd be more afraid of China.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.


That's not a tough one. The answer is yes. Lindsey Graham could go on for hours on that one. His sister didn't even know enough to say yes. And she told everyone that.

Her answer: Foreign policy is "not my thing. She is, she stated, "not that informed on national security."

She isn't. The obvious question: what is she doing in the United States Senate?

She is there for one reason alone. Who she's related to. Sometimes, that works out just fine. Lindy Boggs, the legendary Louisiana congresswoman, stepped into the shoes of her late husband Hale Boggs when he was killed in a plane crash and became one of the most powerful and effective House members. And sometimes voters just won't buy it, as they did recently in not voting for JFK's charismatic grandson, notwithstanding the widespread affection and sympathy for his family.

George Will wrote a famous column years ago about how when you've got a plumbing problem, what you want is an experienced plumber who knows how to fix it. Why is politics so different? At a time of grave danger worldwide, can we really afford leaders who don't understand international realities?

After the debate, Graham's opponent responded strongly on social media: "South Carolina deserves a Senator who UNDERSTANDS Foreign Policy." An ad, showing her struggling to answer the question, will no doubt follow.

For her part, Graham went on Fox to try to defend herself. "I don't speak politician — I was just honest. Of course Taiwan is our friend. But I think people in South Carolina are more worried about boys in girls' sports."

Do voters want their leaders to be open about their ignorance? Yes, of course, Taiwan is our friend, but China complicates that friendship in ways that challenge our relationships with both countries. A Senator needs to know more than a sixth grader.

And consider Graham's defense. Do folks in South Carolina really feel more threatened by trans girls playing sports than they do by China?

They have absolutely no reason to. South Carolina enacted its Save Women's Sports Act in 2022, barring students assigned male at birth from competing on female-designated teams at public elementary, secondary and postsecondary schools (and certain private schools competing against them).

In other words, South Carolina has already protected itself from a largely non-existent problem. When the issue was being considered in 2021, South Carolina High School League Commissioner Jerome Singleton testified that since the waiver procedure began in 2016, only four transgender students, two girls and two boys, statewide had requested permission to compete according to their gender identity; by the time the bill was passed the following spring, the League had approved one transgender female. One trans girl on a sports team.

Me? I'd be more afraid of China.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Kyle Glenn at Unsplash

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Even More Troubling Than Weird Natalie? Vicious White House Attacks On Women

Even More Troubling Than Weird Natalie? Vicious White House Attacks On Women

She is the human printer, controlling the flow of paper to the president and transcribing his social media posts. She thinks she owes her life to Donald Trump. She is always by his side. Her name is Natalie Harp. She is this week's troubling news.

On Sunday, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a rising Democratic star, hit Trump hard: The Georgia senator told a crowd that Trump "doesn't want to do the job" and instead "wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar."

What's newsworthy about that? It was news to most of us that of the very few aides whose lives Trump valued most — the ones who switched planes with him, sending Air Force One as the decoy — was Natalie Harp. Not the Secretary of State or the Secretary of the Treasury. Natalie Harp.

Kristen Holmes, a senior White House correspondent at CNN and a well-respected journalist, asked Trump to respond to Ossoff's comment. Trump went off the deep end and the White House response team did the rest.

When Holmes asked Trump in the Oval Office to respond to Ossoff's remark, the president dismissed her, calling the senator a "Pee-wee Herman lookalike".

"Quiet, quiet, quiet. You're very disrespectful." After she told him she worked for CNN, he responded, "Fake news, you're fake news, you're a loud, boisterous person. You're fake news. Be quiet. Be quiet. You're a fake reporter and you report fake news."

The White House's "rapid response" social media account then took over, posting the exchange and calling her a "disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession".

The post criticized her for taking a "cheap shot" at a staffer, adding: "These scumbags are the lowest of the low."

Then they called her a bad mother, sending out yet another post attacking the CNN reporter: "Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It's quite troubling."

Natalie Harp was diagnosed with Stage 2 bone cancer in the early 2010s. She credits a bill signed by Donald Trump with giving her access to experimental treatment.

"We all know the story about the Good Samaritan. But what you don't know is I was that forgotten person on the side of the road ... and left to die of cancer," Harp reportedly said at an event with the president in 2019. "But then, an outsider — my Good Samaritan, President Donald J. Trump — he saw me there and he didn't walk by. He stopped."

Not exactly. According to the experts, as reported in The Washington Post, the drug Harp credited Trump with helping her gain access to was already approved by the Food and Drug Administration at the time she received it. Experts said she would have been able to access it without "Right to Try," which is a pathway to access medication not yet approved by the FDA.

Harp's story got Trump's attention and a speaking role at the 2020 Convention. She has been by his side ever since.

Harp's loyalty to Trump and his to her is noteworthy. But what is more noteworthy is Trump's attitude to the press and women reporters in particular. "Quiet, piggy," he told a Bloomberg reporter; and another CNN journalist he called "corrupt" and stormed out of NBC's Meet the Press after calling the moderator "crooked or stupid." Meanwhile, ABC has taken the FCC to court for threatening its license renewals because the President doesn't like the coverage.

Natalie Harp is not really the issue. The First Amendment is.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Rand Paul

Heroic Fauci Earned Peaceful Retirement, But Deranged Senator Persecutes Him

Anthony Fauci is an American hero. He spent his entire life in public service. He took on impossible challenges — and impossible people. He saved millions of lives around the world.

And what does he get for it? A comfortable, well-earned retirement to spend as he pleases with family, friends and colleagues?

