Politics
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Editorial: White House must come to the table on aid package
The White House must get serious about reaching a deal with Republicans over aid to Ukraine and border security. It’s time for President Joe Biden to end the bluster and work toward compromise.
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked the administration’s $111 billion package on a procedural vote that required support from 60 senators for ...Read more

Commentary: As a Gaza teen, I used to dream of college. Now I feel sentenced to death by Israel's bombings
SOUTHERN GAZA — Until two months ago, my life as a 17-year-old in Gaza was marked by the predictable anxieties and aspirations of a student applying to university. I dreamt of crossing borders to pursue a better life — of landing on my feet at an American school and, eventually, of returning to serve my community as a doctor. Education was ...Read more

Jackie Calmes: Republicans' blocking aid to Ukraine is next-level cynicism
Only five months ago, President Joe Biden promised at a NATO summit that the United States and its allies would help defend Ukraine against Russia's wanton aggression for "as long as it takes." Just after Vladimir Putin's invasion, and amid his soldiers' ongoing war crimes, former Vice President Mike Pence promised a roomful of Republican donors...Read more

Commentary: Why I built my own tribe for Hanukkah
Twenty years ago, I moved from L.A. to San Francisco and then Bellingham, Washington — so far north I could spit across the border and a Canadian would apologize for being too close. For the longest time I regretted the move from areas with strong synagogues and significant Jewish populations to a town with so few Jews and one synagogue. It ...Read more

Editorial: GOP primary voters need Trump's leading rivals to answer the question that matters most
The fourth Republican presidential debate thankfully featured just four candidates rather than the cattle call we saw in previous sessions. But, whether there are four or 14 running, the same problem persists.
There’s only one — former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — willing to tell primary voters what too many of them apparently don’t...Read more

Commentary: How are people changed by being taken hostage by Hamas? By fleeing Israeli bombs?
Violent conflicts and atrocities can seem omnipresent in the world — and all the more traumatic in an age when wars are fought by terrorizing civilians more than by squaring off against a rival military.
Wars and violent conflicts in Congo, Gaza, Israel, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and many other places have resulted in ...Read more

Editorial: Funding for California's bullet trains puts the high-speed rail revolution back on track
Finally, the federal government is putting serious money behind a greener and faster transportation system.
This week, the Biden administration announced $6 billion in funding for two high-speed rail projects that will eventually whisk passengers across California and Nevada on electrified trains that can travel 200 mph or faster. It’s a ...Read more

Editorial: Florida has gone book-ban crazy. But in Miami, books can unite, not divide, us
In this dark moment for free speech, when Florida leads the nation in book banning — pulling more books from public school shelves than any other state — a homegrown beacon of literacy is broadening its reach, a spark of hope that we need in Miami.
Books & Books, the beloved bookstore that has served South Florida for decades, has started a...Read more

Francis Wilkinson: The Supreme Court won't save Donald Trump
There is good reason for cynicism about the prospects of holding Donald Trump accountable for his misdeeds.
He has more than enough money to pursue his legal strategy of delay, delay, delay in the multiple criminal cases against him. He has a federal judiciary that moves ponderously in the wake of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that...Read more

Mark Z. Barabak: In two decades, much of the West has turned blue. Why hasn't Texas?
Over the last 20 years, the West has politically transformed.
The onetime Republican stronghold has become a Democratic bastion, dramatically reshaping the fight for the White House as Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon joined California and Washington in the ranks of solid-blue states.
Arizona and Nevada, once reliably red, have become two of ...Read more

Commentary: What is societal burnout? We are living it
Are you waking up with a lump in your throat that never used to be there? Is there an ache in your chest — best described as heartache — relatively new to you? Do you look at your children, fearing for their future and well-being? Do your eyes fill with tears, but you are not sure why?
If so, I join you. We are experiencing societal burnout...Read more

Commentary: California's greenhouse gas emissions are rising -- and we're not even counting them all
California has committed to substantially reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, aiming for carbon neutrality by 2045. The pledge is key to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claims of climate leadership, which featured prominently in his recent visits to China and the United Nations.
But the California Air Resources Board recently released a preliminary ...Read more

Commentary: It is true. There are people who don't want to work anymore
The new Dollar General store in my rural Illinois hometown couldn’t open for the longest time because it couldn’t find workers. Apples rotted on the ground at Arends Orchard nearby because the 50-year proprietor couldn’t find help — for the first time in his long history of providing apples and cider to our area.
How many times have you...Read more

Commentary: What's it like to be an average American?
One of the best ways to get a picture of a nation is through its numbers and, perhaps more importantly, its averages.
But Americans like to believe that their nation is exceptional. And in some ways, it is. Yet what transpires on an “average day” for the “average person” tells a story that each of us should listen to.
Americans love ...Read more

Commentary: AI tools are a cash cow for developers and a liability for the rest of us
A year ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT — a free generative artificial intelligence chatbot that creates text in response to user prompts.
With its launch, millions of people started using ChatGPT for tasks such as writing school essays, drafting emails and personal greetings, and retrieving information. Increasingly, more people and public ...Read more

Editorial: No evidence for Biden impeachment inquiry? No problem. The House GOP doesn't seem to care
The politically inspired impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has failed to produce any convincing evidence that Biden has committed the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required by the U.S. Constitution for the conviction and removal of a chief executive. So naturally Speaker Mike Johnson is proposing a floor vote, likely next week, ...Read more

Editorial: Voters are right to complain about inflation
Against the odds, the Federal Reserve’s effort to guide the U.S. economy to a soft landing — reducing inflation without causing a recession — seems to be working. Recent data show a still-growing economy, a gently cooling jobs market and a slower pace of price increases in services. Investors are growing more confident that the Fed won’t...Read more

Editorial: COP28 needs less talk and more action
In 2015, the world’s governments declared a collective ambition: to limit the rise in global temperatures to just 1.5 degrees Celsius. Since then, two things have become clear. First, the costs of exceeding that threshold are greater than believed eight years ago. Second, the goal looks increasingly difficult to reach. Even if governments ...Read more

Editorial: University presidents proved spectacularly inept on Capitol Hill. Resignations should follow
On Tuesday, Elise Stefanik, the U.S. representative for New York’s 21st Congressional District, posed the same question to the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, proxies all for America’s liberal intellectual elite.
The repeated question for Claudine Gay of Harvard...Read more

Michael Hiltzik: A bogus new attack on COVID vaccines from Texas' least credible politician
In recent times, whenever a government lawsuit swears at common sense, at the facts and at the public interest, it has been a safe bet that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has his fingerprints on it.
Sure enough, here comes Paxton with a lawsuit charging Pfizer Inc. with systematically misrepresenting the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine and ...Read more