Politics
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Mary Ellen Klas: Going it alone isn't a COVID strategy. Just ask Florida
As we mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s past time the federal government require uniform public health data and transparency standards at the state level — both to reestablish public trust and to avoid the dangerous spread of misinformation during the next deadly outbreak.
One of the enduring lessons of...Read more
Commentary: Marry rich. That's the Republican plan for moms
The Republican Party is making yet another appeal to mothers, hoping to get them in Donald Trump’s camp ahead of this year’s presidential election. As Alabama Senator Katie Britt put it in her State of the Union rebuttal, “we are the party of hardworking parents and families. We want to give you and your children the opportunities to ...Read more
Editorial: Jan. 6 (2025) is coming ... and Trump just weaponized the GOP's fundraising arm
A thought exercise: Describe a scenario under which former President Donald Trump clearly loses the 2024 election — and reacts by gracefully conceding to President Joe Biden.
It’s a trick question, of course. No such scenario exists. As Trump has repeatedly demonstrated, he is psychologically incapable of acknowledging electoral defeat.
...Read more
Commentary: Aging comes with stigma. Let's admire the defiant
Who do you want to be when you grow old?
Increasingly, senior citizens decide to keep working, including the two front-runners for the 2024 presidential election. Because many Americans consider the candidates too old for the job, age has become part of the national conversation.
Both Joe Biden, 81, and Donald Trump, 77, would be the oldest ...Read more
Commentary: The US is at its best when it learns from its mistakes
Learning from your mistakes isn’t just something that applies to your personal life – it’s a core lesson of political science. Ten years before the Framers of our Constitution gathered in Philadelphia to draft a new governing document, they adopted the Articles of Confederation. Our Founding Fathers were so assured of its success that they...Read more
Commentary: Ours is the most wasteful civilization in history. Here's how to stop that
What if the looming calamities of climate change, plastic pollution, the energy crisis and our whole environmental doom-scroll are symptoms of just one malady and it’s something we actually can fix?
That’s right, the planet is fighting a single archvillain: Waste.
Americans live in the most wasteful civilization in history. This goes way ...Read more
Editorial: What's behind California's high gas prices? Don't trust the oil industry for answers
If you live in California you’ve probably run across ads blaming high gasoline prices on state laws and policies. They’re online, on television, in mailers, on highway billboards and even on gas pumps themselves. One of them asks in big, bold letters “why is our gas expensive” and directs you to a “facts per gallon” website that ...Read more
Editorial: No more targeting LGBTQ folks: Florida settlement illuminates MAGA strategy
In a federal court settlement last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature “don’t say gay” law — which cost the state millions in business and led to the governor attempting to subjugate a noncompliant Disney — was dealt a significant blow. This comes as the legislature abandoned more than 20 other anti-LGBTQ bills in a sign of a ...Read more
Commentary: Elections workers must wake up to the risks posed by AI
Days before New Hampshire’s presidential primary, up to 25,000 Granite State voters received a mysterious call from “President Joe Biden.” He urged Democrats not to vote in the primary because it “only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump.” But Biden never said this. The recording was a digital fabrication ...Read more
Doyle McManus: Trump has big plans for California if he wins a second term. Fasten your seatbelts
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is running against California — again.
In his campaign to win a second term, the former president frequently excoriates the state as a terrifying dystopia — the inevitable product, he claims, of Democratic policies.
"The place is failing," he told a conservative conference last month.
"It has become a symbol of...Read more
Editorial: The US can't cruise its way through the Haiti crisis
Tens of thousands of Americans visit Haiti every year, despite that nation descending into gang-fueled anarchistic chaos. They just don’t really know they are there.
That’s because they’re hermetically sealed off in a place called Labadee, a so-called private destination of the Royal Caribbean Group located on Haiti’s northern coast. In...Read more
Editorial: The clock ticks for Chinese ownership of TikTok. Good
There are any number of reasons to despise TikTok, the mind-numbing entity best known not for keeping friends in touch but an endless stream of short-form videos algorithmically tuned with unerring precision to satisfy the tastes of the user. Excessive consumption has become known as “doom scrolling,” a reference to the overstimulated ...Read more
Tyler Cowen: Why is Haiti's economy so much worse than its neighbor's?
As Haiti continues its descent into chaos, the Dominican Republic continues to prosper. The two countries share the island of Hispaniola and a lot of history, and yet the Dominican Republic now stands as one of the wealthiest nations in Latin America.
An obvious question presents itself: What explains this this stark divergence?
One approach ...Read more
Editorial: A helping hand for Haiti: We can and should protect those forced to flee
Imagine that the Jan. 6 insurrection had succeeded. Perhaps the Oath Keepers who had been standing by with weapons caches ready to go had mounted a full-scale assault, capturing the Capitol and taking some lawmakers hostage, or even killing some. Maybe they did hang Mike Pence, and in the aftermath, the presidential results went uncertified, ...Read more
Editorial: Why it's smart for universities to bring back the SAT requirement
The SAT and ACT are making a small but important comeback after the tests were widely dropped as a requirement for college applications during the pandemic.
Most schools went test-optional, meaning students could submit scores if they wanted but not doing so wouldn’t count against them. The University of California won’t consider test ...Read more
Jackie Calmes: One Trump puppet stands between Ukraine and the aid it needs
Speaker Mike Johnson in just months has all but cemented his place among the weakest House leaders in its history. Alas, the Louisianan nonetheless holds enough power that he's single-handedly blocking one of the most crucial matters of our time: bipartisan U.S. aid to Ukraine for its defense against Vladimir Putin's murderous expansionism.
It'...Read more
Robin Abcarian: Flamin' Hot Cheetos and iPhones are ruining my kid and yours
With apologies to Allen Ginsberg:
I am seeing the best minds of our middle-school generation destroyed by Flamin' Hot Cheetos and iPhones,
Teenagers on the cusp of young adulthood dragging themselves out of bed each day to mainline TikTok and Snapchat,
Measuring themselves by the yardstick of uber-filtered Kardashian perfection and falling ...Read more
Commentary: Fani Willis' prosecution of Donald Trump may be alive, but it isn't well
Special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s resignation Friday from the Georgia racketeering prosecution of Donald Trump and others was the right decision and, indeed, a virtually forced one. Judge Scott McAfee’s resolution of a defense motion to disqualify Wade’s boss, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, left no practical alternative.
But ...Read more
Martin Schram: Through America's Looking Glass
It probably hasn’t dawned on you yet. But it will. Because what happened to Alice is happening to us all.
Our news screens have become our Looking-Glasses. And we are being sucked in by our own news screens. Just as Alice climbed onto her mantle and stepped into the world inside her own Looking-Glass. (That is, her mirror, in “Through the ...Read more
John M. Crisp: The difference between a Trump victory and a Biden victory
It’s impossible to predict with confidence who will win the presidency of the United States in November 2024.
President Joe Biden seems likely to win the popular vote. He received 7 million more votes than Donald Trump in 2020, and the fundamental partisan lines that separate our nation seem unlikely to shift significantly in 2024.
But maybe...Read more