Page 153 - Mark Shields News Today

1. He spent nearly a half-century in rehearsals. If you want to assess Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s first 100 days in office, it helps to wind back nearly 18,000 days to the beginning. When President Biden was first elected to the United States Senate, in Stone Age 1972, the country was still mired in Vietnam; the Watergate break-in that would tank the Nixon incumbency failed when bungling burglars dressed in business suits and surgical gloves were nabbed by members of the Capitol Police department�...

Some notes on 100 days of Biden style

Veronique de Rugy Attention readers: Mark Shields is off this week. Please enjoy the following column by Veronique de Rugy. While President Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t seem to need an excuse to spend money, two recurring arguments for his gigantic $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal are that our roads and bridges are “crumbling” and that modernization would generate economic growth and jobs — hence its name, the American Jobs Plan. But none of this clever marketing makes any...

Mark Shields WASHINGTON — The differences between an ideologue — someone who subscribes completely to a political ideology (whether conservative or liberal) and a pragmatist — someone who is concerned almost exclusively with the practical results of a specific public policy — is the biggest divide in American politics. Simply stated, the ideologue believes that what is right works, while the pragmatist believes what works is right. Nearly everyone has a personal gripe about the failings...

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist The differences between an ideologue — someone who subscribes completely to a political ideology (whether conservative or liberal) and a pragmatist — someone who is concerned almost exclusively with the practical results of a specific public policy — is the biggest divide in American politics. Simply stated, the ideologue believes that what is right works, while the pragmatist believes what works is right. Nearly everyone has a personal gripe about the f...

MARK SHIELDS Shortly after the cooling of the earth when I was a younger man, I managed political campaigns for governor, for mayor, for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. Some of my candidates, in spite of my brilliant managing, actually won. I learned early on that the legendary speaker of the California State Assembly, Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh, was absolutely correct when he observed, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Raising campaign contributions taught me an important t...

Mark Shields Shortly after the cooling of the earth when I was a younger man, I managed political campaigns for Governor, for mayor, for the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. Some of my candidates, in spite of my brilliant managing, actually won. I learned early on that the legendary Speaker of the California State Assembly, Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh, was absolutely correct when he observed, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Raising campaign contributions taught me an important th...

Mar 1, 2021 There has always been something faintly Old Testament about the way we Americans pick our presidents. Remember the first election of the 21st century when, by a 2-to-1 margin in national polls, voters found the country to be “headed in the right direction” and the then-term-limited President Bill Clinton was given a favorable job rating by 65 percent of his fellow citizens. Yet the electorate was not happy; voters were disappointed and disillusioned by the president’s adultero...

Letters to the Editor: Feb. 23, 2021 Local retail stores are dying: Florida must implement internet sales tax Our local retail stores are dying on the Treasure Coast and throughout Florida, Closed and shuttered stores are the rule, rather than the exception. The local mall has become like a ghost town, where additional stores are closed every time my wife and I visit. And this has only accelerated since COVID-19 arrived in January. Our local stores collect sales taxes that our online sales bus...

WASHINGTON — While glued to the coverage, both riveting and chilling, of the Senate trial of former President Donald J. Trump, and watching the House prosecut