Weekly Writers Round-Up: Presidential Pardons, Saudi Arabia, and Money in Politics

Each week, we’ll be featuring the work of the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. For more information on the program, see here. Applications for the spring are now open!

On Thanksgiving, Trump Should Pardon More Than Turkeys by Erin Dunne (Fall 2018) in The Washington Examiner
On Twitter you can vote for which turkey Trump should pardon: Peas or Carrots. But once he is done presiding over the pardoning of feathery Thanksgiving centerpieces, both of which are guaranteed life on a farm anyway, the president should turn his attention to pardoning people, specifically nonviolent drug offenders serving long mandatory sentences in federal prison…

Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder is Playing Out as Expected by Gil Barndollar (Summer 2018) in The National Interest
Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced the leveling of Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act sanctions on seventeen Saudi nationals allegedly involved in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month. Mnuchin said the right things about “justice” and “accountability,” but all indications are that the Trump administration wants to put this matter to rest as quickly as possible, with the barest of consequences for a gruesome crime that shocked Washington and the world…

Record Campaign Spending for Election Is Good for Democracy by Luke Wachob (Fall 2018) in The Hill
Election Day is like the Kentucky Derby for political nerds. It does not happen out of nowhere. A lot of people donate a lot of time and money to make the national event meaningful. Federal campaign spending for the 2018 midterm elections reached an estimated $5.2 billion. That sets a record for the most expensive midterm elections cycle in our history. It is also sure to spark calls for new laws restricting money in politics…

Eliminating All Student Debt Isn’t Progressive – And Neither Is This Alternative by Preston Copper (Fall 2015) in Forbes
Eliminating all student debt has become a fashionable idea on the left, prompting New York Times opinion columnist David Leonhardt to remind progressives that wiping away $1.5 trillion in student loans would be, in his words, “a giant welfare program for the upper middle class”…

Lay off of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s American Dream Already by Philip Wegmann (Spring 2016) in The Washington Examiner
Lay off of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s American dream already. The representative elect from New York has attracted a monsoon of media coverage because of her clothes, because of her slim bank account, because of her everyman wonderment at coming to Congress. In many ways, the 29-year-old is both a progressive poster child and a picture of “the forgotten men and women” of President Trump’s first inaugural…