West Wing Reads

How the Left is Trashing the Constitution to Fight Trump Attorney General William Barr recently delivered a lecture at the Federalist Society’s 2019 National Lawyers Convention. The New York Post published excerpts of his remarks as a column last night. “I deeply admire the American presidency as a political and constitutional institution. I believe it is one of the great and remarkable innovations in our Constitution. More than any other branch, it has fulfilled the expectations of the Framers,” Attorney General William Barr says. “Unfortunately, over the past several decades, we have seen steady encroachment on presidential authority by the other branches of government. This process, I think, has substantially weakened the functioning of the executive branch, to the detriment of the nation.” The left is “willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications.” Click here to read more. “The scariest aspect of [Alexander] Vindman’s testimony is his insistence that US foreign policy should be made by unelected bureaucrats like himself. He says he and his colleagues have formulated ‘the best, most informed judgment’ about Ukraine, and it was not ‘appropriate for government officials’ like Trump’s ambassadors to act ‘counter’ to it. What arrogance,” Betsy McCaughey writes in the New York Post. “At the very least, House Democrats and the media should spare us the sanctimonious narrative that every impeachment witness is a selfless hero whose credibility is above questioning and whose every statement must be taken at face value. After all, we need look no further than the appalling display of other ‘deep state’ bureaucrats connected to the Russia collusion hoax—former FBI director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, and the sneering former FBI agent Pete Strzok,” for examples of craven dishonesty and self-interest, John Daniel Davidson writes in The Federalist. At Google’s D.C. office last week, Ivanka Trump talked about how implementing paid family leave is a top issue for the Trump Administration. “She noted that her father is ‘the first president, Republican or Democrat, to call for a national [paid-parental–leave] plan in every single budget,” Alexandra DeSanctis writes in National Review. U.S. stocks hit new records again yesterday. “The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 28,000 for the second straight session after hitting that level for the first time on Friday. The move from 27,000 was the 10th shortest 1,000-point gain in history, taking 90 days. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq... are also notched new highs,” Fox Business reports.