Slate: Politics

The president’s annual budget request is just that: a request, sent to Congress, for legislators to glance at for five seconds before disposing in the paper shredder. It has no force of law, which is why it is often portrayed as the White House’s “statement of priorities” for the coming fiscal year.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Monday that he’s done the math, and he’s going to lose: The Senate will vote to terminate President Donald Trump’s national emergency on the Southern border.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

For a rising star in the Democratic Party and candidate for president, Julián Castro’s visit to Los Angeles on Monday was strikingly low-key. The former San Antonio mayor and secretary of Housing and Urban Development met with a small group of students at UCLA, where he received a warm welcome, and later sat with immigration-policy faculty at a conference room inside the Luskin School of Public Affairs.

President Trump’s executive order this week removing a requirement that the government disclose estimates of civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes outside of war zones won’t change very much—in practice. But that doesn’t mean it’s nothing to worry about.

President Donald Trump wanted $5.7 billion to build a border wall. But Congress gave him only $1.4 billion. So on Friday, Trump declared a national emergency. He claimed authority, based on the 1976 National Emergencies Act, to build his wall using money that Congress had assigned to other purposes.

Last fall, a tipster sent the progressive opposition research firm American Bridge an old video clip of Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Schuette. The 39-second scene opens with a woman off-screen asking a seated Schuette to move closer to a lamp to his right, as they prepare to tape a television interview.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

The day that began with a media furor around Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent tweets did not end the way many on the left feared it would. While centrist Democrats and the party’s leadership predictably criticized the first-year congresswoman from Minnesota for her tweets about the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), most of the party’s progressive base rallied behind her.

President Donald Trump is not a fan of the border deal that congressional negotiators struck Monday night, the one that he would need to sign by the end of the week to avoid the year’s second government shutdown.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

In the days since a racist photo from his 1984 medical school yearbook was published, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has resisted calls for resignation from all corners of his party.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Donald Trump turned to the most lethal of oratorical tools in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address: the rhyme. To summarize his argument that Democratic investigations into his administration could imperil America’s economic gains, he said: “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.” And then—copying directly from the prepared text here—the follow-up: “It just doesn’t work that way!”