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Russian elections

Article 13 of the Russian constitution promises political pluralism. Article 29 guarantees freedom of speech. It is a brave citizen who insists on those rights. Although Russia will hold a presidential election at the end of this week, the result is a foregone conclusion. Vladimir Putin will win comfortably. The spirit of post-Soviet democratisation is all but dead. The flame is kept alive by a courageous few. Thousands turned out at the Moscow funeral of Alexei Navalny, the jailed opposition leader generally assumed to have been murdered by order of the Kremlin. There were chants ...

Abortion rights

The Alabama Supreme Court decision last month determining that frozen embryos have the same rights as children brought the personhood debate to a surreal level that should terrify anyone who supports the right to terminate a pregnancy or start one in a lab through in vitro fertilization. It was a preposterous ruling — three couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic were found to have the right to sue for wrongful death. But it is an example of the growing anti-abortion effort to redefine embryos — in utero and in laboratory dishes — and ...

SCOTUS keeping Trump on ballot

No, there is no one weird trick to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot and out of the White House. That is the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court, which ruled Monday that the 14th Amendment does not authorize states to disqualify presidential candidates from seeking the office based on alleged oath-breaking and insurrection. This settles a legal controversy whose answer ought always to have been clear, leaving primary responsibility for preventing Trump 2.0 in the hands of voters. Nearly as important as the substance of the Supreme Court’s decision this week was its ...

U.S. war machine

The United States’ military has a habit. It is in constant need of a fix. And it has repeatedly shown that it will say or do anything, without any shame or qualms, to satisfy its craving. The U.S. already has the most powerful military, yet the U.S. top brass are constantly hyping up external threats to try and get more money for their buzz-giver of choice. This time, it is Stephen Whiting, head of the U.S. Space Command, who has sounded the alarm over what he perceives as China’s rapid advancement in space technology, warning of the potential threats he alleges it poses to U.S. ...

Student loan forgiveness

American Presidents may not like Supreme Court decisions, but most since Andrew Jackson haven’t bragged about defying its rulings. Not even Donald Trump. Then there’s President Biden, who, while canceling more student debt this week, boasted about ignoring the Supreme Court’s landmark 2023 ruling that his previous loan forgiveness plan was illegal. Speaking in Culver City, Calif., on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said his original plan to “provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt” was derailed by “MAGA Republicans” and “special ...

Biden impeachment inquiry

Until last month, House Republicans referred to information provided by a “highly credible” FBI informant as the core of their case to impeach President Biden. This week, they quietly deleted any mention of that source from official documents. This one small move speaks volumes about an ill-founded GOP crusade that seems finally to be reaching an embarrassing denouement. Special counsel David Weiss — the man in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal case against Hunter Biden — last week filed charges against Alexander Smirnov. The 43-year-old U.S.-Israeli citizen, ...