Politics
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Gautam Mukunda: The American divide exposes the high GDP fallacy
The American economy is a wonder. The Economist observed that average wages in America’s poorest state, Mississippi, are higher than those in Britain, Canada and Germany. American GDP per capita now runs roughly 40% above western Europe. Post-pandemic productivity growth has been significantly faster than that of the eurozone. The consensus is...Read more
Jill Burcum: Minnesota to ICE: No one is above the law
If Washington won’t hold federal immigration agents accountable for misconduct, Minnesota will.
Criminal charges filed Monday here against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro sent this powerful warning to agents across the country:
Lawless behavior will not go unanswered, even if there’s a federal badge on your chest...Read more
Commentary: Trump is copying the worst of FDR's presidency with racial roundups
In 1942, a pregnant Fumiko Hayashida boarded a ferry for Seattle clutching her 13-month-old daughter and a stuffed animal. Her family, owners of one of Bainbridge Island’s largest strawberry farms, was among the first of the more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent shipped to hastily built prisons in the months after Japan’s attack on ...Read more
Jackie Calmes: Obama's strong terms curbed Iran. Trump struggles to secure even a weak deal
President Donald Trump, it's well known, is into gold. Every day brings new evidence that he's thoroughly enjoying the "golden age" he pronounced in his inaugural address — as few other Americans are — with stock trades, crypto profiteering and much more, even a new taxpayer-financed slush fund to reward his allies.
As for me, I've gone ...Read more
Editorial: Trump's new slush fund is rank corruption: Department of Justice money for lawbreakers and president's pals
The dollar amount in Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund memorializes this nation’s revolutionary break from a king; if this agreement fully goes through, we might as well be returning to an unaccountable monarchy. The origin of this corrupt pot of cash for the president to pay himself, his family and his political allies, including Jan...Read more
David M. Drucker: America's 'everything is rigged' era is toxic
Everything, it seems, is rigged these days.
Unhappy with the economy? That’s because it’s rigged. Fed up with your healthcare? It’s rigged, too. Frustrated with elected leaders in Washington, Sacramento, Austin or Albany? Rigged, rigged, rigged and rigged.
President Donald Trump arguably kicked off this populist trend of referring to ...Read more
Commentary: Roadside zoos: Keep on driving
As the days grow longer and the sun shines, many of us feel the call of the open road. Whether it’s a weekend getaway or a simple drive through the countryside, the freedom of the open highway is irresistible. But between snack stops and stretch breaks, it’s nearly impossible not to spot fading billboards urging drivers to pull over to see �...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: Are dodos and mammoths coming back from extinction? Don't count on it
My inbox started filling up with the supposedly groundbreaking news early Tuesday, breathless news articles about a biological breakthrough that will allow a long-extinct giant bird to walk the Earth in modern times.
My reaction was this: "Not this same old yarn again."
The company promoting its supposed breakthrough is Colossal Biosciences. ...Read more
Editorial: Stomping on IRS audits is an egregious abuse of power by President Donald Trump
Since 2010, Donald Trump has fought with the Internal Revenue Service over his company’s tax returns in which the tax enforcers were reported to have asserted the Trump Organization improperly claimed massive losses, including from Trump’s Chicago skyscraper.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department agreed to end any and all audits of Trump, his ...Read more
Gustavo Arellano: Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt need Latinos, not Trump
With less than two weeks before the primary election, Steve Hilton is leading in the polls for governor, and Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt is making the city's progressive class sweat.
If the former Fox News commentator and the reality television bad boy move on to November's general election, they'll be running as conservatives in ...Read more
Editorial: America must confront the growing crisis among young people
Monday’s act of terrorism against a San Diego mosque, in which two teenagers are accused of killing three people, should deeply disturb every American. Not only because of the hatred allegedly involved, but because of what it reveals about the growing emotional, moral and psychological instability consuming too many young people across this ...Read more
Commentary: The Navy's inexcusable accommodation of Kash Patel
The USS Arizona is a tomb. That should have been enough.
FBI Director Kash Patel took part in what a Defense Department email obtained by the Associated Press called a “V.I.P. Snorkel” near the sunken battleship at Pearl Harbor last summer. To accommodate that event, U.S. Navy SEALs reportedly transported and escorted Patel and his party by...Read more
Commentary: Trump has left himself only bad options on Iran
Nearly three months after the United States and Israel launched their large-scale bombing campaign against Iran and about six weeks since the April 8 ceasefire took effect, President Donald Trump faces an inflection point. Does he return to war? Maintain the ceasefire and U.S. blockade on Iranian ports in the hope of cutting a deal on American ...Read more
Mark Z. Barabak: Three wrongs don't make a right in case of election denier and Colorado governor
It's entirely possible — as hard as it may be to conceive in these deeply tribal, us-vs.-them times — for two competing notions to be true.
Tina Peters personally enriched herself and betrayed the public trust by perpetrating a harebrained scheme to "prove" the 2020 election in Mesa County, Colorado, was rigged against President Donald ...Read more
Commentary: Tens of billions lost each year in US welfare programs -- and we're not even measuring it all
Last year’s welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota made headlines for its brazen nature and massive scale. But it’s only part of the story. Far more money slips through the cracks in the welfare system each year. No outrage ensues — but given the staggering sums involved, it should.
A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (...Read more
COUNTERPOINT: Our wars haven't been worth it, and not just in Iran
As Memorial Day approaches, polls show nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters oppose the war against Iran. They’re right. After decades of war since 9/11, Americans now largely agree: War isn’t worth it.
The Iran war has killed thousands of Iranians and Lebanese and displaced hundreds of thousands more. People in poor countries around the world ...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: Justice Dept. attack on UCLA and other med schools shows it has no idea what makes a good doctor
The Trump administration has stepped up its assault on U.S. medical schools in recent days with stern letters to the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA on May 6 and a similar missive to the Yale School of Medicine last Thursday.
Both letters from the Department of Justice allege that the schools have quietly allowed the race of applicants ...Read more
Editorial: Most college degrees still carry a financial benefit
For many high school students, a career in the trades has become more attractive due to the soaring cost of a college education and the looming disruption of artificial intelligence in the white-collar world. This path is indeed a worthwhile choice given employment shortages in many trades and the myriad opportunities it offers for stability and...Read more
POINT: War can be justified, but only as a last resort
As the United States confronts the growing danger posed by Iran’s terrorist regime, Americans are again faced with hard questions about war and its costs. Iran’s leaders have funded terror, threatened allies, murdered dissidents and destabilized the Middle East for decades.
There are times in history when military force becomes necessary to...Read more
Beth Kowitt: DEI isn't dead. But it's not really alive, either
Reports of the death of DEI in corporate America have been greatly exaggerated.
Or at least that’s what a new study from Catalyst and New York University’s School of Law’s Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging suggests. In the survey of 2,000 employees and leaders of big and medium-sized U.S. organizations, 80% said their...Read more




















































