Oil, Power, and the New U.S.–Venezuela Agreement

President Trump announced what he calls the biggest oil deal in history: an agreement that could give the United States a controlling interest in the output from 17 Venezuelan oil fields containing a reported 65 billion barrels. The arrangement could reshape American energy security, revive Venezuela’s battered petroleum industry, and shift influence in the Western…

Trump’s Iran Warning and the Fight Over the Strait of Hormuz

President Trump has issued Iran a blunt warning: Every time Iranian forces attack a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, the United States will destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant, including potentially those in or near Tehran. The threat comes amid renewed American airstrikes, continued Iranian attacks on commercial shipping, and the collapse of…

Trump’s Election Commission Shake-Up

President Trump’s decision to remove the remaining leadership of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has opened yet another front in the seemingly endless battle over how American elections should be administered and who should be trusted to administer them. Trump fired Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, while Republican commissioner Christy McCormick resigned after…

The “Anti-Weaponization” Fund: Good Principle, Terrible Packaging

The Justice Department’s proposed “anti-weaponization” fund is one of those ideas that sounds righteous in theory but politically combustible in practice. The basic claim behind it isn’t hard to understand: if federal agencies used government power to punish people for their politics, beliefs, speech, associations, or religious convictions, those people deserve more than a polite…

Keep the Filibuster and Beat the Shutdown the Right Way

President Trump is right about one thing: Washington’s broken. The endless gridlock, the political posturing, and now another government shutdown. It’s enough to make any sensible American want to throw the rulebook out the window. But there’s one rule we can’t afford to toss: the Senate filibuster. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, it slows things down.…