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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
Trump's Attempt To Roll Back Key Civil Rights Enforcement Tool
On April 23, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at narrowing civil rights protections and directing federal agencies to roll back the use of the disparate impact standard in "all contexts to the maximum degree," including across housing, lending, employment, education and health care. The order represents a major reversal ...Read more
Obama Challenges Trump’s Remap Power Grab
Friends who are frustrated by the current White House regime still ask me, “Where is Obama?” As if he might miraculously arise again in the political skies like Mighty Mouse singing, “Here I come to save the day!”
Dream on, I point out. Having served two full terms, Obama has maxed out of his constitutional eligibility.
But, behind the...Read more
Louisiana's Black Voting Power Is On the Line in Redistricting Fight
When Louisiana finally won a second majority-Black district in 2024, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. For decades, Black voters like me knew that having only one voting district where we could be heard was not enough to reflect a third of the state's population. So when the state gained a second seat, I thought of those who fought ...Read more
Hegseth’s New Rules for Journalists Won't Make America Safer
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has done it again.
As his latest outrage touched off an unprecedented revolt by almost every media outlet covering the Pentagon, I once again was reminded of my own Army days when we called it the “five-sided funhouse,” although not within earshot of the “brass,” our superior officers.
The headquarters of...Read more
Your Questions Answered: How To Push Back on Abuses of Power
In his first nine months back in office, President Donald Trump has abused his power to attack our neighbors and communities, suppress free speech and create a climate of fear. The president has deployed military troops and federal agents into our cities. He has threatened nonprofit organizations, universities and political opponents who don't ...Read more
Pam Bondi Faces Critics, 'Burns' Them
A lot of political figures are understandably nervous about facing a Senate committee probe.
Not Pam Bondi.
In more than four hours of testimony Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee, she responded to the most polite questions with the air of contempt worthy of her boss, President Trump, who tends to react to the idea of accountability as ...Read more
Trump Is Abusing His Power To Build a Dangerous National Policing Force
The Trump administration continues to escalate its deployment of military troops and federal law enforcement to cities across the country. We are witnessing the build-out of a national paramilitary policing force that could be used to intimidate people and consolidate President Donald Trump's power.
This week alone, the administration placed ...Read more
Trump Faces His Generals
When President Donald Trump dropped the bizarre suggestion last week that the military should use American cities as “training grounds” to fight what he called “an enemy within,” it sounded almost like old news.
After all, Trump has talked like this for years. "Don't take him literally," some would say. Or, that's just Trump being Trump...Read more
Welcome to the World of MAGA Machismo, Where Muscles Trump Brains
Ladies and gentleman, here is your United States Senate, then and now:
Sen. Daniel Webster on March 7, 1850: “It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States (with) a just sense of its own dignity, and its own high responsibilities, and a body to which the country looks with confidence for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing ...Read more
Trump and his lawyers think he can get away with anything. It's outlandish.
WASHINGTON -- "The king can do no wrong." That is the ancient legal maxim used to explain why a sovereign should not be held to account for misdeeds. President Trump and his lawyers are now making arguments that make this legal doctrine look wimpy. Their vision boils down to: The king can do whatever wrong he damn pleases, and there's nothing ...Read more




















































