Noel C. Cilker

The last two weeks, we can all agree, was crazy for American politics . Also crazy is that the word "impeachment" is beginning to be used more seriously and has been called for from the House floor . Even Nate Silver, the prediction guru behind FiveThirtyEight.com, puts the odds at 50% that President Trump won't serve his entire term, either because of impeachment or resignation. But another Constitutional provision to remove the president from office has been getting some attention lately. The 25th Amendment. Text of the 25th Amendment.   It was adopted in 1967 to clear up confusion surrounding presidential succession, but the part that people have been looking at these days is Section 4. It allows the vice president and the cabinet to declare the president unfit for leadership: "Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to th...

The almost-latest out of the Trump White House (news of James Comey's memo broke as I was writing this) is that the president gave classified information to Russian officials regarding the militant Islamic group ISIS. In and of itself, that is not a crime. But it could be highly damaging, as the revelation of that intelligence could compromise the source that provided it. It has now been revealed that that source was Israel, which was warned by American officials to not share sensitive intelligence with Trump for this very reason. From an article from January , "the Americans recommended that until it is made clear that Trump is not inappropriately connected to Russia and is not being extorted – Israel should avoid revealing sensitive sources to administration officials." President Trump with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.   Russian Foreign Ministry None of this looks good and adds to the White House's woes. But in response, Trump focused on...

President Donald Trump's bombshell firing of FBI Director James Comey is leaving oversized craters in the political environment. It's not unusual for incoming presidents to fire or ask for the resignations of bureaucrats left over from the previous administration, but Comey's firing has politicians, the press, and politically-tuned-in citizens on edge. The unease is due to the FBI's investigation of President Trump and his associates and their possible ties to Russia. Firing the director leading that investigation is leaving a host of commentators crying foul. President Donald Trump and former FBI Director James Comey.   Rex/Shutterstock David Ignatius of the Washington Post  wrote: "Comey’s firing takes the country closer to the dangerous collision that has been looming since allegations began about possible connections between Trump and his associates and the Russian covert influence operation Comey has been investigating since July." The Los ...

The furor over Ann Coulter's canceled speech at UC Berkeley seems to have mostly died down for now. Though she was rescheduled to speak at Berkeley on May 2, Coulter vowed to speak on April 27, the originally scheduled date. Demonstrators on both sides arrived from up and down the west coast expecting a confrontation, but Coulter didn't show. In a remarkable turn of events, the demonstrations were peaceful. Peaceful demonstrators engage in conversation during the protest in Berkeley on April 27.   Daphne White The free speech debate, however, goes on. In the Washington Post , Pranav Jandhyala, a UC Berkeley freshman who founded BridgeUSA at Berkeley and worked with the College Republicans to bring Coulter to the campus, explained his reasons : "Coulter’s ideas have an audience, and though most members of our group don’t agree with her, we recognize the following she draws. We also understand that many see her as an inflammatory figure with destructive belie...