Politics
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Mary Ellen Klas: The GOP is inflating health care costs -- For its own voters
Unless the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress act quickly, millions of working Americans could lose access to their health insurance at the end of this year. Among the most affected will be small businesses and middle-income earners — many of whom, ironically, live in congressional districts that vote Republican.
An estimated 4....Read more

Commentary: 'Constructive'? Look again at the smoke and mirrors of the Trump-Putin summit
We’ve read quite a bit about President Donald Trump’s “hot mic” comment, during a meeting with European leaders about the Russian war against Ukraine, that Vladimir Putin “wants to make a deal for me, as crazy as it sounds.”
Pundits debated whether this was an embarrassment for Trump; they wondered why he would say such an important...Read more

Commentary: Trump tries to make history in Syria and Lebanon
It’s difficult to look at the Middle East today and be optimistic. Every U.S. president since the turn of the century has entered office promising to strike peace agreements in this region, only to leave office without succeeding. The 2020 Abraham Accords, facilitated by President Donald Trump during his first term, was less a peace agreement ...Read more

POINT: AI won't take our jobs away
Read enough headlines about artificial intelligence and you can be excused for thinking that we’re headed for a dystopian future ruled by AI-powered robot overlords. Mass unemployment, including people being forced to train their robot replacements to get that last paycheck, seems to be a common theme in the latest dire forecasts.
Don’t ...Read more

Commentary: 'Summer is ended, and we are not saved.' We're not defeated, either
School is back in session and Labor Day approaches, as headlines announce what we nervous cases see as the apocalypse. Summer is too long for me, emotionally. The bright promise of early summer fades and darkens by mid-August.
Twenty-five hundred years ago, the desolate people of the Hebrew Bible cried out to the prophet Jeremiah, “The ...Read more

COUNTERPOINT: Trump's extreme anti-labor policies could determine the effect of AI on jobs
What will be the effect of artificial intelligence on labor in the United States? The current government’s agenda for labor will undoubtedly have an influence here.
Last year, President Donald Trump praised Elon Musk lavishly for telling his workers that he would fire them if they went on strike. “You’re the greatest,” he said. This is ...Read more

Commentary: My father told America, 'I have a dream.' Today, the dream needs us
On Aug. 28, 1963, my father stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and summoned a nation to listen — not merely to a speech, but to a vision. He dreamed out loud, daring America to imagine itself better: a country where dignity wasn’t determined by skin color, where opportunity wasn’t bound by birth and where the promises of democracy ...Read more

Nedra Rhone: 20 years after Katrina, Atlanta is no longer the top haven for evacuees
ATLANTA — “What happens when your whole life is upended?”
This, I believe, is a rhetorical question that Jovaughn Recasner has posed to me when we talked on the phone days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Recasner, a New Orleans native, evacuated to Atlanta during the historic storm and has remained here ever since.
I�...Read more

Commentary: No military strategy can stop Mexico's cartels
On Aug. 13, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration corralled 26 narcotraffickers onto planes destined for the United States, where they will be prosecuted for a litany of drug and violent offenses. One was wanted in the killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy nearly two decades ago. This wasn’t the first prisoner ...Read more

Michael Hiltzik: Trump's assault on the Fed's independence is very scary
It's probably safe to say that almost no one following the news believes that Donald Trump has a solid, defensible reason to fire Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, as he purported to do Monday, notwithstanding his assertion that she is guilty of "potentially criminal conduct."
It's not only that the charge she falsified information on ...Read more

Michael Hiltzik: Why are all these leading Democrats suddenly facing mortgage fraud charges? Guess who's behind it
Like the White Queen in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," I am capable of believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
But my credulity is strained past the breaking point by the charges of federal mortgage fraud laid against three leading adversaries of President Donald Trump—Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, New York ...Read more

Andreas Kluth: This war on expertise thrills America's enemies
And so the purge continues. Some of us used to think, or hope, that President Donald Trump’s campaign of “retribution” would prove brutal but short, leaving American statecraft bruised but functional. The news flow suggests a different direction. As Senator Mark Warner puts it, “when expertise is cast aside and intelligence is distorted ...Read more

Noah Feldman: Amy Coney Barrett is a maddening voice on grant cases
When it comes to lawsuits against the Trump administration for unlawfully terminating government grants and contracts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has become the deciding voice at the Supreme Court.
In an important decision concerning the National Institutes of Health’s termination of grants related to gender, DEI and COVID, Barrett held that ...Read more

Commentary: Stop waiting, start building -- A national call to modernize health care
In nearly every part of modern life, technology works for us. You can check in for a flight with your phone, track your heart rate in real time or get personalized grocery suggestions based on your habits.
But when it comes to managing your health? You’re often stuck printing records, repeating your medical history at every new appointment ...Read more

Commentary: The return of loyalty tests and the decline of American democracy
Remember when loyalty oaths were used to ferret out and punish people suspected of being Communists? They were a potent and terrifying tool, designed to produce conformity and compliance at the height of the late 1940s, early 1950s Red Scare.
Today, they are back, but in more subtle, if no less coercive, forms. The Trump administration is using...Read more

Commentary: When politicians draw their own victories -- Why and how to end gerrymandering
From MAGA Republicans to progressive Democrats to those of us in the middle, Americans want real change – and they’re tired of politics as usual.
They’re craving authenticity, real reform, and an end to the status quo. More and more, voters seem to be embracing disruption over the empty promises of establishment politicians, who too ...Read more

F.D. Flam: Do you know what's in your DNA? If not, that's a problem
Genetic information can be life-saving in a medical emergency, yet it’s still rarely collected from adults — even when doctors are struggling to make a diagnosis. New research shows Americans need both greater access to genetic testing and stronger legal protections against genetic discrimination.
Some rare and devastating genetic disorders...Read more

George Skelton: Trump is a redistricting bully, not a wizard
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — There are “Wizard of Oz” echoes in the retaliatory redistricting fight being waged by California Democrats against President Donald Trump and Texas Republicans.
That’s mainly because of the script being followed by Republican opponents. But Democrats seem to be parroting some Oz lines, too.
That was evident last ...Read more

John M. Crisp: Yes, slavery really was that bad
As President Donald Trump and his compliant Republican partners take more and more control of America—the economy, law enforcement, education, foreign policy, voting, even libraries—museums are inevitably going to drift into the intersection of Trump’s crosshairs.
Of course. Museums are an obvious target. By memorializing what we wish to ...Read more

Editorial: Voters lose in redistricting game -- Texas Republicans are wrong to start this tit for tat fight
There are two actions that are both anti-democratic and anti-Democratic that Texas Republican state lawmakers and Gov. Greg Abbott are doing in messing around with the lines of the Lone Star State’s 38 congressional districts and both are bad. And the Texans’ moves are causing other states, notably California, to respond.
It’s an eye for ...Read more