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The Test for a Conservative Court
Is the Supreme Court really a conservative court, bound by conservative principles of statutory construction and judicial review, or is it President Donald Trump's Court, ready to do his bidding, no matter how radical it may be? This week's tariff cases, challenging the president's power to unilaterally impose whatever tariffs he chooses, will...Read more
American Democracy Online: Not a Pretty Thing
Warning: this column is a dark path to a gaudy "Great Gatsby" party while children go hungry.
We know the damage cellphones cause to kids and teenagers in learning and mental health epidemics of anxiety and depression. The research results are in.
Private and public schools are banning them. Girls suffer poor self-esteem and body ...Read more
Instead of Consumerism, Let's Try Consumer Sharing
How about some good news for a change? News that has nothing to do with Donald Whatzizname. News you might even use.
It's about "The Library of Things," a real library, but different. Just as our public libraries share a wealth of publications -- this one in Brunswick, Maine, also maintains a wealth of tools, devices, equipment and other "...Read more
Pregnant and Postpartum Women Face Neglect and Abuse in ICE Detention
*Names have been changed to protect identities
Shackled and chained while miscarrying, denied prenatal care, given inadequate food and water -- these are the conditions that pregnant women in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention must endure.
Despite its own directive advising against detaining pregnant individuals, ICE has ...Read more
Taken Hostage: Democratic Pols Kiss the Democratic Socialists' Ring
With a new NBC poll showing that only 28% of Americans view the Democratic Party favorably, Republicans hardly need to be handed any more gifts this holiday season.
But hang on.
Speaking to his Democratic Socialists of American just two years ago, the new national face of the Democratic Party opined thusly on the proximate cause of any police ...Read more
We'd Better Start Thinking About Future Jobs
The big headlines about job losses tend to focus on the big employers. Layoffs at UPS, 48,000 -- at Intel, 24,000. Amazon is cutting up to 30,000 workers, and Target, 1,800. These pink slips are being dropped largely on white-collar positions.
The thinking is that artificial intelligence will be able to handle much of the work now being done ...Read more
How to Cope with Trump’s Chaos
Donald Trump is incapable of allowing tensions and stresses to ease without creating new ones.
Case in point: After meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping this past week, he announces that China and the United States — the largest and second-largest economies in the world — will de-escalate the trade war.
Sounds good, I suppose (until...Read more
Hegseth’s War on 'Woke' is An Assault on American History
When Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the cancellation of any official observance of “cultural awareness” months in the military service, I immediately wondered what it would mean for the legacy of Milton Olive.
In case you didn’t know, Milton Lee Olive III was the first Black American soldier to receive the Medal of Honor in the...Read more
Tying Loan Forgiveness to Ideology
Leave it to the Trump administration to come up with yet another way to enforce -- and I mean enforce -- its political ideology on students. It's bad enough -- well, worse than bad enough -- that they are trying to police our classrooms; their next move is to redefine what "public service" means for purposes of loan forgiveness.
The Public ...Read more
I Know Mamdani Is Too Young. I Don't Care.
In every election, the voters choose a candidate to do a job. In some races, they also have an opportunity to send a message.
Sometimes, in a change election, voters pass over the best person for the job in favor of making a statement. Although she certainly wasn't "the most qualified person ever to run for president," former Sen. and ...Read more
Saving Wildlife While Securing Our Nation: the Unlikely Alliance Between Conservationists and the U.S. Military
Standing in the restored longleaf pine forest of the Nokuse Preserve in northwest Florida, I learned that it borders Eglin Air Force Base. At first glance it felt insignificant, but I soon understood that their close proximity was strategic and collaborative. In the middle of a government shutdown, it is a great reminder that government ...Read more
This Is America. You Can Tell by All the Flags.
In America, we have choices. You make the good choice, you get the positive outcome. You make the bad choice, you get the negative outcome.
Social workers talk that way, spitting phrases like "bad choices," "negative outcomes" and "accessing services."
In general, if you make the bad choice, you get the negative outcome, and then you have to...Read more
Democrats Set to Win Big One in California
Los Angeles. While most political news today focuses on the mid-term elections, still a year away, there are three important off-year elections next week which will have a huge political impact: a governor’s race in Virginia; a governor’s race in New Jersey; and an initiative campaign in California.
Technically, Donald Trump is not on the ...Read more
Broken Windows Policy Belongs at the Top
The sound you heard was windows being smashed at the East Wing.
The sound you did not hear was questions from officials paid to monitor what happens to a National Heritage Site. The White House is owned by the American people, not any current inhabitant. It's true that other presidents have made changes to the beloved building, but none ...Read more
Judge Sara Ellis
What does a parent do with a child who stubbornly refuses to follow the rules every day?
You could do worse than set up a daily meeting, say, about 6 p.m. "to hear about how the day went."
It's an ordinary step for a mother or father to take, but an absolutely extraordinary one for a federal district judge to mandate, particularly when the ...Read more
Speaker Johnson: Seat Adelita Grijalva Now!
As the United States government shutdown marks its fifth week, approaching the record 35-day shutdown set back in 2018-19, unleashing a worsening cascade of hardship, one explanation for the shutdown comes from long-time Republican strategist turned Never Trump activist Stuart Stevens of the Lincoln Project, speaking on the Democracy Now! news...Read more
Believe Me When I Tell You
Believe me when I tell you Washington is going through stages of grief at the sudden demolition of the White House East Wing.
The wreckage looks like a crime scene, with President Donald Trump's thumbprints on it. He didn't ask or tell people, he just destroyed a sacred structure that sang of American history. Vintage Trump.
The mood of the ...Read more
Another Hellacious Idea from the Texas Laboratory of Bad Government
Texas: What the Hell? The Lone Star State's government, a wholly owned corporate subsidiary, solidified its ranking this year as America's number one innovator of really bad public policies.
Branching out from their usual corrupt collusion with Big Oil, industrial polluters and other profiteering hucksters, the governor and top lawmakers came...Read more
Demolition Zone: Trump's Wrecking Ball Is More Than a Metaphor
Donald Trump's sudden demolition of the White House's East Wing may have been ugly, but it sure is a metaphor. It's hard to pinpoint the most stomach-turning aspect of the razing, though Americans, who disapprove of it by 53% to 23% according to a new YouGov America poll, have multiple aspects to choose from.
There's the visual of a major ...Read more
Who's Afraid of Big Bad Bari?
There's something bonkers in the hard left's hysteria over Bari Weiss becoming editor-in-chief of CBS News. A psych eval comes toward the end.
John Oliver recently delivered an unhinged tirade against Weiss as a right-wing tool of MAGA. Oliver was his usual self -- frantic hands, googly eyes and a rapid-fire string of quips that seldom rose ...Read more






















































