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The Washington Spectator Since 1971, an independent journal focused on politics and national affairs. washingtonspectator.org

Since 1971, a progressive newsletter focusing on politics and national affairs.

Why are Republicans trying to rig the next election by creating more House seats in red states? Because voters are waki...
20/08/2025

Why are Republicans trying to rig the next election by creating more House seats in red states? Because voters are waking up to the realities of the Trump tax bill that deprives working families of access to affordable healthcare and rewards the wealthy and the corporations with massive tax breaks.

In only 6 months, Trump 2.0 has done more damage than in all four years of his first term. Besides his Gestapo-like ICE raids, followed by illegal incarcerations and deportations, Trump has created colossal economic problems. His Big Beautiful Bill is big but nowhere near beautiful. It is the worst....

In the most recent of his wonderful pieces for The Washington Spectator, Danny Goldberg explores how morality shapes and...
02/08/2025

In the most recent of his wonderful pieces for The Washington Spectator, Danny Goldberg explores how morality shapes and deforms politics.

Like any moral issue, he writes, the mistreatment of people from foreign cultures has also triggered religious debate. Vice-President J.D. Vance, a convert to Catholicism, justified deportations of immigrants as being consistent with his newfound faith. "You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus … on the rest of the world."

Pope Francis pointedly disagreed with the tribalism implicit in Vance’s formulation. In a letter to American Bishops that was conveyed ten weeks before he died, Pope Francis wrote, "Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups." Instead of such moral relativism the Pope endorsed "True ordo amoris … love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”

Cardinal Prevost, who would soon become Pope Leo, spelled it out more bluntly: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” Unfortunately, not everyone listens to Popes, not even all Catholics.

There is a widespread sentiment in the non- MAGA universe that this particular moment is the worst that America has ever experienced. History tells us otherwise. In Yuval Noah Harari’s book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, he asserts, “History isn’t the ...

It's worth recalling, as Danny Goldberg points out in the latest of his wonderful pieces in The Washington Spectator, th...
01/08/2025

It's worth recalling, as Danny Goldberg points out in the latest of his wonderful pieces in The Washington Spectator, that the American government in the 1950's "didn’t recognize the government of more than half a billion people in an entity that American policymakers disparagingly referred to as “Red China,” while maintaining the fantasy that the real government of China was in Taiwan. The CIA, with the blessing of President Eisenhower, helped overthrow democratically elected governments in several countries around the world, including those in Guatemala and Iran. And Time magazine, the most influential news publication of the day, was run by Henry Luce, an avid cold warrior and early patron of Richard Nixon."

There is a widespread sentiment in the non- MAGA universe that this particular moment is the worst that America has ever experienced. History tells us otherwise. In Yuval Noah Harari’s book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, he asserts, “History isn’t the ...

The question arises: what will those 10,000 new ICE agents and an unknown number of private contractors actually do? One...
01/08/2025

The question arises: what will those 10,000 new ICE agents and an unknown number of private contractors actually do? One answer: shift from immigration-cleansing to election-cleansing. ICE can bring force, fear, and deniability for those who want to shape their outcomes.

On July 9, 2025, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping legislative package that dramatically expanded the operational scope and funding of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), making it the largest domestic policing agency in the country. After months of escalating detentions, po...

ICE’s operational methods under Trump are already borrowing from the tactics of long-established authoritarian regimes. ...
30/07/2025

ICE’s operational methods under Trump are already borrowing from the tactics of long-established authoritarian regimes. Tactics routinely include early-morning raids without warrants, indefinite detention without formal charges, and transfers across state lines to block access to habeas corpus. Masked operatives seize targets from the streets and force them into unmarked vehicles en route to contractor-run facilities in other states. Some are deported to countries where they have no personal ties and no access to counsel.

On July 9, 2025, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping legislative package that dramatically expanded the operational scope and funding of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), making it the largest domestic policing agency in the country. After months of escalating detentions, po...

ICE’s operational methods under Trump are already borrowing from the tactics of long-established authoritarian regimes. ...
30/07/2025

ICE’s operational methods under Trump are already borrowing from the tactics of long-established authoritarian regimes. Tactics routinely include early-morning raids without warrants, indefinite detention without formal charges, and transfers across state lines to block access to habeas corpus. Masked operatives seize targets from the streets and force them into unmarked vehicles en route to contractor-run facilities in other states. Some are deported to countries where they have no personal ties and no access to counsel.

