On December 15, President Obama made it clear his administration planned to take action against Russia for their unprecedented interference in the U.S. presidential election, saying: “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action. And we will — […]

The building of Israeli settlements on disputed lands, which has long been a major point of contention in the Israel/Palestine peace process, took a major turn last week when the U.S. abstained on a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity rather than exercising its veto power. The Obama administration has vetoed every similar measure in the past, but […]

On Inauguration Day in 2009, Republicans held a planning session to discuss ways they could completely counteract and hamstring everything President Obama did. By killing compromise immigration legislation, shutting down the government, suing the president over executive actions, holding hearings on the taxpayers’ dime to try to implicate his appointees in scandals and conspiracy theories, illegally writing to the Iranian mullahs […]

During a recent Today Show interview, President-elect Donald Trump mentioned in passing a serious escalation of his previous promise to gut federal regulations once he takes office. LAUER: Your comments about Boeing — by the way, shortly after you made those comments, the market value of Boeing dropped about a billion dollars in a matter […]

I am a native-born American citizen. But like many non-white Americans, I have experienced being ordered to “go back to where you came from.” Never mind that I am a multi-generational Texan whose family has been here for centuries. I am a descendant of American slaves and slaveholders — my ancestors have been here an […]

If you have felt like 2016 was a dreadful year and you are glad to see the back of it, you are certainly not alone. We are entering 2017 in a much different space than we had hoped and expected to be: Instead of celebrating the nation’s first female president whose competent leadership would build […]

In a remarkably tolerant piece which suggests “Given Trump’s own background as a master brander and showman who ran beauty pageants as a sideline, it was probably inevitable that he would be looking beyond their résumés for a certain aesthetic in his supporting players,” the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker and Karen Tumulty report that Trump […]

Already, Donald Trump has chosen former Goldman Sachs partner and the founder of a hedge fund Steven Mnuchin to be his Secretary of the Treasury; has chosen billionaire investor Wilbur Ross to be his Commerce Secretary; has chosen Wall Street billionaire Carl Icahn to be his regulatory czar; and has chosen Goldman Sachs’ Chief Operating […]

For any Democrat or liberal voter who may be feeling demoralized and afraid while looking ahead to the new year and the inauguration of Donald Trump, new reporting from Burgess Everett at Politico provides much-needed hope and strength. Senate Democrats, eager to expose the president-elect as a fraud full of broken promises, see the confirmation hearings […]

Our new president-elect has already shown a rampant disregard for Internet freedom. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump once stated he would like to “close up the Internet” in some areas to stop terrorism, the way Iran and China do. No less dangerous, though, is his position on Net Neutrality. Simply put, Net Neutrality is a […]

After House Republicans voted to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which investigates ethics and criminal complaints against lawmakers, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted: With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January […]

Politico reports that President-elect Donald Trump is throwing a “New Year’s Eve extravaganza” at his privately-owned Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, at which he and his family will supposedly be in attendance: Saturday’s formal event is scheduled to include a cocktail hour in the resort’s living room and patio area, followed by dinner and dancing […]

President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration have gone to extraordinary lengths to deny and otherwise downplay the Russian interference in the 2016 election that the FBI and CIA agree was intended to help elect him, including dismissing the entire “age of computer” out of hand. Now Team Trump has taken this effort to a […]

The Trump Transition has announced that Kellyanne Conway will be staying on as part of the team, in the role of Counselor to the President. Conway, said Trump in a statement, “has been a trusted advisor and strategist who played a crucial role in my victory. She is a tireless and tenacious advocate of my […]

When President-elect Donald Trump hinted that he would reveal secret evidence of Russia’s innocence in the hacks that the FBI and CIA say were intended to deliver him the election, I noted that if such information actually existed, it might be the product of a Russia-connected source with an interest in defending the Russian government. […]

President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter on Friday to offer kudos to Russian President Vladimir Putin: Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016 While Trump’s language is ambiguous in terms of exactly what “delay” he is referring to, he […]

