The time has come for us to reconsider the U.S. Senate. It is easy enough to understand how the Senate wound up in 1787 with two senators per state irrespective of size and population, but how can it be just and democratic now when Wyoming has about half a million people and California 40 million and they both have the …
Elections matter. The pathetic political stunt a dozen U.S. senators and more than 100 U.S. representatives are planning for today is a direct attack on democracy. We have a system. Primaries, general election, followed by state certification, followed by the vote of the Electoral College, followed by the tallying of the Electoral College vote by the U.S. Congress, followed by …
With President Trump’s election eve choice of Amy Coney Barrett for the U.S. Supreme Court, another partisan fracas has ensued in the U.S. Senate. Regrettably, Trump has succeeded in casting most anything he can as partisan combat, generally with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell riding shotgun. And it’s become clear Trump will get his strictly partisan win with the Barrett confirmation …
First, the hard facts. An individual is president of the United States from the moment she or he takes the oath of office in the January after the election and remains president until the next person takes that oath, except in cases of assassination or successful impeachment. The sitting president has an unquestionable right to do all the things a …
In the next few days and weeks, we are going to learn who everyone is, who has character and who has only a ruthless drive for power. The idea of a republic is on trial in so many ways in 2020. Now the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg brings it all into perfect focus. In a republic to have power …
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana Living as we are, in a time of extremes, it becomes easy to fail to see the incremental steps in history. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected, people started making comparisions to Nazi Germany and the discussion became immediately polarized. From a historical perspective, as …
My friends, When the Senate of the United States voted on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, not to call John Bolton or any other witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, death rattled in the throat of the American republic. It’s over now. We will, of course, continue to be a great and powerful nation, a rich nation, with …
Four things happened on the last day of January 2020. 1. We crossed the Rubicon: The United States was envisioned as a republic. In a republic, the protection the people have against tyranny is our system of checks and balances. The judiciary checks the legislative branch when it passes unconstitutional laws. The executive has the power to veto congressional legislation, …
I’ve been quiet for a while. Not because I haven’t been paying attention but because work has been overwhelming and I haven’t had the time to digest what has been an unbelievably painful week. These are just a few of the things that happened. There was an abhorrent Mideast “peace accord” that essentially endorsed apartheid for Palestinians and a destruction …
What do you do when Republicans refuse to take seriously what they would find absolutely appalling and outrageous, criminal and treasonous, disgusting and Constitution-threatening if it were done by a liberal Democrat? We all know that if the situation were reversed and Barack Obama had reached out to Pakistan to demand that it pretend to investigate Jeb Bush or Donald …
“Checks and balances, Mr. Jefferson. Checks and balances,” said John Adams. We are only a republic if each of the three branches of the national government has some capacity to check the excesses of one or both of the other two. The Founding Fathers sought to ensure that no single individual or entity would ever have unlimited, unchecked power. The …
We have been living for a very long time with the idea of executive supremacy. Some misguided attorneys have argued, since the presidency of George W. Bush, for what they like to call the Unitary Executive. By this they mean that the power of the president is virtually unlimited not only throughout the executive branch of government but in the …
The first election I ever voted in was by absentee ballot in October 1970. I was home on leave from the Army. Sen. Quentin Burdick, a longtime member of North Dakota’s Democratic NPL Party, was running for re-election against Republican Congressman Thomas Kleppe. At the explicit request of President Richard Nixon, Kleppe was risking a safe House seat, hoping for …
Executive Summary: Heidi Heitkamp walked over Kevin Cramer like an Irish setter wearing spiked golf shoes Friday eve. But all you get when that happens is a deflated, puffed-up bantam rooster, which makes for little more than a lumpy throw rug with a weak mind and sweaty palms. “Smirky” claimed to be for civility in politics, while his roly-poly role …
OK, against my better judgment, again, I’m going to weigh in on the 2018 election, just more than a week hence. Here goes. I told Democratic-NPL Congressional candidate Mac Schneider on Thursday that if Heidi Heitkamp wins re-election to the U.S. Senate on Nov. 6, he can expect to head to Washington, D.C., with her, as our next U.S. congressman. …
Heidi Heitkamp has had better weeks. She’s probably had better train wrecks. “Nobody told me there’d be days like these,” John Lennon sang. “Strange days, indeed.” Last week, her campaign, scrambling for momentum, included in a newspaper ad the names of 127 women purported to be sexual abuse victims. The ad called out Kevin Cramer for his insensitivity to the …
One of the features of Trump University alternate mathematics is the ability to optionally count invisible people, a revolutionary new system of viewing numerals and other math adjacent quotients. Kevin Cramer evidently clicked on “other.” Anyway, on a nationally broadcast political show, Showtime’s “The Circus,” Cramer told John Heilemann “… if it happens that Donald Trump is right for North …
So, the Forum editorial board has decided that the 2019 Sears catalog cover boy, Kevin Cramer, is the best choice for the U.S. Senate, rather than the suspiciously superior Heidi Heitkamp. The decision is not a surprise. The board always find a way to placate ownership and endorse the Republican candidate. It’s their prerogative. Some poor sap had to type …
According to the almanac, this is Rob Port’s 715th Heitkamp lie, which I believe beats Basil Ruth’s record. Basil had good run, but was forced to join the circus last year. Rumor, from one of my anonymous sources, suggests that Port was smiling during the abduction but refuses to lift things. Anyway, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp ran an ad, an open …
Wouldn’t it be something if control of the U.S. Senate turned on a couple of misinterpreted Facebook posts by an overzealous supporter of an obscure senator from North Dakota named Heidi Heitkamp? Could happen. Heidi, who I would have rated last week as having at least a 50-50 chance of holding her seat in the Senate, is in big trouble. …
North Dakota’s Democrats will hold their state convention in Grand Forks later this week, and the highlight, if there’s to be one, will be choosing a candidate to run for North Dakota’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. So I’ve been thinking a bit about politics and conventions, especially past ones, similar to what we might see this …
Most of my Democratic friends have a hard time understanding why I like Kevin Cramer. I think it’s because they’ve never been a part of a brotherhood. Let me explain. I’m was thinking about this Wednesday because of Gary Emineth’s announcement Tuesday that Kevin Cramer would run for the U.S. Senate against Heidi Heitkamp. Thanks for that, Gary. I’m sure …
I’ve never been much for writing book reviews. Mainly because I don’t know how to write book reviews. Call this one an appreciation. (If you feel you have to call it anything at all.) I noticed a lot of interest in “Al Franken: Giant of the Senate” on Facebook and elsewhere. So, here we go. The new memoir follows Sen. Al Franken’s …