No, he is consigned to lawyers' conference rooms preparing to defend himself from a deranged man and his cowardly compatriots.What can you say about Rand Paul? He believes what he chooses to believe. It has absolutely nothing to do with science. Every expert has told him that the research Dr. Fauci's agency funded in Wuhan could not have caused the lab leak, which Paul sees as the cause of the pandemic. In Paul's book, Anthony Fauci caused the pandemic and should be in prison for it. And he is obsessed with it. He has cross-examined Fauci in Senate hearings. He has called for his prosecution and imprisonment. That's why the preemptive pardon by President Joe Biden.

And now he has the audacity to argue that because Fauci received that presidential pardon, he is not entitled to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

If Rand Paul and the cowardly lions on his committee wanted to get full answers from Dr. Fauci (for the umpteenth time), then all they had to do was grant him immunity from prosecution for his answers. That would clear up any ambiguity about his duty to answer. But as it is, the pardon doesn't cover activities after the date of its issuance. Thus, it could certainly be argued, and Paul himself suggested this before the hearing, that it would not apply to testimony given at the hearing. Were Fauci to say something that in the mind of some prosecutor somewhere could be seen as inconsistent with something he said before, you could have a perjury indictment. The only safe thing is to say nothing at all, which is what Fauci did.

The usual procedure when a Senate committee votes for contempt is to refer the issue to the full Senate and only seek enforcement of the contempt citation from the Justice Department if there is a Senate vote confirming it. Rand Paul knows full well that there are not 60 votes in the Senate to refer Dr. Fauci for prosecution by the Justice Department. So, he and J.D. Vance did it their way.

As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Rand Paul authored the contempt resolution and pushed it through on a party-line vote. Then J.D.Vance, acting in his constitutional role as President of the Senate, officially certifies the report and directs it to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Lest anything about this stunt be lost in transit, Rand Paul hand-delivered the referral file to the Justice Department, which will decide whether to seek an indictment.

Dr. Fauci was right to refuse to participate in a kangaroo court. His blanket invocation is admittedly not the norm, but there was nothing normal about this hearing. The questions about the origin of COVID have already been asked and answered by Dr. Fauci. The Fifth Amendment is the only answer to that game of gotcha. Precedents dealing with the limits of the Fifth Amendment in protecting lies do not apply.

Much has been written about the imperial power of this President. What about the imperial power of one Senate committee and, in truth, one Senator, Rand Paul? He set about to humiliate and try to destroy an honorable man, and no one even tried to stop him. Where were his colleagues, who know better? Following like sheep. Avoiding the rancor of the crazies.

It used to be said that a good prosecutor could convince a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. No more with Trump Justice. Blanche and Pirro may have trouble on this one; they should. Grand jurors are also bound to uphold the conviction. And should it get that far, I predict the case will get thrown out. But why should an American hero be forced to spend his eighties this way? Why should Rand Paul have this much power?

Abdul el-Sayed

Michigan Delivers A Hard Lesson For AIPAC, But Will They Ever Learn?

There are plenty of explanations for what happened in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary, where Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, was declared the victor over Rep. Haley Stevens, a moderate, by a razor-thin margin of one percent.

For starters, he was the outsider, a former public health official talking about the fundamental economic issues, while she was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's second choice (after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) for the seat. He was, according to observers, the better communicator, the better orator, connecting on issues of affordability while she was expounding on her love for Michigan. He worked harder. He started campaigning well over a year ago and did some 500 public events against a candidate who stayed mostly out of the public eye and dodged tough questions.

And the polls were wrong, as usual. The polls were projecting a double-digit El-Sayed victory. That didn't happen. It turned into a cliffhanger, and El-Sayed only won by a razor-thin margin. So in that sense, as is always true of very close races, anything could have made the difference.

But there are certain facts coming out of Michigan that cannot be denied. Rep. Stevens was supported by some $60 million in outside money, including more than $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. That's AIPAC, for short, the pro-Israel lobby that used to wield enormous clout in Washington and in national politics. Her extraordinary support from AIPAC became an issue in the campaign, as did her opponent's stance on Israel.

Dr. El-Sayed is the sort of candidate that AIPAC exists to defeat. He believes that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. He has pledged to cut U.S. military aid to Israel. And, according to The New York Times, he has said he does not believe Israel should exist as an explicitly Jewish state. Throughout the campaign, El-Sayed attacked Stevens for her pro-Israel position, and said he hoped to go to Washington to influence policy on Israel, especially among the party's 2028 hopefuls.

AIPAC spent more money, according to the Times, trying to beat El-Sayed than any outside group has in a primary this year. They put $30-plus million on the scale and became a much-debated issue in the campaign for doing so. The message to other candidates is clear: AIPAC money comes with a price. Did it hurt Stevens more than it helped her? While apologists for AIPAC may spin that even with prevailing winds against them, they almost pulled it off, the fact of the matter is that they didn't pull it off. They lost.

A few years ago, there would have been no place in the Democratic Party for a candidate like El-Sayed. His views on Palestine would have been unacceptable. He would not have been given a speaking role at a national convention. As I write this, the party is unifying behind him to give him a speaking and voting role in the U.S. Senate.

As the polls have measured, accurately, public opinion on Israel has shifted dramatically, and negatively. Some of us continue, albeit with difficulty, to draw a line between our support for Israel and our opposition to its current government, but most people don't. They don't view Israel through the Holocaust-tinged glasses of my generation. We know this. AIPAC has to know this. The lesson of Michigan cannot be that they just needed a little more money. The message is not working.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.


Fauci

How A Far Right Witchhunt Forced Fauci To Invoke The Fifth Amendment

One hundred and eleven times. That's how many times Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid falling into the perjury trap Sen. Rand Paul was setting for him. Dr. Fauci was not brought in to testify because they needed to know more about what he had said and done in the past. No, he has not only testified multiple times about all of these issues in the past, but they are covered by the broad pardon of him that President Joe Biden granted before he left office.

