Politics
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Allison Schrager: Trump's economic policy can't be just nostalgia
President-elect Donald Trump’s economic legacy may well depend on whether he prefers the comparative form of an adjective. Specifically, does he believe it is hard to make a living in the U.S. — or harder than it used to be?
It is not an insignificant distinction. The central conceit of economic populism, dominating both the left and the ...Read more
Commentary: Giving thanks for America and its piano man
Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday. Let me count some of the ways I love Thanksgiving:
Because it isn’t very commercialized.
Because it doesn’t leave out the lovelorn and the lonely.
Because it has an intrinsic honesty: It’s about being grateful.
Because it’s about as much extended family as most of us can take: just one ...Read more
Tad Weber: If Trump deports farm workers, who will be left to pick California's crops?
Do you enjoy fruits and vegetables? Assuming the answer is yes, come next year who do you think will harvest the oranges, almonds, lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes and the other 300-plus crops grown in California?
Who will work in the state’s dairies, meat plants, and food processing factories, most located in the Central Valley?
Republican ...Read more
Editorial: Indoctrination in Idaho public schools? Christian nationalist group says, 'bring it on'
Talk about indoctrination in public schools.
Idaho’s resident Christian nationalist organization, the Idaho Family Policy Center, is circulating a petition to “call upon the Idaho State Legislature to pass legislation so that daily Bible readings — without instruction or comment, and with appropriate conscience protections — will once ...Read more
Commentary: Why I voted third party and I'm not sorry
I’m a progressive Californian, a Black man, and I did not vote for Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris this year or Donald Trump. I voted for Claudia De La Cruz, the Peace and Freedom Party candidate for president.
The decision was easy. With two exceptions over the last four decades of presidential elections, I have always voted ...Read more
Commentary: The wrong way to fight climate change
On a February evening in 2020, a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide (CO2) ruptured in Mississippi. It sent a cloud of asphyxiating gas into the community of Satartia, causing 49 people to be hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms. First responders had a hard time rescuing people, because the internal combustion engines on ambulances couldn�...Read more
Commentary: Sexual violence on college campuses is still a big problem. Here's a way to fight it
More than a decade ago, it seemed the tide might turn against pervasive campus sexual violence. In a 2011 letter, under President Obama, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights charged universities with taking effective steps to end sexual violence, a form of sex discrimination that is prohibited by Title IX.
For the next few ...Read more
Editorial: Massachusetts lays out migrant welcome mat as sanctuary cities flex
Gov. Maura Healey could have saved Massachusetts $6,800 this summer had she not sent a team to the southern border in Texas to “educate” people of a shelter shortage here.
As the Herald reported, the trip was another bid to dial back the number of migrants arriving in the Bay State.
“We don’t have housing available right now, and we ...Read more
Commentary: Trump's election ended Jack Smith's tenure. But he still has one more important job to do
In George Orwell’s classic depiction of an authoritarian society, “Nineteen Eighty-four,” a key component of political control is the state’s erasure of history: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten … every date has been altered. … After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains.”
That ...Read more
Commentary: We need bipartisan cooperation to protect the internet
Your internet access is dependent on the security and resiliency of garden-hose-sized underwater cables. More than 800,000 miles of these cables criss-cross the oceans and seas. When just one of these cables breaks, which occurs about every other day, you may not notice much of a change to your internet speed. When several break, which is ...Read more
Catherine Thorbecke: China's dystopian tech influence grows in Vietnam
Vietnam has positioned itself in recent years as an attractive destination for Big Tech companies looking to move away from China. But Hanoi’s policies regarding social media have increasingly been following Beijing’s lead.
The Southeast Asian nation is now ramping up already tight controls over online platforms with new rules that will ...Read more
Sarah Green Carmichael: While you do 5-day RTO I'll watch your best workers quit
Five days a week. That’s the new return-to-office policy at Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post and at Amazon.com Inc., the retail giant now run by his designated successor Andy Jassy. It’s also the RTO recommendation Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have announced for the U.S. federal government.
It’s a terrible way to manage talent. It seems ...Read more
Editorial: Sickening Iowa presidential poll an insult to voters
The Iowa pollster being slammed by Team Trump is quitting. Too late, the damage is done.
Her dismal prognosticating on the eve of the election became a major story. Iowa was swinging over to VP Kamala Harris? A red state going blue? The timing was atrocious and arguably manipulative.
Pollster Ann Selzer got it wrong! She’s moving on to “...Read more
Editorial: A thousand days of hell: Ukraine war continues as Trump presidency looms
As the Ukraine war, launched by the imperialist invasion by Russian despot Vladimir Putin, passed its 1,000-day mark this month, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s troops are newly empowered by the Biden administration to use long-range ATACMS missiles to attack targets in Russia, which they did. And Moscow responded by launching its own new mid-...Read more
Editorial: Trump should bring on a great American housing boom
Most Americans, from both parties, say the government needs to increase the supply of affordable housing. For President-elect Donald Trump, that should offer a good opportunity to summon his instincts for development — and self-promotion — to get America building again. Call it the “Trump Building Boom.”
The problem is clear: For more ...Read more
Erika D. Smith: Newsom Is too elitist to lead states' fight against Trump
California Governor Gavin Newsom knows a political opportunity when he sees one. That’s why it should come as no surprise that the ambitious lame-duck leader of the nation’s most liberal state has wasted no time picking a fight with President-elect Donald Trump.
Already, Newsom has announced that he’s convening a special legislative ...Read more
Editorial: The plan to cut the federal government down to size
Donald Trump lost his attorney general nominee on Thursday as Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration amid an ethics probe and doubts about his confirmation odds. But the news wasn’t all bad for the president-elect, as his effort to force savings and efficiency on the federal leviathan came into clearer focus.
In a Wall Street Journal...Read more
Robin Abcarian: Nancy Mace's shameless exploitation of America's first transgender congresswoman
I realize that South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace is an attention-hungry partisan, trying to make a name for herself as a culture warrior by demonizing the first transgender woman to be elected to Congress.
And I understand that giving Mace's proposal to ban transgender women from women's bathrooms in the Capitol any oxygen is ...Read more
Editorial: Let's not let political chaos distract us from the unfolding climate catastrophe
With so much chaos in the world, from the United States’ slide toward authoritarianism to the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine, you could be forgiven for not being focused on what’s going on this week in Baku, Azerbaijan.
World leaders are gathered there for the annual United Nations climate talks. Their task at the summit, known as COP29,...Read more
Nolan Finley: Musk hopes to make budget cutting cool
If Donald Trump doesn't kill Elon Musk before Musk offs Vivek Ramaswamy, together the three best bros have a chance to achieve something every administration promises, but none has delivered: Rid the federal budget of waste, fraud and inefficiency.
President-elect Trump tasked Musk, the X and Tesla chairman and richest man in the world, and ...Read more