Politics
/ArcaMax

Editorial: US aid agency shouldn't be above scrutiny
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have triggered panic in Washington with their efforts to cap the U.S. foreign aid spigot. To the extent that this ignites a conversation about how best to direct billions in American assistance abroad, the move is long overdue. But the White House will need congressional help to accomplish many of its objectives in ...Read more

Editorial: Trump is hurting people who know how to lower egg prices
The avian flu pandemic ravaging poultry farms across the country, raising the price of eggs and wings is an act of nature, but the human response to it reveals the value of a non-political group whose funding, already restricted by the Trump administration, remains in jeopardy: scientific researchers funded through the National Institutes of ...Read more

Gene Collier: Trump and the incredible disappearing government
Now that the complete dismantling of the U.S. Government looks as though it's going to require a third full week, the people who are paying attention have begun to appreciate the general sequencing of the dominoes in play.
The Department of Education appears to be next in the line, adjacent to the General Services Administration, following the ...Read more

Editorial: Arrests in two shocking Chicago murder cases give us hope there's a price to be paid for violent crime
In the past few days, police have arrested suspects in two of Chicago’s most horrific murder cases last year.
Arrested last Friday was Deron Wolfe, 19, who was charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery in connection with the shooting death of Elgin teen Jesse Kendall in October outside the United Center. Kendall was on his way with ...Read more

Jackie Calmes: Trump's second presidency delivers a diktat a day
At a televised town hall in 2023, Sean Hannity gave Donald Trump a chance to dispel fears that he'd abuse power if given another spin as president. Trump sort-of obliged: He'd be a dictator, he said, just "for Day 1."
Supporters insisted he was only joking with his use of "dictator." Critics took him seriously; he had, after all, tried to stay ...Read more

Editorial: DeSantis' 'Second Amendment Summer' is more about his aspirations than Florida's budget
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is no stranger to political showmanship, and his latest tax holiday is one more example.
In his 2025-26 proposed state budget, DeSantis is asking lawmakers for a new statewide sales-tax free holiday that he is calling the “Second Amendment Summer.” The tax holiday, which would run from Memorial Day through the ...Read more

Editorial: Trump shouldn't push his luck on tariffs
So far, President Donald Trump's tariff brinkmanship has worked out well for him. He forced Colombia to bend to his will on repatriating its migrants and brought the leaders of Canada and Mexico rushing back to the table to talk border security.
But what happens should his luck run out? The game Trump is playing could turn American consumers ...Read more

Robin Abcarian: A new generation has its own Dr. Spock -- and a very different take on parenting
Every generation has its parent whisperer.
My mother and father had Benjamin Spock, the pediatrician who promoted the revolutionary idea that children should be cherished and held, not whipped or spanked. His landmark 1946 book, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care," became one of the best-selling books of the 20th century.
When I ...Read more

Commentary: Support for mass deportation drops well below half as people consider other options
Polling on what to do with undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has found seemingly contradictory results. When mass deportation is asked about by itself, some polls have found slight majority support. But that is not Americans’ preferred solution.
When given another option – a path to citizenship – a substantially larger majority chooses...Read more

POINT: Trump didn't return abortion to the states -- It was already there
Now that Donald Trump has been elected, the attacks on abortion rights will accelerate. Without resorting to a national ban on abortion, Trump can use executive authority to take a series of decisive actions that can repeal federal regulations that still provide some protections for abortion rights.
Trump has claimed responsibility for creating...Read more

Francis Wilkinson: MAGA's driving force is Christian nationalism
President Donald Trump, we are told, is endorsed by God.
“Father, when Donald Trump’s enemies thought he was down and out, You, and You alone, saved his life and raised him up with strength and power by Your mighty hand,” said the Reverend Franklin Graham during his invocation at Trump’s inauguration last week. “Mr. President,” ...Read more

Commentary: Congress should use its power against Trump
On Jan. 27, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo ordering all federal agencies to “temporarily pause” provision of all federal financial assistance to assess compliance with the wave of executive orders issued in President Donald Trump’s first weeks in office.
The vaguely worded order unleashed mayhem, as ...Read more

Commentary: America's addiction to Big Sugar leaves a bitter aftertaste
If the Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary, he has his work cut out for him. His quest to make America healthy again won’t be easy, but it should include tackling Big Sugar, an industry that has substantially increased Americans’ grocery prices — and significantly decreased their health.
In the U.S., sugar costs 40 ...Read more

Noah Feldman: Trump Is testing our constitutional system. It's doing fine
The Trump administration is subjecting the U.S. constitutional system to a stress test. We’re on the treadmill, with instruments recording everything that’s happening.
Nearly every day since taking office, President Donald Trump has done something unlawful that makes the treadmill go a little faster. He has purported to ban birthright ...Read more

Editorial: Trump's tariff tantrum -- Risking so much with Mexico and Canada to achieve very little
President Donald Trump’s reckless weekend threat of sabotaging trade in North America and spiking inflation with instant 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports severely spooked investors, but did manage to get him some promises of tougher interdiction of people and drugs at the southern and northern borders. It’s a dangerous way to deal...Read more

Commentary: Is it time for the University of Chicago to abandon cherished neutrality and join the fight?
The University of Chicago is marking the 10th anniversary of the 2015 restatement by a faculty committee of the school’s commitment to free speech values known as the “Chicago Principles.” This celebration is a somber occasion, for intellectual freedom is under siege on multiple fronts, presenting higher education with challenges that are ...Read more

Commentary: Rebels with a cause created a country with a heart
Two hundred fifty years ago this month, on Feb. 9, 1775, the British Parliament declared the Massachusetts Bay Colony to be in “rebellion.” This allowed British soldiers to shoot suspected rebels on sight, which encouraged further rebellion and the growing independence movement. The shooting war began two months later when fighting broke out...Read more

Editorial: Trade blackmail will backfire on the US
About the best that can be said of the new trade policy emanating from the White House is that it’s all a bluff. After several days of panic, the U.S. agreed to delay enormous new tariffs on Canada and Mexico in exchange for some token border-security measures.
Yet serious damage has already been done. And these costs will be nothing compared...Read more

COUNTERPOINT: The state(s) of abortion in America
President Donald Trump says that abortion policy should be left to the states, which, of course, means that if you’re in the wrong ZIP code, you’re out of luck.
That’s why it was so crucial for the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutional right to abortion in all 50 states in the Roe v. Wade decision and why it was so shocking when the ...Read more

Editorial: Musk's USAID shutdown is illegal -- And a bad policy to wipe out foreign aid, but Trump has bullied Congress into submission
There are two things very wrong with Elon Musk and his quasi-official DOGE shutting down the United States Agency for International Development, appropriately called USAID: 1) Musk has no authority (and neither does President Donald Trump) to abolish a congressional established government entity and 2) foreign aid, which is what USAID does, is a...Read more