The purpose here was the trap. Sen. Paul was open about it. He told reporters before the hearing that any statement made by Dr. Fauci at the hearing would not be protected by the presidential pardon — so if there were any inconsistency between what Dr. Fauci said now and then, no matter how small or insignificant, it could be the basis of a perjury charge. Paul has made no bones about his desire to see Dr. Fauci behind bars. Not that he can single-handedly succeed at doing so, but he got a gaggle of Republican senators who should have known better to follow his lead.

It is the purpose of the Fifth Amendment to prevent such persecutions. That's what this was, pure and simple, and thankfully we have a Constitution to invoke to stop it.

Not that Fauci was able to escape entirely unscathed. His lawyer — who happens to have a stellar reputation in Washington — got thrown out of the hearing. Some attorney general from the South threatened to prosecute him. For what? Invoking the Fifth. Paul wants to hold him in contempt for that. Again, I ask, for what? Since when is rightly invoking the Fifth because you rightly fear investigation and persecution, if not lawful prosecution, an offense that can land you behind bars? Punishing constitutionally protected activity as a crime?

Of course, there will always be people who say that only the guilty invoke the Fifth, and that's what they're saying about Dr. Fauci. When you're the target of a witch hunt, invoking the Fifth is an act of courage, calling your persecutors on their case.

Paul tried to smear Dr. Fauci by releasing excerpts from his diary in advance of the hearing. Some of his comments about the president were insulting. Big surprise. Not a crime. He was, it appears, impressed and taken by all the media attention he was receiving. A "narcissist," one of the Republican senators called him. Since when is that a crime in Washington?

For me, Dr. Fauci will always be a dedicated public servant who spent his life saving lives. There is no full accounting I've seen of the millions of lives he saved in the AIDS and COVID epidemics. Did his agency fund research at the lab in Wuhan that Paul is so sure was the source of a "lab leak"? It did, but as countless experts have tried to explain to Paul, it was not the kind of research that could have led to the COVID leak. What do you do with a man who prefers spite over science?

You ignore him, which is what the Senate, and the public, should do with Rand Paul.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.


Liberal Think Tank Urges  'Appropriate Restrictions' On Trans Athletes

Liberal Think Tank Urges  'Appropriate Restrictions' On Trans Athletes

"Ending the Backlash on LGBTQI+ Issues" is the title of the report out this week from the respected liberal think tank The Center for American Progress. As you might expect, the Center report urges Democrats to stand firm in supporting transgender soldiers and gender-transition care. But when it comes to girls' sports, it's not what you think.

This is what the liberal group has to say:

"The NCAA recently promulgated a restriction on transgender women playing in women's sports, a decision that it deemed appropriate for its level of competition and the sports it governs. Other associations, such as the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association, have passed policies allowing students to participate according to their gender identity. This is where these decisions appropriately lie: with sports' governing bodies or schools themselves rather than with politicians. While local bodies and associations should minimize unnecessary exclusion, restrictions may be appropriate under some circumstances."

"Restrictions may be appropriate under some circumstances."

Hallelujah. Not that I'm in favor of restrictions. I'm just against losing elections over them.

"We hope that this lowers the temperature and lets us come out of this really scary moment for folks," said Caleb Smith, CAP's director of LGBTQI+ policy, who is transgender and a co-author of the paper.

Thank you, Caleb. You have, hopefully, given Democrats a place to stand without facing too much backlash.Americans are not voting based on transgender issues. They don't show up on the list with the war and the economy and affordability. But issues like transgender discrimination unfortunately play into that calculus of character, of whose side are you on, that has been wielded so effectively against Democratic candidates.

When Democratic Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton said last month that she does not "support boys playing in girls' sports," her statement prompted criticism from Democratic advocacy groups and liberal state lawmakers who accused her of dismissing the identities of trans people.

From what I've heard, Amy Acton is a great candidate. What are we doing attacking her? Of all the people to attack, she should not be one. Don't we want her to win?

An overwhelming majority of American voters don't think transgender girls should play girls' sports. I don't happen to be one of them. I feel bad for the handful of girls — and it's usually just a handful — who lose out most directly when a district adopts "appropriate restrictions."

But is it worth risking an election over?

Remember the ad of President Donald Trump's — the most effective of the campaign — using transgender care in prison to attack Kamala Harris for standing for they/them while Donald Trump stands for you. The Harris campaign said they had nothing to say to blunt it. That can't be right. Or it can't be right again.

Barney Frank of Massachusetts was the first openly gay member of Congress and a fierce fighter for gay rights. Before he died this past year, he gave a series of interviews, which I wrote about, in which he cautioned the party not to move too fast on transgender rights, and in particular girls' sports. Barney talked about how the gay rights movement moved toward marriage equality but didn't start there. We have work to be done, which starts with winning the election of people who are willing to recognize the full range of gender equality, even if it comes with some "appropriate restrictions."

The Center report concludes that "all athletes deserve fair competition and a level playing field." I believe that. And we shall achieve it one day. Caleb's report, and Barney's wisdom, will hopefully bring us closer to that day.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

In Mideast, Dropping Diplomacy For Bloodshed Is Bad Policy And Stupid Politics

In Mideast, Dropping Diplomacy For Bloodshed Is Bad Policy And Stupid Politics

Last Wednesday, President Trump offered a new word to describe our Iranian adversary's leaders: "scum."

"They are sick people. They're led by sick people, and they're vicious, violent people," he said, adding, "As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them."

So, what are we supposed to do?

What we did was hit Iran with two of the worst days of bombing since the war started.

