Politics
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Scott Maxwell: Faith-based voucher schools can reject students with disabilities in Florida
One of the dirty little secrets about school choice in Florida is that students with disabilities often don’t actually have many choices.
That’s because, while public school districts are required to serve all children, Florida allows private schools to refuse them.
Most people already know that Florida allows discrimination against LGBTQ ...Read more
Mary McNamara: Killer mosquitoes, rabid bats and bear attacks -- Climate change is making eco-horror feel real
Rabid bats and rattlesnakes. Mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus and dengue fever. Increased bear and mountain lion attacks. A summer full of tragic hiker deaths, many brought on by extreme heat.
The news cycle has begun to resemble all those “nature rebels” movies that terrorized my childhood.
And perhaps with good reason.
This should ...Read more
Marc Champion: I read Iran's 14,390-word letter to Americans so you don't have to
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has published a letter to the American people ahead of midterm elections in the U.S. Suffice to say that this remarkable document ends with Jesus Christ and the last Imam, Mahdi, rising together to lead humanity into the Kingdom of Heaven. I read all 14,390 words — think of it as a public service.
...Read more
Commentary: 'Make Education Great Again' for which children?
Last month, the U.S. Department of Education posted an image to Facebook styled like an old woodcut print, with President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon above the words MEGA and “Make Education Great Again.”
The slogan reminded me of a poem I read in high school: Langston Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again.” ...Read more
Andreas Kluth: Trump's legacy at halftime -- Weakness through war
With the congressional midterm elections nigh and the midpoint of Donald Trump’s second presidency not far behind, it’s time to ask: How does Trump’s foreign policy measure up so far? And where is it likely to go once he’s a lame duck?
Even people you’d expect to be in the know have been off by 180 degrees in their predictions. I ...Read more
Editorial: New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill has set an ethical example for a corrupt era
In announcing the resignation of New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell amid allegations of harassment and ethics violations, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said an independent investigation had found “a pattern of behavior that does not meet the standards of this administration.”
In a state where official misconduct has often been not just tolerated but ...Read more
Commentary: What Trump's 'triumphal arch' really means for America
President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot-high triumphal arch at the foot of Arlington National Cemetery, which he has proposed outfitting with armed drones and manning with snipers, is easy to shrug off as nothing more than a malignant daydream. The absurd whim of a mad king. But to indulge that temptation would be a mistake.
The arch has to...Read more
Commentary: Confessions of a political handicapper
What if we got it all wrong? That’s the question that usually goes through my mind at this point in every election cycle. Because 25 years of experience in analyzing elections has made me more humble, rather than more cocky.
Political handicapping has a way of knocking people down a couple of notches. Do it long enough, and you’ll have a �...Read more
Editorial: Jack Smith's honesty and the truth on Trump's crimes
Former federal prosecutor Jack Smith, who led the Justice Department investigation into Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference and the purloining of classified documents, laughed off a GOP Senate Judiciary Committee trap, part of their years-long effort to deny the basic truth that what Smith was investigating was real: Trump did in fact ...Read more
Editorial: Map fight shows why Missourians must strengthen ballot initiative process
It took most of the year and three trips to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the citizens of Missouri recently finally won the right they should have had all along: to weigh in on the hyper-gerrymandered new congressional district map the state Legislature foisted upon them in a brazen plot to steal a U.S. House of Representatives seat.
The high ...Read more
Commentary: Our children are listening -- How to parent through election season
Summer rarely ends all at once. It slips away by degrees. Neighborhood pools close, backpacks replace beach bags, and daylight shortens. The U.S. Open tennis classic gives way to football as families rearrange weekends around school activities and kickoff times. Then another season arrives.
Political ads interrupt television viewing. Campaign ...Read more
Commentary: I was a Cornell student in 1987. Now I'm a Cornell mother
I arrived at Cornell University in 1987. My daughter is now attending there, and I can’t believe we are still having the same conversation about sexual assault at Cornell.
The spring before I enrolled, two Brown University students accused two members of a Cornell fraternity of sexually assaulting them. The men denied the allegations, and a ...Read more
Anita Chabria: The 'authoritarian scent' in Trump's ego-laden ads
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been using taxpayer dollars — your money and mine — to pay for a series of cringy, self-glorifying advertisements that feature, you guessed it, President Donald Trump himself.
In one particularly needy spot, the lyrics “love me, love me” are repeated continuously over...Read more
Commentary: Return of 'might makes right' imperils the UN's mission as AI threatens our existence
“To the victor belong the spoils.” This is what President Donald Trump told leaders of the world’s nations in the middle of his rambling address to the United Nations General Assembly’s annual meeting in New York last week. It was an unequivocal repudiation of the very principle on which the institution he was speaking to was founded. ...Read more
Editorial: The flawed logic of Medicare for All
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, has a simple pitch to voters. Imagine, he says, a health-insurance plan with “no premium, no copay, no deductible — just healthcare when you need it.” El-Sayed and other proponents call the idea Medicare for All.
Free, on-demand care for everyone sure sounds good. ...Read more
Commentary: Your emergency go bag is only part of disaster preparedness
We’ve just come through the hottest summer ever recorded in the contiguous United States, with August setting a record of its own. And cooler autumn days don’t mean we can stop worrying about extreme weather. El Niño has already surged into record territory months before its expected peak, supercharging extreme weather and raising the ...Read more
Mark Gongloff: Black lung disease is the only true comeback for coal
President Donald Trump has vowed to return America’s declining coal industry to its glory days. But the only real revival of trying to put this polluting fuel back at its peak is its ability to destroy the health of its miners.
U.S. coal miners are suffering from the highest rate of lung disease since 1978 in the mining heartland of central ...Read more
Commentary: The competitiveness in parenting to give kids a leg up has reached a new level
American parents are working harder than ever to give their children a leg up. Economists Garey Ramey and Valerie Ramey documented that college-educated mothers increased their childcare time by more than nine hours per week starting in the mid-1990s. They attributed this “ rug rat race” to intensifying competition for college admissions.
...Read more
Gustavo Arellano: What the 'Taco Stand Karen' fiasco says about right-wing Latinos
For the last two years, Francesca Ortega insulted Latinos on social media with rhetoric that sounded straight from Stephen Miller.
Under the nom de plume Francesca Sin Filtro — Unfiltered — the small business owner opined that Chicanos have "obviously nothing good going for" them and "probably have baby mamas everywhere." That Latino men "...Read more
Jackie Calmes: A visit to Greenspan's Washington and the era of getting things done
For much of my life funerals were, well, funereal, as black as attendees' attire. Yet in recent decades, I've found that I often leave memorial services less mournful than upbeat. They're inspiring, these so-called celebrations of life, with eulogies not from impersonal priests but from people who knew the dead person best. Tributes are seasoned...Read more

















































