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We dont know the reality underlying recent reporting about Jared Kushners meetings this past December with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and the head of Russias government-owned development bank. The only two plausible explanations seem to be that Kushner was involved in something supremely sketchy, or that hes extraordinarily nave and incompetent.

What we do know for certain is that if the Washington Post and New York Times had run similar stories about the top-level son-in-law aide to a Democratic president, that son-in-law would have been out the White House door before the dead-treeversions of the newspapers hit doorsteps the next morning.

Or not. Its more than likely that,if a Democratic president attempted to put their son-in-law in a comparable position of power, the intense outcry would have prevented it from happening at all.Try to imagine Hillary Clinton proposing that Chelseas husband Marc Mezvinsky like Kushner, a rich New Yorker with a convict father and no relevant experience should be in charge of reinventing government, solving the opioid epidemic, reforming the criminal justice system, and negotiating peace in the Middle East.

Even speculating about such a thing, however, is irrelevant, because a Democratic president whod bragged that shed fired the director of the FBI in order to relieve the pressure of a counterintelligence investigation would already have been impeached 37 times. In the run up to the 2016 election, prominent Republicans were calling for Clinton impeachment hearings to start on her inauguration day, or even before she took office.

All of this is a symptom of the extraordinary rightward tiltof the U.S. political system one that goes deeper than even most Democrats and progressives understand and which makes it unlikely that well ever get the full story about President Trump and Russia, nefarious or not.

To take a particularly salient example, there hasnt been a significant investigation headed by a Democratic special prosecutor or independent counsel since the Nixon administration. The last one was Archibald Cox, whod been solicitor general during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and then was the first special prosecutor appointed to look into Watergate.

After Richard Nixon ordered the Justice Department to fire Cox in 1973, the next special prosecutor was Leon Jaworski. Nominally a Democrat, Jaworskivoted for Nixon in 1960 and again in 1968. After Watergate, he went on to support George H.W. Bush in the 1980 presidential primaries and then, after Bush lost, founded Democrats for Reagan.

And thats essentially it. In the subsequent four decades it became accepted D.C. wisdom that a special prosecutor investigating a Republican administration cant be a Democrat, whereas one investigating a Democratic administration must be a Republican.

So Lawrence Walsh, who ran the Iran-Contra inquiry beginning in 1986, was a member of the GOP. For his troubles he was mercilessly attacked by his fellow Republicans.

The first independent counsel to investigate Whitewater during Bill Clintons presidency was Robert Fiske, a Republican. When he found that White House aide Vince Foster had in fact killed himself rather than being murdered by the Clinton octopus, columnists and GOP politicians predictably declared that this raised questions about Fiske. So he was replaced by Kenneth Starr, another Republican, whose inquiry went so far afield from Whitewater thathe ended uplooking into Clintons affair with Monica Lewinsky, leading to Clintons impeachment. Whitewater was finally wound down in 2003 by Robert Ray, a third Republican.

Next up was John Danforth, a special counsel for an investigation of the FBIs siege of Waco, Texas, and, of course, a Republican.

Patrick Fitzgerald, who was appointed in 2003 by then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey to look into the Valerie Plame affair, broke the pattern, sort of. Fitzgerald wasnt a Republican, but he wasnt a Democrat either;he was a self-declared independent.

Things have returned to normal, however, with the appointmentof Robert Mueller to head the investigation into whatever happened with Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016: Mueller is a Republican.

A similar phenomenon exists with two key D.C. power positions, director of the FBI and secretary of defense.

Since the ultra-conservative J. Edgar Hoover, there have been six FBI directors, three appointed by Democratic presidents and three appointed by Republicans. All six directors have been Republicans, although James Comey recently changed his longtime GOP registration.

Not all defense secretaries have been Republicans. But three of the seven chosen by Democratic presidents since Jimmy Carter have been and in fact President Obama simply kept George W. Bushs secretary of defense, Robert Gates, who served under Obama longer than he did under Bush. Meanwhile, six of the seven defense secretaries appointed by Republican presidents post-Nixon have been Republicans, while James Mattis does not have a declared political allegiance.

President Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute for Gates at the Pentagons River Terrace Parade Field in Washington on June 30, 2011.

Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

An in-depth New York Times examination of why Comey broke with FBI policy to publicly discuss the FBIs 2016 investigation of Clinton while following the rules and keeping that of the Trump campaign under wraps was headlined Comey Tried to Shield the FBIFrom Politics. Then He Shaped an Election. But what the Times article reveals is that the politics Comey feared was solely attacks from Republicans. Michael Steinbach, the FBIs former top national security official, is quoted saying that if Comey had not revealed the Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiners computer and Clinton went on to win, Republicansfury would have been so intense that he didnt think the organization the FBI would have survived. None of the people around Comey had any comparable apprehension that keeping the Trump investigation secret could lead to Democrats destroying the bureau.

Similar D.C. stories are legion. In 2009, right-wing provocateur James OKeefe released misleadingly edited videos about the 40-year-old Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which did critical work registering poor voters. Within weeks, congressional Democrats, then with large majorities in both chambers, killed federal funding for ACORN. Five separate investigations later found that ACORN personnel had not broken any laws or misspent government money. Nonetheless, within a year, ACORN collapsed.

Then in 2010, Andrew Breitbart posted an excerpt from a video of a speech by Shirley Sherrod, a Department of Agriculture official, falsely presented to make it appear that Sherrod held bigoted views toward white people. It quickly spread throughout the rest of the right-wing media ecosystem. Predictably, the Obama administration immediately folded, asking Sherrod for her resignation the same day. Even prominent progressive Benjamin Jealous, then head of the NAACP, criticized her. Sherrod later sued Breitbart for defamation, settling the case in 2015 withundisclosed terms.

And now, as the Trump administration gets going, government staff reportedly fear being personally targeted by right-wing media attacks more than ever before.

In the end, whats most remarkable about this phenomenon is that both parties and the journalists who cover them have accepted it as the natural state of American politics. No one in D.C. seemseven to perceive anything could be any different. Republicans and their conservative media apparatus are engaged in a continuous war against Democrats orany Republican who moves an inch out of lock step. Democrats exist in a permanent defensive crouch, willing to throw any part of their coalition to the wolves at a moments notice and failing to even articulate this dynamic, let alone fight it. For their part, many Washington journalists allow Republicans to setthe agenda by credulously covering even the flimsiest of attacks at legitimate scandals.

So dont fear for Jared Kushner or Donald Trump. As Bruce Bartlett, a GOP apostate and former staffer for Jack Kemp, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, glumly put it, if Watergate happened today, Nixon would have finished his term.

Top photo: Jared Kushner, senior White House adviser, attends a luncheon with Mauricio Macri, Argentinas president, and U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington on April 27, 2017.

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Jared Kushner Still Has a Job Because Washington Only Fears Republicans - The Intercept

By Susan Cornwell | CRANFORD, New Jersey

CRANFORD, New Jersey Appearing at a town hall in upscale Cranford, New Jersey this week, five-term Republican congressman Leonard Lance got a barrage of complaints from constituents about President Donald Trump.

"This administration is the most foul administration I have ever seen in my life. The stench that comes from Washington can be smelled in my hometown," said Martin Carroll of Watchung, New Jersey, who drew a standing ovation.

Another man, who identified himself as Alan, lambasted what he called the "criminality" of the Trump administration. "When will you call them out?" he asked Lance.

Lance, a mild-mannered 64-year-old, is one of many centrist Republicans who are feeling voter heat over Trump and are vulnerable to a backlash in next years congressional elections.

Democrats hope to make the 2018 mid-term elections a referendum on Trump. Any path they have for capturing the Republican-led House of Representatives runs through areas such as Lance's, one of 23 Republican districts that voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

In Lance's district, anger has risen over proposed cuts to domestic programs, Republican efforts to roll back Obamacare, President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, and allegations of collusion between Trump's campaign team and Russia, despite the president's denial of any such contacts.