And what has that accomplished? Brought us to the brink, or back from the brink, the brink being the place that mediators between us and Iran say we are on. The brink of all-out, endless war, which feels like it has never really stopped.

Instead of facing our own problems and addressing them, President Donald Trump leads us in an unpopular war while gas prices and grocery check-outs go up.

Unpopular wars make for unpopular presidents, which make for bad electoral outcomes.

Sooner or later, Trump is going to have to deal with the men he calls "scum," or some of them. Calling them names will not strengthen his hand. His version of diplomacy looks more like the moves of a weaker hand. Pursuing military strength without at the same time pursuing peace leads to a dead end.

That was, coincidentally perhaps, the message of former Chicago Mayor, Congressman, and Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, who went to Tel Aviv to bring home his criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.

"The prime minister and his government have led Israel into a dead end," Emanuel said. Citing the importance of pursuing both military strength and peace talks, he added, "Prime Minister Netanyahu has done the former to the exclusion of the latter, and as a direct result, support for Israel is plummeting around the world."

Emanuel was voicing the opinion of most American Jews when he made clear his criticism of Netanyahu and his endless wars. He criticized Netanyahu for playing partisan politics with the GOP rather than maintaining the bipartisan support for Israel of the past.

Netanyahu did not, of course, respond. Some of his allies reportedly claimed that Rahm was not important enough to respond to; on that, they are clearly wrong. Rahm should never be underestimated, and the movement he speaks for is only growing. Others tried to paint him into a corner: as one adviser to Netanyahu posted, "There will be a place for Rahm Emanuel in between Karl Marx and Bernie Sanders when the next edition of The Vanishing Jew is published."

But Rahm Emanuel is far from a self-hating Jew. His father was born in Jerusalem. He has strong ties to Israel. His opposition to Netanyahu is shared by a majority of American Jews, who also express concern about Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza and its engaging in war crimes; a significant minority thinks Israel engaged in genocide. Younger American Jews (ages 18 to 34) are less attached emotionally to Israel and more likely to be critical.

We need a negotiated solution with Iran. Israel needs a negotiated resolution with its neighbors. Name-calling has never been a preferred tactic of experienced negotiators, and Trump is hardly proof of a new lesson in that regard. Accuse Rahm Emanuel of many things, but no one has ever said that he's not a smart politician. What he's saying right now is smart, and it's smart politics. What Trump's saying is not.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Beyond Birthright Citizenship, Justices Prove Case For Supreme Court Reform

Beyond Birthright Citizenship, Justices Prove Case For Supreme Court Reform

He still hasn't given up. In the wake of the 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court tossing out his Executive Order abolishing birthright citizenship, President Donald Trump was back at it, insisting that Congress should act. He cared enough about the case that he took the unprecedented step of attending the oral argument. But he brushed off the historic loss in the Court.

He posted on Truth Social: "The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President ... No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!"

In fact, according to five of the six Justices in the majority, a long and unwieldy process would be required because Trump's Executive Order violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Constitution specifically provides: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." All persons born in the United States are citizens. It couldn't be clearer, which hasn't stopped Trump from harping on it for the last decade.Two-thirds of both houses of Congress must pass a proposal to amend the Constitution, then ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. It is a cumbersome process and rightly so, certainly in this case.

The argument — or maybe the polemic — against birthright citizenship focuses on what are called the "anchor babies" — the children of illegal immigrants who are born here and then used to secure legal residence for their families. It's mostly a myth: the anchor babies have to wait until they are 21 to sponsor their parents for green cards, which then becomes a nightmare because they have to return to their home country and wait years to complete the process — and the fear that, if they leave, they will not be permitted re-entry into the country.

There will be bills introduced in Congress, but they should go nowhere. The constitutional obstacle, which had been assumed, has now been established. It's one of Trump's two big losses — the other being tariffs — before a conservative Court that has mostly done his bidding.

The Supreme Court also ended its term, ending the careers of transgender girls in school sports across the country and allowing political parties to pour even more money directly into candidate campaigns, taking the swamp that is electoral politics and just expanding it.

The issue of transgender girls in sports may be ahead of its time, as the late Barney Frank suggested, but the individual stories of girls being forced to give up their passion to satisfy politicians are compelling.As for the freedom of the political parties to pour more money into the process, is that even possible? The answer to the question is yes, and the reflecting pool turned green because that is the color of money, and since the landmark Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, there is no stopping the corruption of the system.

The landmark 2010 decision struck down restrictions on independent political spending by corporations, labor unions, and other organizations, allowing them to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections. The Super PACs came next, and the expansion goes on. The Republicans went to the Court for this one because their party committees have more money set aside. This committee will spend hundreds of millions alone; no wonder so many people are voting to get the bums out, even the bums they agree with.

And no wonder constitutional law scholar and Congressional leader Jamie Raskin has his eye on restructuring the Supreme Court.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Hillary Is Right On Biden's Fatal Error, But Skips Troubling Questions About Harris

Hillary Is Right On Biden's Fatal Error, But Skips Troubling Questions About Harris

In a new interview this week, Hillary Clinton identified the key decision that resulted in President Donald Trump's election in 2024. It all boiled down, in her view, to a "terrible miscalculation" -- former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s decision to run for re-election. Mr. Biden made a "terrible mistake for himself, his legacy and for the country" in deciding to seek re-election at the age of 81. Had he decided to "pass the torch" and the Democratic Party had held a competitive nomination process, "whoever emerged from that contest — whether it was the vice president, or a governor, or a senator or anybody else — would have beaten Donald Trump."

Or, I would add, they would have had a better chance than Biden did.

