Tag: federal government
How the FBI Failed for Prepare for Jan. 6
Last summer, a few weeks after Cassidy Hutchinson’s public testimony about Donald Trump’s response to his 2020 election loss, staffers on the January 6 committee sat down in a conference room at the O’Neill House Office Building with another big get: Jennifer Moore, the FBI administrator who oversaw intelligence in the bureau’s D.C. office in the lead-up to the Capitol attack.
Moore spent several hours talking with committee staffers who were trying to get to the bottom of why the
Trump’s Open Plot to Break the Federal Government
Of the many targets Donald Trump has attacked over the years, few engender less public sympathy than the career workforce of the federal government—the faceless mass of civil servants that the former president and his allies deride as the “deep state.”
Federal employees have long been an easy mark for politicians of both parties, who occasionally hail their nonpartisan public service but far more frequently blame “Washington bureaucrats” for stifling your business, auditing your taxes, and taking too long to
Are Driverless Cars the Future?
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
Earlier this month in San Francisco, two friends and I wanted to imbibe strong rum drinks at the bar Smuggler’s Cove, so we used a phone app to summon a car. It arrived without a driver, we climbed into the back seat, and
Biden’s Immigration Reckoning – The Atlantic
President Joe Biden’s administration moved boldly yesterday to solve his most immediate immigration problem at the risk of creating a new target for Republicans who accuse him of surrendering control of the border.
Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security extended legal protections under a federal program called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that will allow as many as 472,000 migrants from Venezuela to live and work legally in the United States for at least the next 18 months.
With that decision,
Richard Hanania’s ‘The Origins of Woke’ Is a Gateway Drug for Extremism
This week, HarperCollins will publish a new work by the conservative intellectual Richard Hanania. Titled The Origins of Woke, it bills itself as the “definitive” account of the rise of identity politics. The book makes the case that contemporary “wokeness” is an ideology that has its origins in—and was in fact created by—changes to the legal system that began with the Civil Rights Act, in the 1960s. “Long before wokeness was a cultural phenomenon,” Hanania argues, “it was law.”
Washington Can Stop the AI Free-for-All
In April, lawyers for the airline Avianca noticed something strange. A passenger, Robert Mata, had sued the airline, alleging that a serving cart on a flight had struck and severely injured his left knee, but several cases cited in Mata’s lawsuit didn’t appear to exist. The judge couldn’t verify them, either. It turned out that ChatGPT had made them all up, fabricating names and decisions. One of Mata’s lawyers, Steven A. Schwartz, had used the chatbot as an assistant—his first
The Trump Indictment Puts the GOP on Trial
Updated at 7:45 p.m. ET on August 1, 2023
Earlier today, Donald Trump was indicted for a third time, on the charge that he attempted to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The indictment, filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith, accuses Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States by “using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit”; a conspiracy to “corruptly obstruct and impede” an official proceeding of the U.S. government and for actually partaking in that obstruction; and a
Trump Will Abuse the Presidency to End His Legal Troubles
If, as seems likely, Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee next year, the 2024 elections will be a referendum on several crucial issues: the prospect of authoritarianism in America, the continuation of a vibrant democracy, the relationship between the executive branch and the other two branches of government, and much else of grave significance.
It will also be a referendum on whether Trump will ever be held legally accountable for his actions. Trump faces multiple civil suits and at
Airport Security Is Broken. Can Clear Actually Help?
With sincere apologies, I need to ask you to imagine yourself arriving at the airport. Freshly expelled from whatever mode of transport brought you there, you are probably at least a little bit harried. Maybe you’re running late or you’re wrangling small children. Maybe you are weighed down by an overstuffed tote bag and a roll-aboard that could burst at any moment because you are opposed in principle to paying $50 to check a bag. The stink of anxiety sweat
Texas’s Immigration Policy Is Getting More Aggressive
A pregnant teenager writhing in pain as she suffered a miscarriage while trapped in the barbed wire that Texas has strung along miles of the state’s southern border.
A 4-year-old girl collapsing from heat exhaustion after Texas National Guard members pushed her away from the wire as she tried to cross it with her family.
Texas state troopers receiving orders from their superiors to deny water to migrants in triple-digit heat. Officers on another occasion ordering troopers to drive back