EBay allows people to sell Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" on its site, as well as the infamously false and anti-Semitic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." "Peter Pan," laden with stereotypes about Native Americans, is for sale there, along with the many books of the "Little House on the Prairie" series, which includes minstrel shows, refers to ...Read more

In the eyes of its critics, President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill is too big and too wasteful. They say that the flood of federal dollars will cause inflation to spike, discourage idled people from working and bail out overly generous public employee pension systems in states run by Democrats.

Some of the critiques are knee-...Read more

Movements are not trending topics. They're not celebrity scandals that excite the mediasphere like brush fires. They are paradigm shifts, and they do their work through legislation, court proceedings, disciplinary measures and the evolution of social hierarchies, political power and the allocation of capital.

In 2006, when Twitter hashtags didn...Read more

For weeks, the famous faces of the U.S. Congress have been showing up in your living rooms, home offices and on your smartphones. They have been making a great show of seeming to pursue, yet again, that time-worn Watergate question:

What did the president know and when did he know it?

But you never got the clear answers you deserve. Until ...Read more

Late last month, after Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley renewed the county mask order and told me he hoped he’d be in a position to lift it by July 4, I doubted that many Texans would wait that long.

But life comes at you fast.

Less than a week later, Gov. Greg Abbott announced the “reopening of Texas” by lifting state capacity limits ...Read more

After oral arguments in a pair of voting rights cases Tuesday, Supreme Court watchers predict that the justices will uphold two laws that make it harder for Arizonans to get their votes counted. The question is the precise legal standard that the justices will set.

Whatever that standard, the court's lean toward voter restrictions only adds to ...Read more

He was called Glen by family and friends, and that’s what I called him too, for Rodney Glen King was, indeed, a friend of mine.

Born in 1965, King came into the world just before the Watts riots and left as Barack Obama was completing his first term as America’s first Black president. Halfway through Glen’s all too short life, four Los ...Read more

How do nations sleepwalk into war? Often through lack of imagination.

That is the thesis that impelled Adm. James Stavridis, a former NATO supreme commander, and Elliot Ackerman, a prominent fiction writer and decorated Marine veteran, to write "2034: A Novel of the Next World War."

The new novel envisions how the United States and China could...Read more

Across the country, parents are demanding more aggressively that schools reopen, including high schools. They’re frustrated with slow bureaucracy on school reopening plans, obstinate teachers unions and pick-and-choose “science” to justify closed buildings. They’re worried about their kids’ mental health.

The Jan. 7 death by suicide ...Read more

For many of my Republican friends, Donald Trump is a guilty pleasure.

They well know a steady diet of his chronically combative nature, like fatty food, is bad for them and the country. They wish with everything in them that he'd just be a little more presidential. But notwithstanding his boorishness, is the other side any less combative? ...Read more

Law enforcement unions have long stood in the way of needed criminal justice reforms, especially those that would fix excessive sentences or enhance police accountability. Many of the tough-on-crime bills and ballot measures that overfilled prisons and jails in the 1980s and 1990s were bankrolled by the state prison guards' union. The Los ...Read more

In previous U.S. recessions, a familiar fiscal pattern has almost always played out. Deprived of revenue, the state and local governments closest to the American people lay off employees and cut essential services. If and when Congress comes to the rescue, it’s often too late. The economic damage has been done.

In some ways, the coronavirus ...Read more

It was March 3, 1901, when George Henry White left office. After serving two terms in the House of Representatives, the North Carolinian saw the writing on the wall shortly after the Wilmington riots and opted not to run for a third term. It would be nearly 30 years before another Black person would be elected to Congress.

One of White's last ...Read more

Read Across America Day was celebrated Tuesday, as it is every year, on the birthday of the late Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Yet neither the National Education Association, which launched Read Across America Day, nor President Joe Biden mentioned Geisel in their official proclamations this week.

Not coincidentally, that was the ...Read more

In popular imagination, the Senate filibuster is the heroic adventure portrayed in the 1939 film classic, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." An idealistic young senator played by Jimmy Stewart holds the floor until he collapses from exhaustion, fighting to prevent bad things from happening.

In real life, the filibuster most often prevents good ...Read more

Sins of commission and sins of omission are often treated differently, but it’s not clear they should be. Most of us, for example, would never dream of killing another person. At the same time, about 160,000 people around the world die every day, often of preventable causes. Letting people die — a sin of omission — seems tolerable in a way...Read more

My parents live on the outskirts of Atlanta, and I am worried about them.

Since the start of the pandemic, there has been a significant uptick in hate crimes against Asians in America. In the past few weeks, we've seen horrifying reports of Asian Americans being harassed and punched, an elderly man thrown to the ground and killed in San ...Read more

Facing growing pressure to resign over sexual misconduct allegations, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday instead offered an apology. Of sorts.

"I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable," the Democrat said during a televised news conference. "It was unintentional and I truly and deeply apologize for it. I ...Read more

Three women have accused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of making lewd sexual advances. If the allegations are true, it makes him a disgusting human being.

But like most sexual misconduct scandals involving prominent men, the actual harassment ends up taking a back seat to partisan politics. The loathsome act often is relegated to a supporting role...Read more

Throughout our nation’s history, civil rights movements across the country have had to fight to achieve victories for the disenfranchised. And one of the most important civil rights issues of our time is the battle for District of Columbia statehood.

As a Washington, D.C., resident, I do not see this as being about politics. It’s about ...Read more