Politics
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Ronald Brownstein: Forget the SAVE Act. There's a better way to fix US voting laws
Legislation to reshape the rules for voting nationwide is the issue that’s prompted the greatest pressure from President Donald Trump on Senate Republicans to end the filibuster. That’s also the issue that triggered the greatest pressure on Senate Democrats to end the filibuster under President Joe Biden. The parallel is no coincidence.
And...Read more
Commentary: University of Chicago gave everyone AI. Now it needs to say what education is for
In June, University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos announced that the institution would be rolling out Claude Enterprise, an artificial intelligence tool developed by Anthropic, to all students, faculty and staff.
The letter features carefully composed language: “Spanning the domains of research, education, and operations: these are ...Read more
Editorial: Mamdani has to drop his Netanyahu arrest nonsense
Zohran Mamdani, a lifelong foe of the existent of the Jewish state of Israel, knows he can’t do anything of the sort by ordering the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu should he come to New York. So why does Mamdani keep talking about the impossible? The mayor even used city resources to make a 2-minute video decrying Netanyahu ...Read more
Jackie Calmes: Trump's undermining of US elections is not a simple partisan issue
It's right there in his name: Sen. Mark Warner for months has been on a tear to warn Americans of President Donald Trump's designs to disrupt the midterm elections.
The Democrat from Virginia first got my attention in late March with a four-alarm op-ed in the New York Times. The sober, plugged-in Warner, the vice chair and a former chair of the...Read more
Commentary: Censoring is out. Bullying is in
When we imagine a threat to free speech, we picture a ban — a law forbidding certain words, a prosecutor charging a dissenter, an official with a censor’s stamp. That picture is increasingly obsolete. The gravest threats to expression today rarely announce themselves as censorship. They take the form of ordinary administration turned to ...Read more
Editorial: On the clock: The end of springing forward?
Will the nation’s biannual ritual of moving the clock backward and forward an hour soon be a thing of the past? Perhaps, but it’s no sure thing.
The House last week passed the Sunshine Protection Act by a 308-117 margin. Support cut across party lines. Under the legislation, states that don’t exempt themselves would observe daylight ...Read more
Jill Burcum: Smoke-filled summers cannot become the norm
My late father-in-law smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes. Regrettably, I now feel like I do too when summer makes its annual debut.
The culprit is the wildfire smoke blanketing Minnesota again and again, turning blue skies to apocalyptic yellow, with ash coating cars and windowsills in some of the hardest-hit areas of our state. The gloomy haze...Read more
Editorial: When it comes to war in Iran, Congress must wield power of the purse
The war in Iran is nearing the five-month mark, and during that time at least 17 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 400 injured. Still, for the war President Donald Trump said would take “a few days,” there is not only no end in sight, but the stated objectives have yet to be accomplished.
That’s because Trump bypassed ...Read more
Commentary: Connecting flight? Good luck
The summer travel period is here, with high passenger volume keeping airplanes filled, even as jet fuel prices remain high and ticket prices have spiked.
To add more angst to air travel, the first half of 2026 gave air travelers a rollercoaster ride of delays and disruptions. Whether it was Transportation Security officers not being paid due ...Read more
Commentary: Why the US should consider making voting compulsory
The United States — like all democracies — is centered around the basic premise that a representative system of governance reflects public preferences. This is not and has never been true, however.
As the left and right argue, the disproportionate influence of a select few suppresses the will of the majority. Interest groups play an outsize...Read more
Commentary: Anyone who wanted Lindsey Graham's career had to appear straight. And the closet persists.
Having died earlier this month after two decades in the Senate, Lindsey Graham is likely to be remembered for his roles in foreign policy and his imprimatur on Trumpism. For LGBTQ+ people especially, he may be remembered as the last closet case.
There is no verified public evidence of Graham’s sexual orientation. He consistently denied the ...Read more
Commentary: The world's dumbest tariff just got a lot dumber
Earlier this year, my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Scott Lincicome made a convincing case for why the tariffs placed on aluminum imports to the U.S. may be the dumbest of all the Trump administration’s duties. Things got a lot dumber this week.
The White House on Monday said companies that build, expand or refurbish aluminum plants in the U.S....Read more
David M. Drucker: The US could 'abolish ICE.' Then what?
It would be political folly for the Democratic Party to fully embrace calls to “abolish ICE,” at least without adopting a substitute blueprint for strong immigration enforcement.
That’s not to say Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasn’t abused its power during President Donald Trump’s second term. American citizens have been ...Read more
COUNTERPOINT: Corporations got the benefits, working families got the bill
One year ago, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans forced their Big Beautiful Bill through Congress. Today, it is one of the most unpopular major laws in recent history and continues to lose support with the American public.
The design of the bill was simple and gave millionaires, billionaires and corporations massive tax cuts ...Read more
Commentary: When life gets hard, animals still depend on us
Dogs and cats don’t know when their family is struggling financially. They don’t understand layoffs, rising rent, unexpected medical bills or expensive auto repairs. But they do know when the people they love are stressed.
They feel the tension in the home, and they’re affected when worry leaves us with less time, energy and patience. ...Read more
POINT: It's working, but we're evaluating it by the wrong standard
If you listen to the debate over affordability, you’d think the Working Families Tax Cuts had failed. Critics point to today’s cost-of-living challenges as proof that they aren't working.
No one bill was ever going to solve every affordability challenge facing this country. If we’re going to judge this law, we ought to judge it...Read more
Commentary: Get off your high (Trojan) horses about 'The Odyssey'
There’s been a lot of online discourse about how unfaithful Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of “The Odyssey” is, how part of the movie was shot in northern locations such as Iceland and Scotland and how, God forbid, a Kenyan woman was cast as Helen of Troy. But as a classics major, I think all of that is OK, maybe even good: The new ...Read more
Commentary: Meta abandons its AI-generating tool, but public-safety guardrails are needed
Meta recently introduced a new AI feature on Instagram—then removed it after sharp public uproar. The tool, part of its latest Muse Image model, allowed users to generate AI images using content from public Instagram accounts.
The element that incensed users most was that all public users were automatically opted into allowing their images to...Read more
Commentary: The housing crisis you're not hearing about
In 2022, I was part of a research team that mailed 2,500 surveys to older St. Louis homeowners to determine their need for home repairs. The cover letter listed my phone number as the one to call with questions or concerns. I asked our survey research expert how many calls I should expect. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Maybe five.”
I ...Read more
Lynn Schmidt: Why the socialist sugar high ultimately crashes for Democrats
Democratic socialism has been winning in Democratic primaries lately, but it will ultimately lose — because it fails politically and economically.
Several Democratic socialist candidates this year have knocked off sitting Democratic incumbents and won primaries by wide margins in cities across the country, running under the label rather than ...Read more




















































