Politics
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Editorial: The world's worst sore loser: Donald Trump will never play fair
Asked last week by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel if he would accept the outcome of the November election, Donald Trump responded: “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country. If you go back and look at all of the things that had been found...Read more
Marc Champion: Don't let Gaza help Iran cloak its own repression
Iran’s supreme leader has been enjoying himself lately on X, Elon Musk’s social media platform. In one post, he delighted at pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses; in another, it was someone waving the flag of Hezbollah, his proxy militia in Lebanon. Here was proof, said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that even in the Great Satan itself the world...Read more
Editorial: Biden expanded two national monuments in California. Three more to go
President Joe Biden’s move Thursday to expand two national monuments in California is unquestionably good news for our climate and environment.
One proclamation will increase the size of San Gabriel Mountains National Monument by nearly one third, adding more than 105,000 acres of mountains and foothills above communities from Sylmar to ...Read more
Doyle McManus: Donald Trump puts America on notice again: If he loses, he won't go quietly
Donald Trump has put America on notice: If he loses the presidential election, he reserves the right to encourage his followers to fight.
When Time magazine asked Trump whether the election would end in political violence if he loses, the former president replied: "If we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an ...Read more
Commentary: Are US companies living up to their commitments to democracy?
“[A]s a company, we have a responsibility to engage. For this reason, we are working together with other businesses through groups like the Business Roundtable to support efforts to enhance every person’s ability to vote.”
These were the words of AT&T CEO John Stankey, responding to a Georgia law that limited absentee voting. A similar ...Read more
Leonard Greene: 'Outside agitator' label during Columbia Gaza protests stirs memories of civil rights smears
Whether or not you side with the student protesters making waves at Columbia University and other college campuses over the war in Gaza, we can probably all agree that irresponsible and fiery language isn’t helping anyone.
Surely, we should be able to call for a ceasefire without being labeled antisemitic.
Likewise, people should be able to ...Read more
Jackie Calmes: Donald Trump's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad second term
Millions of us are justifiably focused on seeing that Donald Trump is held to account for what he's allegedly done in the past.
Scheming to flip the legitimate 2020 election result and resisting the peaceful transfer of power, a first for U.S. presidents. Making off with top-secret documents and conspiring to hide them from the feds. Falsifying...Read more
Commentary: Companies must manage risk through due diligence of political spending
As the 2024 election cycle begins in earnest, companies must act on their fiduciary responsibility to more closely monitor their political spending and the accompanying risks. Too often corporate leaders fail to fully assess and scrutinize the ultimate beneficiaries of political contributions from corporate treasury funds. This oversight ...Read more
Robin Abcarian: Don't denigrate pro-Palestinian campus protests by claiming the Vietnam War protests backfired
When did it become fashionable to diminish the accomplishments of Vietnam War-era protesters by accusing them of inflated self-regard and delusions about what their activism accomplished?
In my view, the situation in the Mideast is more nuanced and complex than the United States' involvement in Vietnam ever was. Israel's horrific response ...Read more
Joe Battenfeld: Biden's tepid response to campus protests shows it's a political powder keg
President Biden’s relatively tepid response to the clashes between police and protesters on college campuses shows he’s playing with a political powder keg as young voters in droves abandon his administration’s side in the Israeli-Hamas war.
Biden seemed afraid to take a tough stance against the violence erupting on campuses – much of ...Read more
Stephen Mihm: Comparing Gaza protests to the '60s is wrong -- and dangerous
As the pro-Palestinian protests on colleges and universities across the United States have spread, some commentators have taken to comparing current events to the late 1960s. It’s a tempting analogy: protests in an earlier era, often defined by violent clashes with police; and the same thing today. History is simply repeating itself.
No. The ...Read more
Editorial: Protest peacefully. Reject violence and hate
Free speech and freedom of assembly are foundational rights in the United States. Our college campuses must be places where young people can express themselves and gain exposure to ideas and ideologies that might conflict with their worldviews. Yet they must also be a place where students can walk on campus without the threat of violence and ...Read more
Commentary: Discard the principle vs. compromise distinction
One of the most basic conflicts in politics, and in life in general, is whether to stand by your principles or be open to compromise. Woodrow Wilson is known as a president who stood by his principles regarding America's need to join the League of Nations, an organization he proposed for all of the participants in World War I in his famous 1918 ...Read more
Commentary: My mother set herself on fire. Why do people choose to self-immolate?
Ten years before I was born, at 4:40 on the morning of Nov. 10, 1971, my mother and another woman sat “yogi-style” on the floor of an Ann Arbor, Michigan, kitchen and lit themselves on fire. They were just blocks from the University of Michigan campus, where my mother had been a student. She had just turned 20. Police tracked the smell of ...Read more
Editorial: Biden's spending spree hitting deficit wall
Since taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has been spending money like he’s printing it in the basement. Now, his giddy check-writing days are coming back to bite him.
On the chopping block: funding for Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot,” his ambitious program to end cancer as we know it.
It’s a laudable ambition, one that could impact...Read more
Commentary: The rising tide: Bear witness to families swept into homelessness
Newly released federal data reveals an intensifying homelessness crisis impacting families across America. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2023 Annual Homeless Assessment Report found a staggering 15.5 percent increase in the number of families with children experiencing homelessness compared to 2022, reversing the downward ...Read more
Editorial: Keep Johnson as speaker: Marjorie Taylor Greene must not succeed in knocking him out
There will be a vote to remove Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson this week and it will fail thanks to Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It’s not that Jeffries doesn’t want to become speaker himself, but that will be decided by the American people six months from today, on Election Day, when all 435 seats are being contested.
...Read more
LZ Granderson: The chaos in Congress is more dangerous than the protests on campuses
Last week Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) ignored Donald Trump's endorsement of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as House speaker and announced plans to try to force him out. One can only assume she is making that attempt for attention, because it seems doomed to fail on the House floor. Democrats have already pledged to support Johnson, and he has...Read more
Martin Schram: Updating Chicago, 1968
Protesters and police are clashing on campuses, yet again. A Democratic presidential convention is careening toward Chicago, yet again.
Here at the intersection where news meets punditry and propaganda, we are being bombarded by warnings that a replay of 1968 seems unavoidable. Some are top-tier insights. Others are clearly top-activist incites...Read more
John M. Crisp: Biden should debate Trump, but only under one condition
During an interview with Howard Stern on April 26, President Joe Biden said he would be “happy” to debate Donald Trump. Biden and his campaign should rethink and rescind this offer, or else they should attach a nonnegotiable condition on their participation in any debate with Trump.
Hold that thought. First, let’s acknowledge that Biden ...Read more