Political hot trends by Zetpress? Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, remained under scrutiny over reports that he rented a condominium from the wife of a top Washington lobbyist. He paid $50 a night to stay in the Capitol Hill unit. At least five officials were reassigned or demoted, or requested new jobs, in the past year after they raised concerns about Mr. Pruitt’s spending and management, which included unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel, as well as requests for a bulletproof vehicle and an expanded 20-person protective detail. Mr. Pruitt was already facing questions about his first-class travel at taxpayer expense over the past year.
It is in the realm of foreign policy that Trump’s deviations from political norms have had the most positive and irreversible consequences. If he becomes president, Joe Biden may mistakenly try to revive the chances for Palestinian statehood by getting tough on the Israelis. He may attempt to resuscitate the moribund Iran deal. But it is highly doubtful that he will rescind the Abraham Accords, or withdraw recognition of Israel’s Golan sovereignty, or return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv. He won’t have the support for such decisions. And he won’t have any good reason to make them. Anyone who has read the news lately understands that a strong and engaged Israel is good for security. Her enemies are our enemies.
US Foreign politics and Brexit 2020 latest : Last week, with the introduction of the Internal Markets Bill, the rubber hit the road. By the British government’s own admission, the bill violates the Withdrawal Agreement signed onto with the EU, albeit only in “a very specific and limited way,” in the words of Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis. Specifically, it violates Article IV, which establishes the Agreement’s supremacy over U.K. law. The British government has taken this measure because they want their own ministers to decide what goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain should be subject to EU customs checks. In other words, the government is reasserting its sovereignty over Northern Ireland now that the U.K. is safely out of the EU by deliberately violating international law.
In every instance we adhered to the process explicitly laid out in the Constitution: The president has the constitutional duty to nominate; the Senate has the constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent. It is written plainly in the Constitution that both presidents and senators swear an oath to uphold and defend. Is Biden saying that McConnell should ignore his sacred constitutional duty? Biden knew then, as he knows now, that there’s no constitutional duty, nor is there any precedent, either prohibiting or requiring Republicans to fill a vacancy. Nor is there any prohibition (as nearly every Democrat has already argued) against “rushing” such a nomination. Three Supreme Court justices have been confirmed with less than 45 days — including Ginsburg, who was nominated by a Democrat and confirmed by a Democrat-majority Senate. As my colleague Dan McLaughlin points out in meticulous historical detail, every real norm points to the Republicans’ filling the vacancy. Read additional info at https://zetpress.com/.