Donald Trump still alarmingly refuses to condemn ongoing Russian hacking, which is both damaging and potentially treasonous. But in 2014, when he was not the beneficiary of hacking personally orchestrated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump called Russian hacking “a big problem.” On Fox News in 2014, however, Trump was quick to agree with a […]

It was just after the stock market closed on Wednesday when President-elect Donald Trump announced that because of Donald Trump, Sprint would be creating 5,000 new jobs in the United States: So we just had some very good news. Because of what’s happening and the spirit and the hope, I was just called by the […]

New reporting by the Associated Press reveals that several “white nationalist” groups have been receiving millions in tax-free “charitable” donations over the last decade by registering as charities with the IRS, an outrageous issue all on its own. Now these groups believe that the Donald Trump administration will help them further fill their tax-exempt coffers: […]

Donald Trump has refused to acknowledge Russian interference in the election, and his latest response when asked about it was to say, “I think we ought to get on with our lives.” During an interview with CNN’s Kate Bolduan, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) had stern words in response to Trump’s alarming indifference: “Getting on with […]

Trump, who pledged to drain the swamp of lobbyists, is getting, by all appearances, his own private lobbying arm steps from the White House pic.twitter.com/gGFVq5Yf2n — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) December 21, 2016 Despite campaign promises to “drain the swamp,” which became a rallying cry of his supporters, President-elect Donald Trump and members of his sphere […]

In a new, detailed article at Politico, Kenneth P. Vogel reports that Donald Trump will be keeping some members of his “private security and intelligence team.” “The arrangement represents a major break from tradition,” writes Vogel, which is a polite way of saying this is not normal. All modern presidents and presidents-elect have entrusted their […]

Off-the-record press events have long been a controversial aspect of presidential coverage, but there has never been one quite like the gathering that President-elect Donald Trump recently hosted for the reporters who cover him. While no reporting was allowed at the posh Mar-a-Lago event, pictures were permitted. And what pictures they were. There was this […]

Even though he openly requested that Russia intervene on his behalf in July, President-elect Donald Trump has since denied the existence of Russian interference in our election despite the unanimous conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community. That includes the CIA’s assessment that the attacks were intended specifically to help elect Trump, and more recent reporting […]

Since winning the election, Donald Trump has behaved as though he is already the president, engaging in foolhardy and dangerous foreign policy antics and showing disrespect to still-President Obama while doing so. In an effort to call this out, and to forestall similar behavior from future presidents-elect, California Democratic Representative Jared Huffman recently introduced the […]

Republicans have long insisted that a major obstacle to defeating ISIS is the Obama administration’s reluctance to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Perhaps they felt safer when President-elect Donald Trump declared the assassin of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey a “radical Islamic terrorist,” and used similar language to describe the attacker who killed at least 12 people […]

At a stop on his “Thank You” tour in Orlando, Florida, on Friday, President-elect Donald Trump brought up the subject of dangerous, hateful behavior among his supporters. They had been, he stated, “vicious” and “violent,” they were “nasty and mean,” and they screamed support for a border wall and for imprisoning Hillary Clinton. But Trump […]

[Background: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.] Aggressive Reporting Is Not The Same As Journalism In her Brookings article, Susan Glasser of Politico applauded the “aggressive reporting” done by the media during Election 2016: If ever there were a campaign that called for aggressive reporting, this one did, and it produced terrific examples of […]

During an interview on CNN’s New Day with Chris Cuomo, Rep. Elijah Cummings addressed the seriousness of Russian interference in our democratic institutions and reminded his Republican colleagues that national security breaches are not a partisan issue. Watch: “This is a struggle for the soul of our democracy” — @RepCummings wants 9/11-type commission to look […]

Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) threw down the gauntlet against President-elect Donald Trump recently, declaring in an appearance on MSNBC that she has “no intention in pretending everything is alright, that we’re going to work together,” and promising, particularly in her role as a ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, that she is “going to […]