Politics
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Mark Z. Barabak: She can't stand Trump or Biden. Don't tell this 'double-hater' she's crazy voting for someone else
ROSEVILLE, Calif. — By now Victoria Thompson has heard it many times. She's crazy. She's throwing her vote away.
Worse, those who loathe Donald Trump say she's helping the unscrupulous ex-president reclaim the White House — even though she's never voted for him and never will — by refusing to back Joe Biden's reelection.
Thompson is ...Read more
Editorial: As minimum wage rises, robots work for $0 an hour
Having a cashier ring up your grocery store purchases feels like a luxury good these days. Don’t overlook the role rising minimum wages played in this development.
Major retailers such as Target and Walmart have replaced many checkout lanes with self-checkout kiosks. With customers doing most of the work, the company saves money. One employee...Read more
Commentary: Can they play Bach? Why bias in classical music must be dismantled
Johann Sebastian Bach continues to be a force of extraordinary influence across classical music, jazz and beyond.
Yet this consistency has often led to misconceptions about excellence as well as exclusion of many underrepresented musicians, scholars and concert patrons. It doesn’t have to be this way: Many communities are highlighting the ...Read more
Andreas Kluth: The US just fired a first diplomatic shot at Israel
“Abstention” is a deceptively diplomatic word, implying some sort of bureaucratic omission. And yet this week’s decision by the US to abstain from casting its veto in the United Nations Security Council turned a page in history. For the first time since the terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7 — and after nixing three ...Read more
Editorial: Moscow attack shows terrorism endures
Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
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We join the world in mourning the 137 Russians killed in Friday's horrific attack on a Moscow concert hall.
The geopolitical implications of the terrorism are far-ranging.
For the rest of ...Read more
Editorial: A perfect date for Trump's trial: April 15 for a man who always hides his taxes
In setting defendant Donald Trump’s felony trial date for three weeks hence on the Stormy Daniels hush money/election inference case, Acting Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said Monday that Trump’s delays to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution were all done. So ordered.
Of all 366 days of this year, ...Read more
Commentary: I'm a political scientist and I'm putting myself on a politics diet for the 2024 election
As a political scientist, I’ve long believed political competition to be the keystone of representative democracy. Yet in the 2024 election cycle, I’m consciously limiting my time, attention and contributions to politics. I’ve turned off the news and social media app notifications on my phone. I plan to visit two or three trustworthy news ...Read more
Commentary: Does working from home make you lonely? Here's one fix that won't have you returning to the office
One pair of jeans. Those were the only pants my cousin brought when he came to stay with my family for a summer in the early 2000s. He had moved several times in his young life and had clearly learned to live frugally. I was excited about his visit as I watched him unpack.
Zach wasn’t the only visitor my parents housed when I was young. They ...Read more
Tyler Cowen: Indiana can't make universities more conservative with a law
Indiana’s Republican governor has just signed new law that introduces “intellectual diversity” as a standard for tenure decisions in state universities. Under the law, campus boards of trustees will determine what intellectual diversity consists of, and lack of such diversity can be grounds for denying tenure. Intellectual diversity also ...Read more
Commentary: The hypocrisy of Republicans' anti-crime rhetoric
In early March, President Joe Biden signed a $460 million spending bill that funded about half of the federal government and averted a government shutdown. But before Republicans agreed to support the spending bills, they demanded budget cuts to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) by 6% and 7%, respectively....Read more
Commentary: We are seeing a lethal shift in America's gun violence crisis
While gun violence declined last year, a closer look at the data reveals a striking and surprising trend. While the total number of shootings is going down, the lethality of shootings — the odds of someone dying in a shooting — seems to be going up. If that trend holds, it could have massive consequences for gun violence in America, with ...Read more
LZ Granderson: New ban on Pride flags at US embassies is more than bad optics
Less than two years ago I sat across from Antony J. Blinken as he spoke proudly of the work the State Department was doing to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity around the globe. It was Pride 2022, and the secretary of State hosted a small group of out LGBTQ+ journalists at the department for a roundtable ...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: FDA shoots itself in the foot by settling a groundless lawsuit over its ivermectin warnings
"You are not a horse," read a tweet posted by the Food and Drug Administration on Aug. 21, 2021.
A fairly unexceptionable observation, one would think. But there was more to the tweet than a zoological judgment.
The FDA's goal was to advise individuals against taking ivermectin, a medication used to treat parasitic infections in livestock, to ...Read more
Commentary: Grieving without God is one thing. Grieving without God's people is another
How does someone grieve without God? As an atheist whose devoutly Christian mother died in August, I can answer this question with alacrity: We grieve just fine.
By “fine,” I mean we run the same gamut of emotions as anyone who believes in heaven and hell. Grief is a deeply human experience that binds people, whether or not they live with ...Read more
Commentary: Don't count on the United Nations to stop bloodshed in Gaza
The United Nations Security Council, the U.N.’s most important body, is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. If there is a threat to the peace, the Security Council is supposed to meet, deliberate and adopt measures to curtail aggression and safeguard international law. It’s a weighty responsibility for any ...Read more
Editorial: Asleep at the controls: As Boeing bosses leave, scrutiny must continue
After an embarrassing and potentially dangerous bungling atop of the iconic American aerospace company, culminating in the grounding of hundreds of aircraft following a door plug blowing off a 737 MAX 9 mid-flight, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun is stepping down.
Also heading for the exits are Board Chair Larry Kellner and Boeing Commercial Airplanes ...Read more
Patricia Lopez: House GOP resignations send a very clear message
Wisconsin Representative Mike Gallagher’s abrupt resignation Friday, which followed that of Colorado Representative Ken Buck, narrows the paper-thin GOP House majority to a single vote.
That should be the final signal to House Speaker Mike Johnson that his power— and his only job protection — lies in bypassing the extremists in his party�...Read more
Martin Schram: Free Hamas' Israeli and Gaza civilian hostages
We are in a world of trouble.
Wherever we look these days, all kinds of hell is happening. Or just happened. Or may soon happen.
For Gaza’s 2 million-plus Palestinians, things are about as bad as things can get. Yet, a mind-boggling new poll just revealed most Gaza Palestinians are still clueless about who to blame for their misery that has ...Read more
Jay Ambrose: The fraud of accusing Trump of fraud
It’s craziness, downright craziness, this New America we live in, old norms tossed away with anything acceptable if, as one example, increasingly cockamamie Democrats can thereby eradicate Donald Trump politically. I almost get it. He’s bad news and always has been, but there are bad things in this world besides Trump, such as coming up with...Read more
Joe Battenfeld: Ronna McDaniel flap the latest example of liberal media cancel culture
Ronna McDaniel is the latest victim of liberal media cancel culture – demonized and denounced because of her association with Donald Trump.
Democrats and Joe Biden and the media carrying their water are once again trying to silence a voice they don’t agree with by bouncing the former Republican National Committee chair from TV.
The network...Read more