Joe and Jill Biden clearly live in a state of denial with respect to Joe's unpopularity. In some respects, it's understandable: He wasn't a bad president and he left the country in better shape than it is now. So why shouldn't Jill think that even though she was afraid her husband was having a stroke during the debate with Trump, he should stay in the race and if he had, they both seem to believe, he would have beaten Trump. It's delusional thinking that must have been reinforced by the deep-seated loyalty of those who had been around him for so long. Sadly, the cost of that delusional thinking is being borne around the world.

Democratic Party is still struggling to figure out what went wrong. The unofficial official autopsy report, which the Party commissioned and then disowned, studiously avoided any criticism of Biden's decision to seek re-election, which cast doubt on the rest of the report.

Of course, the question remains: Was Kamala Harris the right candidate? That's the one that even Hillary avoided, pointing out that Kamala would have been a stronger candidate if she'd emerged from a competitive process. But would she have? Emerged from a competitive process, that is. Kamala Harris was the Vice President for an unpopular President. She was caught between defending the indefensible and attacking her own Administration. She never figured out how to walk that line in the general election and there's no reason to think it would have been easier in the primaries.

The Democratic Party is still struggling to figure out what went wrong. The unofficial official autopsy report, which the party commissioned and then disowned, studiously avoided any criticism of Biden's decision to seek re-election, which cast doubt on the rest of the report.

Of course, the question remains: Was Kamala Harris the right candidate? That's the one that even Hillary avoided, pointing out that Kamala would have been a stronger candidate if she'd emerged from a competitive process. But would she have? Emerged from a competitive process, that is. Kamala Harris was the Vice President for an unpopular President. She was caught between defending the indefensible and attacking her own Administration. She never figured out how to walk that line in the general election and there's no reason to think it would have been easier in the primaries.

The simple fact that Democrats need to accept is that Americans preferred the convicted felon to the vice president. They got to see them both, up close. Harris ran a better campaign than she gets credit for. She did put her best foot forward. She was well-financed. Experienced strategists surrounded her. She did not use a private email server, as Hillary did. She did not have investigators nipping at her heels, the way Hillary did. It was, considering everything, a smooth run. She just didn't win.

I have yet to hear any explanation for why she's a stronger candidate today than she was in 2024, and she would need to be a stronger candidate to defeat a Marco Rubio, for instance. Kamala is leading in most, although not all, of the early polls, but that is a matter of name recognition; perhaps more significant is the fact that a majority of Democrats, at this stage, favor candidates other than Harris. And Harris has done almost nothing since the election to distinguish herself as the party's leader.

Soon enough, we will be hearing more, not only from Gavin Newsom, who is already out there (and being investigated for it), but from J.B. Pritzker and Josh Shapiro and Pete Buttigieg, not to mention Jon Ossoff, Ro Khanna and AOC. The nomination process is flawed in many ways, but at least it's a test, one that Kamala will be forced to pass this time.


Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.


Trump's Stooge: Tainted Federal Prosecutor Stirs California Election Conspiracies

Trump's Stooge: Tainted Federal Prosecutor Stirs California Election Conspiracies

There he goes again. As Democrats predicted before the first votes were in, President Donald Trump is, as is his way, challenging the results of the elections in California. With absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing, he took to Truth Social twice on Wednesday.

"The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS," Trump posted

"There's BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY???"

Trump knows exactly why the delay. It's because the state relies heavily on mail-in ballots, which must be postmarked by election day but may not arrive until days after. And then they are hand-counted, with signatures verified and corrected if necessary. It's part of making sure that as many people participate as possible, and that every vote is counted. Another word for it is democracy.

You'd think that if Democrats were stealing the Governor's and Mayor's race, they'd be doing a more effective job of it; in fact, Trump's favored candidates are doing better than expected. But there is a method to Trump's madness: the popular theory, backed up by some practical evidence, that late-deciding mail-in ballots tend to break Democratic and progressive.

Four years ago, Rick Caruso, the popular developer, held a comfortable lead over Karen Bass on the morning after the election, only to see their positions reversed by the late ballots. Does that mean that Spencer Pratt and Steve Hilton, the TV hosts turned politicians, will lose their spots in the run-off? Probably not. But the feds are ready to prosecute, just in case.

More troubling than Trump's social media rants are the actions actually being taken by his ardent loyalist, who is the "first assistant U.S. Attorney" for the Central District of California — a loophole method of having a non-confirmed and non-confirmable appointee run the office. First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, on Friday morning, said his office "has multiple election fraud investigations underway," in coordination with the FBI in Los Angeles. Essayli's office confirmed that Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Renner was at a Los Angeles County ballot processing center Friday "to observe the vote counting process."

Essayli's office has earned the reputation, under his "leadership," of losing. He has distinguished himself for his vigor in pursuing the Trump agenda, prosecuting protestors, immigrants and activists, with surprisingly little success. There is an old expression that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Essayli and his lieutenants are not, by that standard, very good prosecutors.

The judges of the Central District could select a new U.S. Attorney to fill the vacancy in the Central District, but they haven't moved to do so. One explanation is that they are simply letting Essayli and his team fall on their faces. Meghan Blanco, a former federal prosecutor and veteran defense attorney, suggested to the Los Angeles Times that the federal judges' inaction with Essayli might be a clever act of resistance. "If you're a judge and displeased with what DOJ is doing and the shenanigans they're pulling ... you let the Essayli appointment play out," Blanco said. "No one has seen a U.S. attorney's office lose the way this office is losing now."

Opening investigations to suit the president's partisan whims is the secret to success in the Trump justice system. It is what won Bill Pulte, the housing chief who, based on his willingness to scour the mortgage applications of Trump's enemies, the spot of Director of National Intelligence. It is all that Trump values, and it is a terrible abuse of power. In prior times, presidents could face impeachment for such abuses. In this world, we have come to accept it as business as usual. It should not be.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.


