GOP Principles Give Way on Blanche, Putin May Test NATO Article 5

SEND ME A TEXT MESSAGE NOWWhat happens when political principles collide with political survival, presidential power runs into constitutional limits, and one of the world’s most important military alliances confronts a question nobody wants answered the hard way?Jeff Alan Wolf looks at the growing political drama surrounding Todd Blanche and the Republican senators who could determine his future as attorney general. Senator’s Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have each taken positions that raise a larger question about Washington: When politicians talk about principle, how much of what we’re hearing is conviction, and how much is calculation?Donald Trump’s controversial $400 million White House ballroom is back in the courts, and the latest development could have implications reaching far beyond one enormous construction project. The fight over the White House raises a fundamental question about presidential power, Congress and just how much freedom any president should have to reshape the People’s House.Then there’s Vladimir Putin, NATO and Article 5. A recent U.S. intelligence assessment raises an unsettling possibility about what Putin may be considering and why the real objective might have less to do with winning a conventional war than discovering whether NATO’s most important promise is as strong as its members say it is.For more than 75 years, NATO deterrence has depended on potential adversaries believing that an attack against one member means confronting the entire alliance. But what happens when an adversary starts wondering whether everybody would actually keep that promise when keeping it suddenly becomes dangerous?In this episode of A World Gone Mad, Jeff digs beneath the headlines to examine political loyalty in Washington, the boundaries of presidential authority and a potential challenge to NATO that could carry consequences far beyond Europe. The questions are already uncomfortable. The answers could be considerably more so.Subscribe to A World Gone Mad with Jeff Alan Wolf for independent news commentary that looks beyond today’s headlines to the bigger forces shaping American democracy.Looking for more independent news commentary and original articles?Visit Jeff’s Substack The Wolf’s Denhttps://open.substack.com/pub/[email protected]