At the Cranford town hall, the congressman made clear he has differences with Trump on issues such as the budget and a special counsel investigation into any links between Trump's campaign and Russian officials.

While Trump has called the Russia probe a "witch hunt," Lance said he believes it is necessary and that he will "let the chips fall where they may" when the findings come in.

Lance also questioned the economic assumptions underpinning Trump's budget and said he opposed its proposed cuts for the arts and environmental programs.

Of the 23 Republicans in districts that voted for Clinton, Lance has been among the more vocal in distancing himself from Trump. But there are others. Republican Representative Barbara Comstock of Virginia has said she could not defend Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey.

DISSENTERS

Comstock and Lance were among 20 Republicans who voted against the Trump-backed Republican healthcare bill in May. Nine of those dissenters hailed from the 23 Republican districts where Clinton beat Trump in November.

In California, Republican Representative Darrell Issa has faced weekly protests in his district since Trump's inauguration in January.

Issa says he backs Robert Mueller, the special counsel in charge of the Russia investigation, and like Lance, he opposes Trump's proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Issa infuriated Trump opponents with his backing of the healthcare bill.

"We saw your vote!" some chanted outside Issa's office, while others displayed the message "Repeal & Replace Issa" on a California bridge.

Still, the 23 districts, which have a majority of white voters and tend to be moderately well-educated and well-off, do not make easy targets for Democratic congressional candidates. Republicans have triumphed repeatedly in these districts during the past 20 years, winning 198 races to Democrats' 36.

And Republicans have won every U.S. House election in 11 of those districts since 1996.(For graphic on the districts: tmsnrt.rs/2rN3xb9)

In Lance's district, a collection of well-heeled bedroom communities outside New York City, registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats, but "unaffiliated" voters outnumber both categories.

BALANCING ACT

Lance is rated a slight favorite to keep his seat by the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan election tracker.

Speaking after the Cranford town hall, Lance said he thought the crowd had been less contentious than those that had confronted him at recent constituent meetings. He thought his rejection of the healthcare bill was one reason.

"I guess I had to prove my bona fides," Lance said. "I vote with the president when I think he's right and I don't vote with him when I don't agree with him."

But Democrats note Lance had earlier backed Trump's healthcare bill in a House committee. Lance should have "tried to convince his colleagues to do the right thing, and he didn't do that," said Linda Weber, a 53-year-old bank executive who is one of four people already seeking the Democratic nomination to take on Lance next year.

Ed Harris, a retired attorney who attended the Cranford town hall, said Lance's rejection of the healthcare bill was a step in the right direction. Harris, an unaffiliated voter, said he voted for Clinton in 2016, though not enthusiastically.

"I thought the bubonic plague was better than Trump," Harris said. "I will support anybody who is opposed to Trump."

Voters like Harris pose a conundrum for Lance and other Republican moderates as they prepare for the mid-term elections. Differing with the president may help them win over centrists or independents, but then they run the risk of alienating Trump supporters.

Trump backer Wells Pikaart, a sales manager from Westfield, New Jersey, said he understands Lance's predicament but was nonetheless disappointed that the congressman did not vote in favor of the Republican healthcare bill.

"I think that he needs to use his time now to advance the presidents agenda," Pikaart said.

(Additional reporting by Grant Smith; Editing by Caren Bohan and Ross Colvin)

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump is still looking for a new FBI director more than three weeks after he fired James Comey, and sources familiar with the recruiting process say it has been chaotic and that job interviews led by Trump have been brief.

WASHINGTON The fight over President Donald Trump's plan to ban temporarily people entering the United States from six predominantly Muslim countries has now boiled down to whether the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court will allow the controversial executive order to go into effect immediately despite being blocked by lower courts

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday said he would invest in renewable energy projects and expand wind and solar use in an effort to create as many as 40,000 jobs by 2020, according to a press release.

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Facing hometown anger, some Republican lawmakers split from Trump on key issues - Reuters

WASHINGTON When President Donald Trump released a budget last week with a 10 percent Pentagon increase over current budget caps andmassive cuts to the social safety net, a common reaction among congressional Republicans was this: Why didnt Trump ask for even more defense spending?

