Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

David Frum, former Bush speechwriter and Atlantic contributor discusses Republican cowardice, Democratic excess, and the structural dangers facing American democracy. Frum argues that Donald Trump’s 2025 threat is deeper, more organized, and more perilous than ever before. Plus, Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s apt remarks puncture the often hollow spectacle of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

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Big news is happening at a breakneck pace these days. But on the cusp of the 100th day of President Donald Trump's second administration, let's take a pause to go back in time to Sept. 30, 1962.

On that day, President John F. Kennedy sent U.S. military forces to protect James Meredith on the campus of the University of Mississippi. Meredith was the first Black student admitted to the school. That night, JFK addressed the nation from the White House.

In his address JFK describes a moment when the word of the Constitution no longer prevails, is by most definitions a "constitutional crisis."

Some of you think that moment is here.

As part of our weekly series on the state of our democracy, "If You Can Keep It," we're posing a big question: Are we in a constitutional crisis?

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• Tim on Trump's bad polling numbers for his first 100 days
• Adrian on a focus group of Latino men in Arizona who are disappoined in Trump
• Bill's 'Bulwark on Sunday' interview with Ryan Goodman
• Semafor's piece, "The Group Chats that Changed America"
  

In his new book, Robert Macfarlane takes the reader on a river journey, through history and geography, to posit the idea that rivers are not merely for human use, but living beings. In Is A River Alive? he argues that human fate is interwoven with the natural world, and that it’s time we treated nature not as a resource, but a fellow being.

But does the natural world have legal rights? In A Barrister for the Earth the lawyer Monica Feria-Tinta explains how she’s sought justice for environmental wrongs. Her case against the destruction of cloud forests was the world’s first Rights of Nature case.

In Britain many environmental campaigners argue for the Right to Roam and greater access to private land. But in Uncommon Ground, Patrick Galbraith presents a counterargument on the benefits of restricting access to the countryside, advocating for wildlife’s right to tranquillity.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Today on the Gist, we open the vaults to 2020 to revisit and interview with Dr. Paul Offit and we replay Monday's spiel on The Full Ginsburg.

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Alan McPherson author of The Breach: Iran-Contra and the Assault on American Democracy joins to discuss the Iran-Contra affair and how it plagued both the end of Regans Presidency and George H. W. Bush’s, but also how it ties into the politics of today. Also, Pete Hegseth is a dirty dirty boy, or at least has a dirty dirty line.  Plus, its an Antwentig. 

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Tributes for the late Pope Francis are pouring in from across the globe after the Pontiff passed away on Easter Monday. His funeral will be held on this weekend.

This week, the president attacked Supreme Court Justices for getting in the way of his administration's efforts to deport migrants, saying that the Court can't afford trials for everyone they're seeking to remove from the U.S.

In health news, scientists say that the measles outbreak in the Southwest is now the largest since 2000.

And at least 26 tourists died this week in an attack in the India-administered Kashmir. The Indian government has not officially identified any group as being behind the attack, but it did announce a flurry of punitive measures against Pakistan which it said supported the attacks. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the attack and issued countermeasures. It's the deadliest attack of its kind in 25 years.

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