Gastonia, NC Correspondent — A deadline isn't a plan. A plan is a list of people you won't leave and a list of equipment you won't gift to whoever holds the road in October. Limited wars do end messy. Messy isn't a permission slip to treat interpreters as weather. Congress should write the dull requirements … Continue reading As U.S. forces leave Afghanistan toward a September deadline, should Congress reassert statutory requirements for evacuation planning and equipment accountability, or accept that limited wars end in messy improvisation?
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Is the first-year tax-and-climate reconciliation draft a durable industrial policy, or a credit stack that will be relitigated when inflation is no longer “transitory”?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — Industrial policy that lasts looks like a plant and a rule a banker can still use after a House flips. A credit stack looks like a catalogue with timers. This draft is a catalogue. Climate pages are credits and adders and approved equipment. Tax pages are rates that will be … Continue reading Is the first-year tax-and-climate reconciliation draft a durable industrial policy, or a credit stack that will be relitigated when inflation is no longer “transitory”?
Should schools that remain remote or hybrid into the 2021–22 year face federal funding consequences tied to learning-loss metrics, or is that an intrusion on local control?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Local control is a real value and it isn't a shield for a second lost year after the emergency year already happened. Vaccines are available to every adult who wants one. Pediatric risk was never the intensive-care story. Learning loss is now measured rather than theorized. Federal money already comes with … Continue reading Should schools that remain remote or hybrid into the 2021–22 year face federal funding consequences tied to learning-loss metrics, or is that an intrusion on local control?
After Colonial Pipeline and JBS, should ransomware against critical infrastructure be treated as a national-security event with offensive options, or remain a criminal matter for firms and the FBI?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — When a pipeline stops and a meat packer stops, you're not in a fraud unit anymore. You're in a country that just learned a criminal group can ration fuel and supper. Criminal casework still matters — attribution, the wallet, the employee who opened the attachment. What can't stay is the … Continue reading After Colonial Pipeline and JBS, should ransomware against critical infrastructure be treated as a national-security event with offensive options, or remain a criminal matter for firms and the FBI?
Is the infrastructure bill taking shape this summer a once-in-a-generation capital program, or a conventional spending package with an infrastructure label?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Once-in-a-generation is a fundraising sentence. A capital program is a bridge that exists and a pipe that doesn't poison a child. What took shape in late June is actually two things now, which is the useful development. There's a bipartisan framework that's mostly roads, bridges, transit, water, and broadband, and there's … Continue reading Is the infrastructure bill taking shape this summer a once-in-a-generation capital program, or a conventional spending package with an infrastructure label?
Should the United States treat the Southern border encounter surge of 2021 as a humanitarian processing problem or as a deterrent failure that requires remaining-in-Mexico and expedited removal at scale?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — The trail doesn't read press releases about capacity. It reads whether the last family was released. The encounter numbers aren't a weather event. They're what happens when you retire a deterrent and keep a protection statute that can't finish a case at volume. Humanitarian processing is the name you give … Continue reading Should the United States treat the Southern border encounter surge of 2021 as a humanitarian processing problem or as a deterrent failure that requires remaining-in-Mexico and expedited removal at scale?
After the first hundred days and the January 6 prosecutions, is “domestic violent extremism” now a coherent federal priority, or a label that will be applied to whichever street the current majority dislikes?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — January 6 was ugly, illegal, and a gift to every camera in the country. Whether it was domestic terrorism depends on whether the noun means anything or just means a crowd we dislike on a day we can use. A coherent priority would have found the word in 2020. A police … Continue reading After the first hundred days and the January 6 prosecutions, is “domestic violent extremism” now a coherent federal priority, or a label that will be applied to whichever street the current majority dislikes?
After the Senate acquitted Trump in the February 2021 impeachment trial, did a second impeachment of a former president establish a useful constitutional check, or a precedent that future Congresses will use as a political tail on a lost election?
Gastonia, NC A useful constitutional check has to work when the other tribe holds the House. A tail on a lost election only has to work once. That is where I start, and it is worth being precise about what actually happened, because the shorthand everybody is using is wrong in a way that matters. … Continue reading After the Senate acquitted Trump in the February 2021 impeachment trial, did a second impeachment of a former president establish a useful constitutional check, or a precedent that future Congresses will use as a political tail on a lost election?
A substantial share of the country doubts the result of the November election. Where does responsibility for that lie, and what would it take to rebuild confidence?
Owatonna, Minnesota Correspondent — Responsibility is distributed, which is an unsatisfying answer and I think the correct one. Some of it belongs to the way the count unfolded. Several states forbid clerks from processing mail ballots before Election Day, so the in-person vote reported first and the mail vote followed, and the mail vote ran … Continue reading A substantial share of the country doubts the result of the November election. Where does responsibility for that lie, and what would it take to rebuild confidence?
Many of the changes to election procedure this year were made by courts, governors, and secretaries of state rather than by legislatures. Does that set a precedent worth worrying about regardless of which party it happened to benefit?
Prescott Valley, Arizona Correspondent — Yes, and I'd want the worry stated carefully, because the strong version of the argument is weaker than people think and the moderate version is quite strong. The Constitution assigns the manner of choosing electors to state legislatures. There's a live dispute about how exclusive that assignment is, and reasonable … Continue reading Many of the changes to election procedure this year were made by courts, governors, and secretaries of state rather than by legislatures. Does that set a precedent worth worrying about regardless of which party it happened to benefit?