Vengeful 'Investigation' Of E. Jean Carroll Shows Justice Department Running Amok

Vengeful 'Investigation' Of E. Jean Carroll Shows Justice Department Running Amok

President Donald Trump may be the smallest, meanest and most vengeful man to serve in the Oval Office. Every time I think he and his minions could stoop no lower, they surprise me. There is simply no limit to Trump's hunger for vengeance, or the willingness of his minions to do his bidding, no matter how unethical.

The latest is Wednesday's news, first reported by CNN, that the Justice Department has launched an investigation of E. Jean Carroll, the woman who successfully sued Donald Trump for sex abuse and defamation. And won. And won on appeal.

So what does Trump do? Own up to his wrongdoing? Never. Accept the verdict and move on? Not Trump-like. No, when someone does something Donald Trump doesn't like, he sics the Justice Department on them for a pretextual investigation. If that doesn't amount to weaponizing the Justice Department for partisan political purposes, what does?

The "investigation," if you can call it that, reportedly centers on whether Carroll lied in a deposition four years ago when asked whether outside backers were funding her fight against Trump. Carroll later disclosed that billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman helped cover some of her legal expenses through a nonprofit with which she had no direct connection. So what? It doesn't change any of the facts. It is hardly the stuff that the Justice Department could be bothered to investigate. This is not a federal case. It is the latest act of petty vengeance by a man who has no limits to the grudges he keeps or the power he is willing to use to get even.

The reaction to the news of the Carroll investigation prompted outrage, as it should. Gavin Newsom, with his usual taste for understatement, called the president "sick." If this is an illness, it threatens all of us with its inherent corruption and its assault on the rule of law.

Said California's Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff: "First, Trump weaponized the DOJ to target his political enemies. Now, perversely, he's targeting E. Jean Carroll, the woman who credibly and successfully sued him for sexual assault. He's using the power of the DOJ to go after his own victims. It's a vile attack on the rule of law and a disgusting insult to victims everywhere."

This is not just about Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll. It is, as Sen. Schiff points out, "a disgusting insult to victims everywhere." It is a message to anyone who dares to take on Donald Trump that they will be subject to a criminal investigation. If he would do this to the woman who successfully sued him for sexual abuse, who would he not do it to?

Just for the record, Carroll defeated Trump in two separate civil cases. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll.

A second jury later ordered Trump to pay additional damages for repeated defamatory statements attacking Carroll as a liar. Trump appealed both rulings and lost both times. So what? He is the king.

The Justice Department is not supposed to be doing the dirty work for a president who does not believe in the rule of law. Trump had his day in court — multiple days — and lost. Now he is abusing his power as president to get even.

There were times when the Justice Department would have refused to be dragged into an abyss like this. They would not have done the president's private bidding. Those days are past. So the question is, who is going to stop this? The press is doing its job. So are most of the courts. But that is not enough. Congress, with its oversight role, must investigate and rein in an out-of-control Justice Department.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.


What Went Wrong For Democrats In 2024 -- And What Must Go Right Next Time

What Went Wrong For Democrats In 2024 -- And What Must Go Right Next Time

For months now, Democrats argued about whether to release the "autopsy" the National Committee commissioned on what went wrong in 2024. The report was completed but then not released; under pressure, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin released the report late last week, but only with the caveat that it didn't meet the Committee's standards, whatever that means.

In truth, the report finds plenty of blame. That's the problem with losing a close election — and 2024, no matter how many times President Donald Trump describes it as a landslide, it wasn't — is that almost everything you did "wrong" could have made the difference. Which doesn't necessarily tell you what to do right, the next time around, or address the very real divides inside the Democratic Party.

The report faults almost everyone. The Biden White House is faulted for not doing enough during the first term and the 2022 midterms to prepare Kamala Harris to lead the ticket, which, of course, would not have mattered so much had former President Joe Biden not waited so long to decide not to run, but that's another story.The Harris campaign is faulted for writing off rural voters, relying too much on identity politics and not being tough enough on Trump. When the other side runs a negative campaign and wins, as Trump did here, the response is always that you should have hit back harder. With what, is the question.

One of the most striking conclusions and the most troubling is about the efficacy of the ad Trump ran attacking Harris on transgender issues — in this case, on her previous statement of support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for prison inmates.

The report cites the ad as "very effective," and says that internal pollsters believed that "if the Vice President would not change her position — and she did not — then there was nothing which would have worked as a response."Are Democrats in fact too far out front of voters on transgender issues?

Do Democrats rely too much on identity politics, an argument that works better with the base of the Democratic party than it does with more moderate, independent voters, whom they need to attract?

According to the report, "Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate. The math doesn't work ... You can't lose rural areas by overwhelming margins and make it up elsewhere when rural voters are a significant share of the electorate. If Democrats are to reclaim leadership in the Heartland or the South, candidates must perform well in rural turf. Show up, listen and then do it again."

As for male voters, the report argues that "Male voters require direct engagement. The gender gap can be narrowed. Deploy male messengers, address economic concerns and don't assume identity politics will hold male voters of color."

The release of the autopsy and all the discussion about why it took so long to release it coincides with a new New York Times/Siena College poll showing Democrats with a strong advantage going into the midterms, but also with deep divides and disillusionment within the party. While the left is the loudest force on the Democratic side, it may not be the most popular: a majority of Democratic supporters said that they were generally happy with the party's ideological positioning, but 52 percent said the next Democratic presidential candidate should move the party to the center in order to win. Only a quarter said the next candidate should move the party to the left.

The Times found that more than half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expressed frustration with the party: "unhappiness spanned almost every part of the party's coalition — including young, white, Black and college-educated voters — and was especially strong among Democrats least attached to the party, who are the most likely to swing elections."

