When Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was inaugurated for a second term last May, then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior officials sent high-level messages to congratulate her. It was the first time a US secretary of state had done so, and the news landed with a thud in Beijing, which has considered independent Taiwan […]
Author: Dan Spinelli
Five Things You Didn’t Know Were In “Build Back Better”
As soon as Congress sent its $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to President Joe Biden’s desk on Friday, the media focus quickly shifted to the other, major piece of Democratic legislation still awaiting approval: the sprawling Build Back Better Act. That bill includes a host of progressive priorities—paid family and sick leave, public housing, child care, […]
Today, Let Us Celebrate the “Four Seasons Total Landscaping” Anniversary
The city of Philadelphia has played host to many historic moments—the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the birth of Gritty—but few have been as memorable (or as weird) as that time Rudy Giuliani stood outside a landscaping company and railed about election fraud. The hastily arranged press conference, one year ago today, was a […]
Biden Is Taking Forever to Get His Ambassadors Confirmed. You Can Thank Ted Cruz for That.
On Tuesday, the Senate approved four new US ambassadors, something that typically would not pass for breaking news in Washington, DC. But before this week, only 2 of Joe Biden’s 69 ambassador picks had been confirmed, making his diplomatic corps substantially smaller than his predecessors’ at this point in their first term. Few ambassador nominations […]
Gen. Milley Defends China Calls, Says He Was “Not Qualified” to Determine Trump’s Mental Health
Gen. Mark Milley, speaking before Congress in a Tuesday hearing about Afghanistan, shed light on his much-reported calls with his Chinese counterpart before and after the 2020 election. Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Trump officials, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, were […]
The Afghanistan War Is Over. But the Defense Budget Is Still About to Go Up.
After the United States military stopped fighting wars in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, Congress went on to appropriate less funding for defense in subsequent years. But now that the US has pulled out of Afghanistan, ending the longest war in American history, it seems unlikely that the pattern will repeat itself. With the House set to […]
A Migrant Camp in Texas Has Republicans Warning of a New Great Replacement
A temporary camp of more than 9,000 migrants sheltering under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas has become the latest symbol of the burgeoning humanitarian crisis at the border. During a summer in which unauthorized border crossings have increased to a level “not seen in more than two decades,” the New York Times reports the “temporary camp has […]
As the US Fled Kabul, Its Final Airstrike May Have Targeted an Innocent Man
A blockbuster New York Times investigation released late on Friday used security camera footage and witness testimony to poke holes in the official US military account of a retaliatory airstrike launched in Kabul last week, in what may have been the final missile fired in the US’s war in Afghanistan. After an ISIS-linked bomb killed 13 US troops […]
Biden Calls for Unity in 9/11 Remembrance Video
President Joe Biden called on Americans to find unity and strength in a solemn, six-and-a-half minute pre-recorded address commemorating the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. After 9/11, he said, Americans “saw something all too rare: a true sense of national unity.” “We learned that unity is the one thing that must never break,” […]
It Took Approximately Zero Seconds for Hawks to Make the Afghanistan Withdrawal About China
Over the past two weeks, virtually every national security expert has found a way to weigh in on the United States’ chaotic departure from Afghanistan. But at a time when the foreign policy conversation in Washington, DC, is so dominated by China, it was inevitable that the withdrawal would become a referendum on the hawkish right’s […]