There was no plus-up, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) told HuffPost. Its a 3 percent increase over the Obama budget. That doesnt jibe with what the president said, so, frankly, Im confused.

So automatic so reflexive is the support for more defense spending among Republicans that they dont seem to care that the Pentagon has never completed an audit. Or, if they care, they dont care enough to actually make the Defense Department account for the more than $600 billion a year it already receives before they hand over even more money.

Like many Republicans, Hunter supports auditing the Pentagon. But he wouldnt support fencing off any of the new money for the Defense Department until it completes that audit. And until Congress introduces consequences for the Pentagons failure to complete an audit, its likely that lawmakers will find themselves in the same familiar position year after year: in favor of an audit but unable to get their hands on one.

Over the past two weeks, HuffPost interviewed more than two dozen House Republicans about military spending and the Pentagons inability to complete an audit. Almost all of them supported breaking the budget caps that Congress set for defense in 2011 while simultaneously advocating large cuts to domestic programs, citing a $20 trillion national debt.

But there was scant support for delaying budget increases until the Pentagon completes an audit, with some members suggesting they would maybe sign on to such a proposal and many more outright opposing the idea.

The United States already spends more on defense than the next seven nations combined. In 2015, the country spent $596 billion on defense. The next closest nation, China, spent $215 billion, with Saudi Arabia ($87 billion) and Russia ($66 billion) following behind. Congress, the Pentagon, and a thriving defense contractor industry have all tied how much money the United States spends to how safe its citizens are.

But what if money spent and military capabilities arent necessarily bound together? If youre really concerned about our safety, wouldnt you want to make sure that our defense dollars are really going to defense? And how do Republicans really know the Pentagon needs more money?

If you sat through the classified briefing that I just held with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you wouldnt ask that question, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) told HuffPost.

Granger is the chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee in charge of defense spending perhaps the most sought-after subcommittee position in Congress and although she supports an audit and said there are places in the defense budget where we overspend, she doesnt support withholding any money until the Pentagon completes one. In fact, her general belief is that Congress should give the Defense Department as much as it can.

Id go for the highest amount we can achieve, because its still not gonna be enough, she said.

That isnt just the position of the person doling out the Pentagons dollars; its the position of most Republicans in Congress.

We cannot wait to fix our planes and ships until the audit is done, the budget is balanced, and the moon and the stars all align, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told HuffPost. We need ships that sail, planes that fly, today.

Again, Thornberry supports an audit, but he doesnt support fencing off any additional money until the Pentagon completes its accounting.

You gotta walk and chew gum, Thornberry said. You gotta make the department more efficient. You gotta improve their acquisition. And at the same time, you gotta give the people who are risking their lives the training, the equipment, the best this country can provide.

Alex Wong via Getty Images

Republicans seem to believe the military is drastically underfunded. And even if they dont have official documentation of that, theyre certain the Pentagon needs more money.

Just talk to any general over there, and theyll tell you what they need, said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), a former Armed Services Committee member who gave up his position on the panel to become Natural Resources Committee chairman.

But if you doubt that generals are the most disinterested party when it comes to whether the U.S.needs more defense spending, there are always the lawmakers who oversee the projects that directly benefit their districts.

The open secret on Capitol Hill is that the members whose constituents most rely on defense spending often find themselves on the House Armed Services Committee or the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. In one of the last remaining vestiges of congressional logrolling, members support a slate of other defense projects to ensure that their particular program is approved.

When HuffPost talked to Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, he made it clear that he supports more defense spending, but that its not just the increase, its where would the increases be.

And by that, Wittman who represents parts of coastal Virginia where many jobs rely on shipbuilding made it clear he wants the Pentagon to take care of his district.

For Navy, for shipbuilding, I want to make sure were doing the right things there, getting those things taken care of, he said.