The real issue for Democrats is not why they lost the last election, but how they are going to avoid losing the next one.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

What Republicans Really Mean When They Accuse Democrats Of 'Election Cheating'

What Republicans Really Mean When They Accuse Democrats Of 'Election Cheating'

The Republicans are determined to pass it. It's their Hail Mary pass for the midterms. If you can't win an election fair and square, then suppress the votes. Disenfranchise those who aren't likely to vote for you. Create a phony problem that you then have to solve. It's an outrage. And it's happening in real time.

"The cheating is rampant in our elections," President Donald Trump told Congress last month. That's a lie. It isn't. The liberal Brennan Center reached the same conclusion as the conservative Heritage Foundation. Noncitizen voting is ridiculously rare. The Brennan Center found exactly 30 instances of noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes it reviewed in the 2016 election. The Heritage Foundation found 24 instances of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections between 2003 and 2023.

Results from the states confirm these numbers. A sample from Reuters: Florida has prosecuted two people for voting as noncitizens since 2022, out of 13.5 million registered voters. In Kansas, a 2018 court case found that 39 noncitizens registered to vote between 1999 and 2013, out of roughly 1.8 million registered voters. Nevada found that three noncitizens voted in the 2016 election, out of more than 1 million ballots cast.

"You gotta win the midterms," Trump told House Republicans in January, "because if we don't win the midterms, they'll find a reason to impeach me." And how do you do that when the country is turning against the president? The answer Trump gave last week was simple. Pass the SAVE Act. "It'll guarantee the midterms ... If you send it up there, you will win the midterms and you will win every election for a long time."

By disenfranchising women voters, young people and poor Americans. By making it more difficult for people to vote, you make it easier for Republicans to win. It is shameful.

Here's how it works, or rather doesn't work. The bill requires documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. A real ID isn't even enough; only five states — Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington — even offer a special "enhanced" driver's license that indicates citizenship and those cost extra. For everyone else, you'd need a U.S. passport or a birth certificate paired with a photo ID to register to vote.

But wait. Who has a valid passport? About 146 million Americans don't. And the birth certificate won't work for the 84% of married women who change their last name and so would also need a copy of their marriage license, in addition to the birth certificate and photo ID, just to register, or re-register to vote. That's some 69 million American women whose birth certificate no longer matches their legal names.

Under the SAVE Act, any of them who need to register, re-register, or update their address would have to show up in person at an election office — which only six percent of voters currently do — with three separate documents: a birth certificate, a photo ID and a marriage certificate to bridge the gap between the two. Those who fail to do so or who are swept up in the bill's mandatory voter-roll purges could lose the right to vote.

What are Republicans so afraid of? How can they tie up the Senate on this? Have they no shame?

They are afraid of women voters. They are afraid of new voters. They are afraid that the more people vote, the worse they will do. They are doing nothing less than undermining the democratic process. It is simply indefensible.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

MAGA Debate Over Iran Conflict Degenerates Into 'Micropenis' Flame War

MAGA Debate Over Iran Conflict Degenerates Into 'Micropenis' Flame War

Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News Host turned podcaster, is in the business of getting attention. This week, it worked. She got the attention of the President of the United States in her attack on fellow conservative talker Mark Levin, not to mention the support of fellow bomb thrower Marjorie Taylor Greene.

At the center of the attack is the question of the size of Mark Levin's member.

Levin is for the war with Iran, Kelly is against it. But they aren't debating the war like we teach children to do, using their words to make a point rather than calling names. No, the way you get attention is by going on the attack.

"Poor Megyn Kelly. An emotionally unhinged, lewd, and petulant wreck. She's completely revealed and destroyed herself," Levin wrote in on social media post on Sunday. "She's everything people say she is, but much worse. Never an intelligent, thoughtful, or substantive comment. Utterly toxic."

Kelly responded to Levin, calling him "micropenis Mark," writing that he "thinks he has the monopoly on lewd."

"He tweets about me obsessively in the crudest, nastiest terms possible," Kelly wrote. "Literally more than some stalkers I've had arrested. He doesn't like it when women like me fight back. Bc of his micropenis."

That's when Trump got involved. He took to social media on Sunday to defend Levin and attack Kelly.

"Mark Levin, a truly Great American Patriot, is somewhat under siege by other people with far less Intellect, Capability and Love for our Country. Mark is Tough, Strong and Brilliant. When you hear others unfairly attack Mark, remember that they are jealous and angry Human Beings, whose "sway" is much less than the Public understands, and will, now that they know where I stand, rapidly diminish."

Megyn was not cowed. I'm sure she was delighted. The exchange was getting lots of attention. So she piled on. Kelly wrote on Monday that Levin is "such a SMALL MAN he had to go beg the president for a pat on the head (in the middle of a war!) to make himself feel better about ... well, you know ... Just like all feckless, weakling bullies Micro can dish it out but he can't take it. After just one post putting the so-called 'great one' in his place, he ran crying to Daddy," she wrote.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), once a staunch Trump ally, offered her support to Kelly, writing: "I wholeheartedly support Megyn Kelly telling the world that Mark Levin has a micropenis. It's the most deserved insult and I don't care if it's vulgar. And Trump's gigantic defense of Levin only enraged the base more. People are DONE. MAGA destroyed by micropenis Mark Levin."

These are our opinion leaders? Our public intellectuals? The people getting all the attention in what should be a serious discussion of our goals and our mission in Iran? This is what MAGA has devolved to.

And in the midst of this, you have the president and his FCC chair complaining about how the mainstream media is covering the war and threatening broadcast licenses. The mainstream media is a model of restraint compared to the screamers on the right. The threats clearly violate the First Amendment. If the coverage comes out to be mixed, at best, that's because this administration has so completely failed at messaging this war: stating a rationale, defining the engagement, outlining the endgame. Theirs is an invitation to skeptical coverage.

