Democrats have every right to be pleased that they passed another big spending bill, but a lot of them are getting carried away. Longtime Democratic consultant Robert Shrum celebrated the momentum behind the passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act by tweeting, “Biden is the most legislatively successful President since LBJ.”

Some ...Read more

It's gotten to the point where even the most obviously nonpartisan issues that Americans ought to be able to address cooperatively and rationally have fallen victim to the country's culture of extreme political polarization.

Hostility has grown so intense, especially on the Republican side, that subjects that should be entirely nonpolitical are...Read more

Recently, Kansas voters soundly rejected a referendum that would have ensured more abortion restrictions in the solidly red state. This led to predictions that conservatives may pay a price in upcoming elections for the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, which undid the constitutional protection for...Read more

Four years ago I decided I needed to host a pop-up grammar-advice stand. The plan was simple: I’d sit on the streets of New York City and help people with their questions. I ordered a folding table, drew a “Grammar Table” sign and waited for the weather to cool. On a September day I walked to a small park near my apartment building, ...Read more

Few expressions of the journalistic mission could be more essential and unflinching than Austin Tice’s reporting on the Syrian civil war for McClatchy and others. Tice was one of the few journalists who left a country that enshrines press freedom in our founding document for one where the government and its enemies targeted reporters for ...Read more

Just a few short months ago, the Democratic Party was facing disaster.

With gas soaring past $5 a gallon in Illinois, the market collapse giving 401(k)s a painful 2022 haircut, fraught parents up in arms over lingering school closures, and inflation cleaning out wallets and purses at grocery stores, nonpartisan analysts were predicting a ...Read more

One year ago, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in part because the U.S. had hoped for the best after withdrawing its forces from the country, without adequately preparing for the worst. In dealing with the Taliban today, President Joe Biden’s administration can afford no such illusions.

The past 12 months should’ve dispelled any optimism ...Read more

It has come to this: Missouri Democrats recently reached out to Illinois and Kansas officials, asking them to secure Medicaid funding for low-income Missouri rape victims who have to travel out of state for abortion services due to Missouri’s extreme new abortion ban. It’s a chilling reminder that Missouri has turned its back on some of its ...Read more

The ink is barely dry on the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, which allocates $80 billion over 10 years to help modernize IRS technology systems and provide more effective tax enforcement and collection. Yet already, Republican critics like Sen. John Thune of South Dakota are complaining that the needed funds will do little more than ...Read more

“Professor, why should we allow hate speech?”

Over the past few years, that’s become the most common question that students ask me in class. My reply is simple: Human beings have different understandings of hate, love and everything in between. Almost any statement can be perceived as bigoted or offensive, depending on the context. So ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The third attempt could be the charm for repairing California's main waterworks, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

On paper at least, the latest plan by a governor to upgrade the delta into a more reliable state water supply seems to make much more sense than what his predecessors promoted.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's ...Read more

The GOP has two words that give it strength: "America First."

Putting aside the slogan's antisemitic history and the problematic scarcity mind-set it promotes, it might sound reasonable enough. Why shouldn't our elected officials put our country first?

But the phrase is a useful lie to mask the party's actual priorities: protecting beloved tax...Read more

The United States is in the hot seat on the global stage to answer for its human rights track record in fighting racial discrimination at home. That stage is the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a body of international human rights experts who monitor compliance with a global racial justice treaty.

This ...Read more

As we set foot on the tarmac in Taiwan, with thousands of people lining the midnight streets to welcome us, I turned back to look at our military aircraft, with the illuminated American flag on its tail. Just as the American flag serves as a beacon of freedom across the world, so too does Taiwan serve as a beacon of democracy against the growing...Read more

All life on Earth is possible because of one miraculous liquid: water. But less than 3% of the world’s water is freshwater, and less than 1% of that is available for use. And the well is drying up. The water supply is dwindling in communities across the United States as a result of the human-caused climate catastrophe. So for World Water Week ...Read more

WASHINGTON — One year ago, as President Joe Biden was withdrawing the last American troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban swept into Kabul and abruptly brought a 20-year, $2.3 trillion U.S. war to an ignominious end.

It was Biden’s worst foreign policy failure, and prompted warnings that more catastrophes would follow: not only the tragedy ...Read more

South Carolina Republicans didn’t need Kansas to tell them that most people, even in blood-red states, support legalized abortion.

The failed Kansas referendum to constitutionally ban abortion showed Palmetto State Republicans that they need to keep doing what they’re already doing: Ignoring reality, making life worse for a chunk of South ...Read more

When attempting to make sense of the news, comparing different countries can inform how we think about political problems and possible solutions. Yet international comparisons can be quite misleading.

The World Happiness Report, an annual survey that asks people across the world how happy they are, is an illustrative case in point. The 2022 ...Read more

The past three months have seen mass shootings of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, and July Fourth celebrants in Highland Park, Illinois. Cries for greater gun control to stop such avoidable, premature deaths grow after each event. President Joe Biden recently signed a gun control measure into law, but overall, little substantive change has ...Read more

Bad gun laws have claimed yet another victim, but not the kind you might be thinking of. This year’s Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta was recently canceled because the organizers believed Georgia law did not allow them to prohibit firearms at the event. The cancellation might have saved lives, but it cost the local economy an estimated $50 ...Read more