Still, like almost every Republican we talked to, Wittman supported an audit. He just isnt prepared to hold back any additional spending until the Pentagon completes that audit, even if theres good evidence that the Pentagon isnt spending as wisely as it could.

Republicans arent entirely to blame for these problems. It takes the cooperation of Democrats for a massive government agency like the Pentagon to never complete an audit. And perhaps part of the reason Democrats have gone along with increasing the defense budget with little accountability is that, up until just recently, Republicans have matched every dollar of defense spending over the budget caps with a dollar for other domestic programs.

While Democrats also thought the Pentagon should undergo an audit, they werent exactly advocating for defense cuts.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, thought focusing on the Pentagons inability to perform an audit was an awkward question to ask.

Instead, he thought the more pressing issue was the GOPs unwillingness to raise taxes to pay for the defense increases lawmakers want.

Slashing every other aspect of the budget to plus-up defense shows misplaced priorities about what is important for a strong country, Smith said. That if our infrastructure is crumbling, if we stop investing in research, if we gut education, if we take money away from poor people at a time of growing wealth disparity, that we will have a country that is worse off because of it.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), one of the most outspoken proponents of the social safety net in Congress, called the GOP budget cruel and rotten.

We need to redefine what we mean by national security, McGovern said. It needs to encompass more than just the number of bombs we have. It needs to include things like whether people have enough to eat, and whether or not people have adequate housing, and whether people have jobs. I mean, those things are important to our national security. Those are the things that people lose sleep at night worrying about.

But if Republicans have tied increases in defense spending to increases in those other domestic programs, Democrats may have an actual interest in keeping defense spending high. And a Defense Department audit may undermine that effort.

In January 2015, an internal Pentagon study found $125 billion in administrative waste that could be eliminated over five years. Defense officials promptly buried the report to avoid the cuts cuts that would not have resulted in layoffs or troop reductions, but would have restricted the use of expensive contractors and streamlined information technology.

DefenseNews wrote a story on the report almost immediately, but it wasnt until nearly a year later that the study got any major attention, after The Washington Post reported that Pentagon officials had attempted to bury it.

Most of the handful of Republicans who seemed uneasy about the Pentagon budget cited the Post story as evidence that maybe the Defense Department could spend its money a little better.

Even among those conservatives generally uneasy about any spending, however, most werent rushing to draft an amendment that would force the Pentagon to complete an audit by a certain date or else suffer some sort of cut. Instead, when you ask conservatives what they want to do about the Pentagons lack of auditing, many suggest more discussion.

Well talk about it, have some hearings, said former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Current Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) did say that not only did the Pentagon need to be audited, but that we need to cut back on their staffing by as many as 100,000.

125 billion dollars, eventually, year after year, that adds up to real money, Meadows joked, with a wink.

But when you press conservatives on what theyre prepared to do to ensure the Pentagon completes an audit, they resort to vague platitudes about cutting debt and talking points about the need for an audit. (Meadows, who was entering a meeting with the Freedom Caucus, said the group would talk about the issue that very night.)

No one seems all that interested in offering an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would require an audit and also have some teeth by, say, subjecting the Pentagon to the spending caps Congress set for defense in 2011 if it does not complete a full accounting.

After HuffPost asked whether he would support such a proposal, conservative Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) did say he was going to introduce such an amendment, just for you.

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Excusing those few Republican voices in Congress who believe we need to cut it all as Massie has urged Congress to do for every part of government Republicans and Democrats seem perfectly content rubber-stamping even more defense dollars, which is exactly how the Pentagon found itself in this decades-long age of unaccountability in the first place.

When HuffPost asked acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth about the Defense Departments auditing problems, Roth said an audit had only become a priority in the last five or six years. One of the reasons we are where we are is for about 20 years, no one really cared, Roth said last week. So thats why we didnt move the ball.

The Pentagon is closer to an audit than ever before, Roth added. Under current law, the Defense Department is supposed to have an audit ready by September 30, 2017. Officials already acknowledge theyll blow past that deadline.

Its going to take more than a year to get there, Roth said. But we have to start.

