Contributing Writers

There was chatter among Congressional reporters about wandering over to The Monocle for a drink last Wednesday night. The Monocle is an old-school Capitol Hill watering hole located next to U.S. Capitol Police Headquarters and across the parking lot from the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Senators sometimes hang out there while they wait for the body to get its business together for late night votes. It was pushing 9 p.m.

Backers of a proposal to change Ohio’s troubled political mapmaking system will finally be able to start gathering signatures, after clearing a second round of state approvals Monday. Citizens Not Politicians now has until July 3 to collect roughly 414,000 signatures required to put its constitutional amendment before voters in November 2024. Supporters are expected to fan out across the state beginning this week to try to make next fall’s statewide ballot.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a stern defense of President Biden’s “stamina” on Monday, his 81st birthday, when questioned over the growing concerns surrounding his age.

New Hampshire should be spending at least 80% more per pupil on public schools, a judge said Monday in one of two rulings that could force significant changes to education funding. Lawmakers have been grappling with the issue for decades after the state Supreme Court ruled in the 1990s that the state is required to provide and pay for an adequate education. In response, the Legislature began sending each school district a set amount of aid per pupil — currently $4,100.

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Roger Page announced on Monday that he plans to retire in August 2024. In a statement from Tennessee’s court system, the 68-year-old said his time as a judge has been humbling, inspiring and the honor of a lifetime. He was first appointed to the high court by former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam in 2016. His last day will be Aug. 31.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas will endorse former President Donald Trump for their party’s 2024 nomination when the two team up Sunday near the U.S.-Mexico border, GOP sources in Texas confirm to Fox News.

An Oregon Democratic congressional candidate is embracing her past and looking to “reclaim her sexuality” after a clip of her working at a Manhattan BDSM dungeon was leaked online earlier this year.

President Biden on Saturday called for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestinians in the Middle East, but one that is “free from Hamas” as he put forward his plan for peace in the region in the wake of the Hamas terror attack against Israel. “The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own and a future free from Hamas,” he said.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is urging the city’s richest to open their wallets to help the city weather a financial storm created by the ongoing migrant crisis, days after the city unveiled deep budget cuts. “This is a moment where it’s an all hands on deck moment,” Adams told a Police Athletic League lunch on Friday, according to the New York Post.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee is calling for an investigation into the now-defunct House January 6 committee, accusing former and current lawmakers who served on the committee of “deliberately” hiding some of the footage from the Capitol riots. Lee’s comments came after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., began releasing more than 40,000 hours of footage taken at the U.S.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was caught on video running over a Chinese child while playing a pickup basketball game during his trip to the country. The short clip, which was shared by RNC Research, an arm of the Republican National Committee, features the California governor showing off his ball handling skills before making a move toward the basket and running right through one of the children attempting to defend him.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday said he stands by the decision to decertify any pro-Palestinian student groups that side with Hamas from state college campuses, arguing that to allow these groups to openly side with “brutal terrorist organizations” is like committing “suicide as a country.

Israel should take responsibility for protecting innocent civilians in Gaza even though Hamas is using them as human shields, Biden administration national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday, as Israeli forces continue to bombard the Gaza Strip following the deadly terrorist attack more than three weeks ago.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Turkey is becoming “The Squad” of NATO after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Israel a war criminal in its fight against Hamas terrorists. The GOP senator made the comment Saturday in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Seems that Turkey, particularly senior leadership, is setting itself up to be ‘The Squad’ of NATO,” Graham wrote. “Very disappointing and destabilizing.

A Chinese official made the rounds earlier this month in Pennsylvania during meetings with a local economic development council, scholars at the University of Pennsylvania, and two Democratic state senators despite growing concerns about China’s economic presence in the U.S. and controversial comments the official made praising the Chinese Communist Party.

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would rescind student visas of foreign nationals in the U.S. and send them back to their home countries if they expressed support for Hamas terrorists’ attack against Israel. Speaking at a campaign event in Iowa on Friday, the White House hopeful discussed his plans to remove Hamas-supporting foreign nationals attending U.S.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the U.S. Department of Defense’s plan on Saturday evening to further “bolster regional deterrence efforts” in the Middle East amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, reiterating the department’s defense of Israel. In a press release, the secretary said that the plan comes following “detailed discussions” with President Joe Biden. The secretary said that USS Dwight D.

The Biden administration is asking Congress for $14 billion in funding to aid its efforts in combating the ongoing crisis at the border, including money for migrant services and housing, anti-fentanyl technology and more border agents. The $14 billion is part of a $105 billion request put forward by the White House this week. It is significantly more than previous supplemental requests and comes as the U.S. is again seeing record numbers at the southern border. The request includes $6.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but in their effort to elect a House speaker, Republicans have taken a more tortured route. Compared to a straight line, Republicans will follow the path of the “truncated icosidodecahedron rhombus,” a monstrous, convex, polygonous shape. At least the truncated icosidodecahedron rhombus is an actual thing.

Border officials arrested 18 people on the FBI’s terror watchlist in September, making fiscal year 2023 a record year for such encounters at the southern border. According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics released Saturday, 169 people on the FBI terror watchlists were encountered between ports of entry at the southern border in the past twelve months, a number that exceeds not only FY 22’s record-setting total (98) but the last six fiscal years combined.