On July 9, 2025, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping legislative package that dramatically expanded the operational scope and funding of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), making it the largest domestic policing agency in the country. After months of escalating detentions, po...

ICE is now the largest domestic policing agency in the US. For months we've seen escalating detentions, politically mot...
30/07/2025

ICE is now the largest domestic policing agency in the US. For months we've seen escalating detentions, politically motivated efforts to arrest, detain and deport lawful permanent residents based on their protected speech, and ICE’s growing use of contractors operating without warrants or identification. This moment marks not the beginning of authoritarianism—but its consolidation.

On July 9, 2025, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping legislative package that dramatically expanded the operational scope and funding of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), making it the largest domestic policing agency in the country. After months of escalating detentions, po...

Our august Republican congress is now debating whether cutting taxes on the wealthiest among us is good for the average ...
29/06/2025

Our august Republican congress is now debating whether cutting taxes on the wealthiest among us is good for the average citizen. Here is the unvarying pattern drawn from the experience of the past 100 years: tax cut for the rich, financial boom, bubble, crash, bank failures, bank bailouts, recession or depression. Let's try it again, shall we?

There have been five major tax cuts since the income tax was established in 1916. When this new Republican/Trump tax bill passes, it will be the sixth. Every major tax cut bill has been sold as good for the economy. Since Ronald Reagan, they even have promotional titles—The Economic Recovery Act; ...

"The Insurrection Act grants the President broad power—but that power depends on facts that justify its use. When those ...
10/06/2025

"The Insurrection Act grants the President broad power—but that power depends on facts that justify its use. When those facts are weak, manipulated, or manufactured, the result is not emergency governance but authoritarian performance."

-Jonathan Winer in The Washington Spectator

The legal confrontation between the federal government and the State of California entered a new phase on June 7, 2025, when President Donald J. Trump invoked 10 U.S.C. § 12406, a statute that allows the President to place National Guard units under federal control in cases of rebellion or obstruct...

Excerpts from "Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the End of the War in Viet Nam," a special issue of The Washington...
30/04/2025

Excerpts from "Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the End of the War in Viet Nam," a special issue of The Washington Spectator.

"When I started out all those years ago, I only wanted to give shape to pain. But over the years, I find that there are the unexpected gifts of literature. It connects, and it transforms the lives of others in ways beyond my imagination. If trauma can be inherited, then let the written word, the well-told tale, be the salve, the elixir to heal wounds, the bridge that spans the generations, the vector toward peace."

By Andrew Lam

I once stood in front of a roomful of high school students and read a story about the end of the Vietnam War, and how I fled to America as a child, and how that experience continued to haunt and inform me, when a young woman, moved by my story, raised her hand. “Can you tell me why my father never...

"The American constitutional order has been broken, and it’s not clear it can be recovered. Many are still in denial abo...
01/03/2025

"The American constitutional order has been broken, and it’s not clear it can be recovered. Many are still in denial about it, and continue to report on political machinations, business as usual. But this is just muscle memory: journalists have beats and write the stories they are expected to write, and the great game of Washington marches on unfazed. But few are facing this grim reality: the United States government is being ripped apart, limb by limb, with little consideration to the future, to national security, to the welfare of the population, or the country’s role in the world."

The American constitutional order has been broken, and it’s not clear it can be recovered. Many are still in denial about it, and continue to report on political machinations, business as usual. But this is just muscle memory: journalists have beats and write the stories they are expected to write...

Recalling the words of a beloved Rabbi on this day of national mourning for Jimmy Carter.
09/01/2025

Recalling the words of a beloved Rabbi on this day of national mourning for Jimmy Carter.

From Rabbi Leonard Beerman's introduction of Jimmy Carter, recipient of the Courage Prize, at the annual luncheon for the Ridenhour Prizes held at the Press Club in Washington, DC on April 4, 2007. These are the words of Franz Kafka, written not too many years before the birth of the 39th president....

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Since 1971, a progressive newsletter focusing on politics and national affairs.

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