Politics
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Commentary: Supreme Court's decision against Voting Rights Act will be devastating
The Supreme Court has again dealt a devastating blow to voting equality in the United States.
On Wednesday, in Louisiana v. Callais, six justices effectively nullified a 1982 federal statute that prohibits states from running or establishing election systems, such as election districts, that have a discriminatory effect against voters of color....Read more
Editorial: Trying to frame Comey, again -- Seashells indictment is a laughable charge
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is pleasing President Donald Trump by supporting a ridiculous indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over a benign photo.
Maybe Blanche thinks this foolishness will prevent him from being 86ed like Pam Bondi was, but even she didn’t try to sell a case of some seashells by the seashore. Blanche is ...Read more
Editorial: American blockade ramps up the pressure on Iran
Iran is again playing the four-corners stall game with its latest peace proposal — a sign that American leverage is paying off. President Donald Trump and the United States should continue to put maximum pressure on the regime to exacerbate the Iranian economy’s free-fall.
News outlets reported this week that Trump had rejected an offer ...Read more
Editorial: Why the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act ruling matters
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has struck down Louisiana’s newly created majority-Black congressional district, narrowing the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ruling is consequential not only for Louisiana but for how the nation understands representation, race and the future of redistricting.
At its core, ...Read more
Editorial: Asking taxpayers to foot Trump ballroom bill is a huge misstep
Less than 48 hours after an attempt on President Donald Trump’s life, some Republicans in Congress asked that the president’s proposed ballroom, now with a price tag of $400 million, be paid for with tax dollars instead of private donations as a national security need.
Both funding sources are ridiculous, but putting the burden squarely on ...Read more
Jackie Calmes: Americans aren't buying Trump's schtick anymore
The British monarch came before Congress to jointly celebrate the 250th anniversary of the former American colonies throwing off his "five-times-great-grandfather" to become the independent United States. But the speech by King Charles III was enough to make Americans want to swap their current president, a wannabe king, for the real thing again...Read more
Commentary: Politics has come to work, once an apolitical space
A colleague recently emailed me a picture of a seemingly political gesture that was roiling her office and asked me what I thought. The picture was of a 10-by-3-inch sticker, openly affixed to an employee’s desk, stating “Make America Blue Collar Again” in big red, white and blue block letters.
Her company is tucked away in a small, ...Read more
Editorial: King Charles gets a W
Most Americans think of the Bill of Rights as a bespoke 1789 creation for a nation that was, in the signature “Hamilton” lyric of Lin-Manuel Miranda, “young, scrappy and hungry.”
Not so fast, said the great-great-great-great-great grandson of King George III before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday.
King Charles III knew his audience. “...Read more
Trudy Rubin: King Charles III subtly reminds Congress about the importance of checks on kingly power
Almost 250 years after the American Revolution, it took a visiting British monarch to remind Congress what the rebellion stood for.
On his first state visit as king, Charles III didn’t pull any punches, although his Tuesday speech to a joint session of Congress was delivered in soothing British tones with gentle humor and dry understatement. ...Read more
Stephen L. Carter: Free speech means Kimmel has the right to ridicule you
Here’s one of those remarkable coincidences: Immediately after the president and first lady called for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be kicked off ABC’s air after he made a cruel joke at their expense, the entirely independent investigators over at the Federal Communications Commission, in an entirely unrelated move, have decided that it ...Read more
Commentary: Indiana is taking action on foreign influence
Indiana has shown the nation how to protect citizens from foreign adversaries at the state level.
This leadership follows a congressional report showing foreign adversaries are actively influencing American academia — shining a spotlight on Indiana and Purdue University, in particular, as both a model for reform and a case study in risk.
The...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: Resurrecting a discredited theory on COVID's origin, DOJ indicts an ex-Fauci aide over old emails
According to Department of Justice officials including FBI Director Kash Patel, the indictment of David M. Morens for using his personal email account on official business is all about protecting the sanctity of government communications and upholding the federal Freedom of Information Act.
"Circumventing records protocols with the intention of...Read more
Stephen L. Carter: Let candidates place bets on themselves -- at least sometimes
As a law professor and sometime libertarian, I’m of three minds about news that the prediction-market platform Kalshi has banned three candidates for public office for placing bets on their own races.
My first thought is purely libertarian: Kalshi is a private entity, free to set its own rules and do business or not with whomever it pleases, ...Read more
Mark Gongloff: The world's food supply is under a quadruple attack
Carbon dioxide is plant food, so you might think pumping the atmosphere full of it would be better for plants. The trouble is that CO2 is also the world’s most prolific greenhouse gas, trapping heat in a way that creates more problems than it solves for many sensitive plants. This is bad news not only for those plants but for the people who ...Read more
Commentary: Here's who (we think) won the chaotic California gubernatorial debate
Eight candidates for California governor shared a stage for 90 minutes Tuesday night, their second of three scheduled debates before the June 2 primary.
My colleagues Gustavo Arellano and Mark Z. Barabak joined me to decide who the winner was, or if there was a winner at all.
Arellano: The real MVP in this debate? State Supt. Tony Thurmond.
...Read more
Noah Feldman: The Supreme Court just neutered the Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act has been near death since 2013, and Wednesday the Supreme Court administered the coup de grâce. In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court’s conservative majority effectively ruled that states are now free to redraw congressional districts so as to eliminate many Black Democratic members of Congress.
...Read more
Ronald Brownstein: The Supreme Court is re-creating America's worst racial injustices
The Supreme Court’s decision further eviscerating the Voting Rights Act will enable a systematic disenfranchisement of minority voters that echoes the darkest moments in America’s racial history.
With their sweeping ruling, the six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have empowered Republican-controlled states to erase legislative ...Read more
COUNTERPOINT: NATO's mission is outdated
On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created “to serve three purposes: deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.”
Those objectives were crucial in the aftermath of...Read more
Commentary: The US is still killing people at sea. It must explain why
Over the weekend, the United States conducted two lethal strikes on small boats in the Eastern Pacific, part of an ongoing campaign that has now killed nearly 200 people. The public explanation from U.S. Southern Command has become routine: a designated terrorist organization, a known trafficking route, confirmed intelligence. But the government...Read more
POINT: NATO must survive the Iran war
No one knows if NATO will survive the Iran war, but if it does, it will be a very different alliance from the one now in place. If NATO survives, it will do so as what we refer to as a European-U.S. NATO, or possibly as a European NATO.
The United States and Israel launched the Iran war without warning and without consulting NATO allies. When ...Read more




















































