As Republicans prepare to take control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency, Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative West Virginia Democrat turned independent, has a question for his former Democratic teammates: “How do you like that filibuster now?” Mr. Manchin is feeling sassy these days. His ex-party just got its clock cleaned and is facing two years, minimum, in the political wilderness. And, no surprise, as Mr. Manchin prepares to retire in January, he has plenty of thoughts on...

To do otherwise would be self-sabotage. On Saturday night, President-elect Trump announced that he is nominating Kash Patel — a former Trump administration official, top congressional staffer, and Justice Department national security lawyer — to lead the FBI. That is, the bureau’s current director, Christopher Wray, is to be fired before his presumptive ten-year term expires. By the time this news broke, I had already put to bed for publication on Monday a fairly long essay...

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman who is the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Boulos arranged Trump campaign efforts to engage the Arab American community in Michigan, organizing dozens of meetings in areas with large Arab American populations angered by Democratic President Joe Biden’s backing of Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon. Trump won the majority...

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson's advocacy group is launching a new corporate scorecard to shine a light on the secretive practices companies use to silence workers about sexual harassment and discrimination. Why it matters: The idea behind the Lift Our Voices scoring system is to track employers' use of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and forced arbitration (secret courts outside the public system) — similar to how other surveys examine benefits like health...

From the Center Perhaps the most audacious gamble of Donald Trump’s audacious campaign was his outreach to young working-class men. For months before the election, Trump’s team believed that these low-propensity voters—men of all racial and ethnic backgrounds who did not attend college and had struggled economically since the pandemic—could be convinced to turn out in large numbers for the former president. Because those without college degrees tend to pay less attention to politics,...

This piece was originally posted by the Alliance for Citizen Engagement (Center). It was written by Christopher Krutz. Background Officially founded in 2009, BRICS is an informal, multilateral economic alliance between Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. The acronym “BRIC” (later adapted to include South Africa) was originally coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in a 2001 paper...

President Joe Biden has spent his half-century of political power to liberate his son from the consequences of his infractions, so why would the final full month of the president’s lame duck tenure prove any different? After months of promising he would “abide by the jury’s decision” to eventually convict Hunter Biden of various tax and gun crimes, the Big Guy came through for the First Son on last time before being discarded by the Democratic Party into the ash heap of...

President Biden’s announcement that he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, rattled the political world late Sunday. The president argued in a statement on Sunday that the charges brought against his son, which included three felony charges on his purchase and possession of a gun in 2018, came about due to political reasons. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is...

President Biden has privately expressed guilt for years about the investigations and convictions of his son Hunter. Late Sunday night, he tried to lighten that guilt by giving him a broad pardon. Why it matters: Biden's pardon marks the end of a central drama of his presidency that has both weighed him down and propelled him forward. Biden knew that being president brought further scrutiny on his son. But Hunter also found purpose and sobriety in his dad...

Syrian rebels forced out of their homes eight years ago are returning with their families after almost a decade of exile in the opposition’s enclave of Idlib. The fighters, some of them jihadists, were driven out of the Aleppo region after a successful government offensive in 2016. But after last week’s lightning-fast offensive pushed government forces out of the area, many were seen making a tearful return to those left behind. One video that circulated on social media...