The way to deal with that skeptical coverage is to answer the underlying questions about mission and duration, not to blame the people who are asking. But MAGA is too busy throwing mud at each other to answer the fundamental questions about this war that still have not been addressed. President Donald Trump has no one to blame but his own friends for the coverage he doesn't like. They deserve it.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.


Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert, Equal Time And The True Public Interest

Stephen Colbert was right to be mad. His bosses at CBS put the kabosh on an interview he wanted to do with a Texas Senate candidate on his late-night talk show. But you can't just blame CBS. The fault lies, as it so often does these days, in the Trump administration, which last month announced new "guidance" from the Federal Communications Commission requiring "equal time" on entertainment-oriented talk shows.

The guidance was clearly aimed at Trump's targets on late-night TV, including of course, Jimmy Kimmel of ABC, who has been targeted as well by Trump's FCC chair, Brendan Carr. It grows out of the longstanding conservative complaints about the late-night liberal conspiracy and the tendency of liberal hosts and guests to dominate. So what do you do? This is not the small government/libertarian crowd. These are big government conservatives. Regulate the hell out of them is what they are doing.

Until now, the broadcast industry — following the FCC's lead — had taken the position that talk shows, like news shows, were exempt from the "public interest" requirement that stations must give rival candidates equal opportunities to buy time and appear on tv. Indeed, the FCC ruled explicitly in 2006 that interviews on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno were exempt. Then came the new guidance. "This major announcement from the FCC should stop one-sided left-wing entertainment shows masquerading as 'bona fide news,'" Daniel Suhr, the president of the Center for American Rights, said at the time the guidance was issued in January.

Or, as Carr himself put it on X: "For years, legacy TV networks assumed that their late-night & daytime talk shows qualify as 'bona fide news' programs — even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes. Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities."

Or no opportunities at all. Forget the banner of free speech. As the Colbert example clearly demonstrates, the consequences of guaranteeing equal time for all candidates are most likely to be no time for any of them. What you're really telling talk shows to do — including daytime shows like The View — is to stay away from politics, which is absolutely the last message that government should be sending.

The FCC has one Democratic member. She issued a statement when the new guidance was issued calling what her fellow Commissioners were doing "an escalation in this FCC's ongoing campaign to censor and control speech. Broadcasters should not feel pressured to water down, sanitize or avoid critical coverage out of fear of regulatory retaliation."

Clearly, that is what happened at CBS. While Colbert said he expected the network to do more to protect him, CBS itself told The New York Times that it had offered him "guidance" (clearly, the word of the day) on how to comply with the new version of the rule, including by offering equal airtime to the two other Democrats in the race.

The larger question — whether the public interest is in fact served by a rule adopted in 1927 to protect against then-powerful radio networks exerting undue influence on politics — is not one CBS alone can easily address. Brendan Carr knows his answer. He's all in for regulation in what he sees as the public interest. Whether the courts and Congress will go along remains to be seen.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.


Before Trump Sends Troops To Minnesota, Will Republicans Tell Him No?

Before Trump Sends Troops To Minnesota, Will Republicans Tell Him No?

President Donald Trump made the threat, where else, on Truth Social:

"If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don't obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State."

The Insurrection Act was signed into law in 1807. It was last invoked by former President George H.W. Bush in 1992, at the request of the California Governor, to deal with the Los Angeles Riots. Unlike deploying the National Guard, which Trump has also done, the Insurrection Act allows armed forces to carry out law enforcement functions for which they may or may not be trained.

You would have the military protecting not only federal buildings but immigration enforcement efforts, whatever form they might take. Talk about turning the streets — and parking lots — into battleground stand-offs. For what?

There is, of course, no insurrection, much less one led by professional agitators. ICE's job is not to kill anyone. If anyone is to blame for the overheated situation in Minnesota, it is Donald Trump, who thrives on it.

Unlike other presidents, who might see this as a time to bring the nation together, to express grief at a tragic loss, to vow to do better, this president does just the opposite. He doesn't want to turn the temperature down. He wants to turn it up. He investigates the widow instead of the officer. The pot boils, prosecutors quit, so what, he'll send more agents in. And if that inflames things further, then he can invoke the Act, which is what he really wants to do and what he views as a means to throttle a city and state he perceives as his opponent.

That's how he plays and that's how his team plays and if that's not how you play, then you shouldn't have voted for him, because he shows no sign of changing. Trumpism has never been about unity; it has always been us against them. Only now it is more so.

So what does everyone else do? Of course, they'll sue; the state's Attorney General has already brought suit regarding the ICE deployment and told the press that if Donald Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, he's prepared to challenge that in court.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, there are three ways the president can invoke the Act. The first is at the request of a state legislature or the governor, facing an "insurrection," which is not the path here. The second is when "unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion" makes it "impracticable" to enforce federal laws — a much more likely path — and the third is to suppress an insurrection that "hinders the execution of the laws" or "opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws."

You don't have to be Stephen Miller in the White House to knit together the Insurrection Act with the enforcement of immigration/deportation law into an unholy manifesto. Or to think that they already have.

Republican leaders are reportedly asking Trump to exercise restraint and not further inflame the situation by sending in the military. Are there enough Republican "leaders" to go to him and actually say something that almost sounds like "no"? And will he listen to them and care? Our military was not trained to march in Minneapolis. This is not what they signed up for. We should not send them there. Enough is enough.

Susan Estrich is a celebrated feminist legal scholar, the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, and the first woman to run a U.S. presidential campaign. She has written eight books.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.