Democrats have been doing everything they can to stall the confirmation process for President Trumps judicial nominees. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has just taken a number of steps to push the judges through. And the Democrats aren't going to be pleased.

In examining the GOP tax plan in this space, we noted that the provision eliminating the estate tax looked a lot like a bargaining chip “to be negotiated away to placate deficit hawks.”

Well that didn’t take long.

“I don’t think we have to totally repeal it,” Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) said to the Wall Street Journal on October 5, “because I think the folks on the upper end of it are all avoiding it right now legally anyway.” The estate tax is “not a priority for me as we seek to craft this tax bill,” agreed Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine).

We predicted it, but we weren’t hoping for it. The estate tax is popularly and rightly termed the

What is President Donald Trump willing to negotiate over when it comes to immigration? In her briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeated what the administration has said since Sunday, when it released its list of legislative priorities on immigration: the objectives “should be included in any immigration legislation Congress considers.”

The priorities—including funding and construction of a border wall, more funding for internal enforcement of immigration, and reforms of the system toward a merit-based regime—are in line with President Trump’s campaign promises on immigration.

When George Will was being packed off to graduate school, his father, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, asked him what, or who, he wanted to be in life: Ted Sorensen, Isaiah Berlin, or Murray Kempton? All three men were closely identified with a public trade. Sorensen, as President Kennedy’s speechwriter, was the ultimate political operative and staffer. Berlin was one of the century’s leading political philosophers. Kempton was the most revered newspaper columnist of his time, writing copiously about everything from politics to poetry in an elevated style unlike that of any other newspaperman.

Will studied at Oxford and got a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Princeton, on the assumption that

In our increasingly polarized society, too often discussion is compressed into “for” and “against” positions. But a person can endorse or admire something while simultaneously feeling change is needed. That’s how many regard the United States, and it’s how we ought to regard football, America’s preeminent sport.

Of course people knew about Harvey Weinstein. Among others, the Manhattan district attorney knew. In 2015, Weinstein’s lawyer donated $10,000 to Cyrus Vance’s campaign after he declined to file sexual assault charges. Given the number of stories that have circulated for so long, Weinstein must have spread millions around to buy silence. The reason no one wrote about Weinstein isn't because the press wanted to get Weinstein, but couldn’t prove the story. It’s because the press was protecting Weinstein.