Officials note that different accounting procedures and software across the massive Defense Department make it difficult to perfectly track every dollar. How bad is the problem? In July 2016, an accounting service for the Army could not find documentation for $6.5 trillion worth of transactions over the years.

Thats roughly the same amount of money Trump suggested Congress approve for the military over the next 10 years.

If lawmakers get their way, itll be much more than that.

David Wood contributed to this report.

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No Audit? No Problem: Republicans Blindly Support More Defense Spending - HuffPost

Forbes

Republicans Are Poles Apart From The World On Global Warming [Infographic] Forbes U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that he's pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The move has come in for widespread international condemnation with the leaders of France, Germany and Italy issuing a joint ...

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Republicans Are Poles Apart From The World On Global Warming [Infographic] - Forbes

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

NEW YORK When Mike Long, the legendary New York Conservative Party chairman, told guests that Kellyanne Conway, the scheduled speaker at the partys annual banquet Thursday night, would be late because President Trump has just announced he is pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, the room erupted in spontaneous applause.

Mrs. Conway, the omnipresent Trump White House counselor (the job Ed Meese held in the Reagan White House), had been recruited for a spur-of-the-moment why Trump did it interview at the Fox News studios around the corner from Mr. Longs dinner in Manhattan.

The spontaneous cheers of approval instead of tepid, pro forma clapping was a bit surprising. With Democrats outnumbering Republicans by lopsided margins of 108-42 in the N.Y. Assembly, 18-9 in the U.S. House and a Democrat serving as governor, New York is not exactly Trump territory.

Elected swing-district Republicans, plentiful in the Empire State at all levels, are generally considered vulnerable to even the merest whiff of unorthodoxy on climate change. But they and the assembled conservative and GOP and activists, pollsters, consultants and donors were almost overly upbeat about the Trump Paris pullout. That would be understandable for those dinner guests who are proud warriors in the cause of skepticism about climate warmings claimed culprits.

Convincingly unforced smiles lit the faces of those and there were lots who privately confessed concerns about re-election in 2018.

They told me they were telling constituents that the Paris accord pullout didnt mean the U.S. was veering smoky gray instead of easy-breathing green but that the Barack Obama-negotiated Paris compact had been needlessly costly for U.S. jobs and economic health and the president was determined to negotiate a better deal with the other Paris signatories.

This is the core argument in the White House talking points distributed to Republicans nationwide. Because it is so eminently credible as a motto, putting Pittsburgh before Paris works even for Republicans cringing at the prospect of the 2018 elections at least for now, in this one Gotham test tube. (If you want to win office as a Republican almost anywhere in this state, every vote counts; so it helps energize GOP-skeptical conservative voters to be able to boast the endorsement of the Conservative Party.)

With every Republican in the Sheraton Hotel ballroom knowing full well that the GOPs electoral health is mainly in Mr. Trumps hands, Mrs. Conway made that reality look like a better-than-just-doable deal.

She told the diners that Mr. Trump pulled off the biggest surprise win in memory in 2016 for all the reasons most people cite but most important was that he ran as a freedom-first conservative. That line drew applause and emphatic nods from N.Y. state GOP Chairman Ed Cox (the establishment personified), Conservative Party Vice Chairman Allen Roth (a heart-and-soul Trumpster), Congress members John Faso, Lee Zeldin, John Katko and Claudia Tenney, state Senate majority leader John Flanagan and Assemblywoman and Conservative Party candidate for New York Mayor Nicole Malliotakis and dozens of Conservative Party county chairmen.

Asked how she came to be the first woman to manage a successful U.S. presidential campaign, Mrs. Conway said, I want you all to remember it was Donald Trump who gave me that opportunity. The issue of gender never came up in our discussions.

A New Jersey denizen about to relocate in D.C. with her husband and four children, she said that when she lived in New York, she registered to vote as, yes, a member of Mr. Longs Conservative Party.

Ralph Z. Hallow has been covering presidential elections and Washington politics from the nations capital for 35 years.

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Trump has changed climate for vulnerable Republicans, too - Washington Times