Politics
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Patricia Murphy: Pete Hegseth has to go
I feel like I spend all of my time lately beating up on the Trump administration. But as they say in the military, it’s a target-rich environment.
The Trump team’s latest offense is also its most dangerous — a group chat on the encrypted, but unclassified, text messaging app Signal, finalizing the details of an attack on Houthi rebels in ...Read more

Commentary: The care and feeding of a superpower
The Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, led by an unelected billionaire and supported by the Donald Trump administration, continues its bulldozer approach to our federal government.
As we careen forward, an essential food for thought is an awareness of the global and historical perspectives that underscore how our current leaders' ...Read more

Commentary: Don't take health care hope away
Evenings in our house oscillate between routine and existential. I prefer the ones where we mostly muddle through the mundane, and the ever-present threat to health and to normalcy goes largely unobserved, acknowledged only in the subtle ticking of insulin metered out by my 6-year-old daughter’s pump into her body.
Every few nights we change ...Read more

Commentary: I worked for USAID for 16 years. I saw the profound difference it made
This month marked the end of my 16-year career with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Like thousands of other federal workers, I was dismissed without warning or explanation. In my time at USAID, I led response teams helping people during wars and after natural disasters around the world, on ...Read more

Tad Weber: How my Tesla felt like a target for vandals in California, thanks to Donald Trump
Count me in the ranks of those who have quit Tesla.
Three years ago my wife and I bought a Model Y, Tesla’s small SUV. I was particularly intrigued by a car that ran on electricity, not gas. Living in Fresno, California, in one of the nation’s most polluted air basins, meant that driving an EV, with its zero emissions, would be my small ...Read more

Commentary: Silent onlookers -- The moral failure to protect higher education
One of my favorite stories is "The Butterfly and the Tank," a powerful novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway. First published in Esquire magazine in November 1938, the piece is based on Hemingway’s experiences in the Spanish Civil War.
In it, Hemingway exposes a chilling truth about human nature: the greatest ...Read more

Matthew T. Hall: The Trump administration srsly texted war plans like in a group chat? Exploding head emoji
The world found out shortly after noon eastern time on March 24 that the United States’ March 15 bombing of Houthi targets across Yemen had been discussed just before it happened on the private messaging platform Signal among U.S. national security officials. Jeffrey Goldberg, a journalist from The Atlantic magazine, had been inadvertently ...Read more

Commentary: To resist President Donald Trump, universities must keep it simple
Freedom of speech. Due process under the law.
They sound good, don’t they?
They’re the twin pillars of a free society and a free university. And they’re both under assault from President Donald Trump’s administration.
The only way for universities to fight back is to join hands around these principles. Everything else is just a ...Read more

Editorial: Security problem
Washington is aflutter with the latest Trump “gotcha,” this one involving the revelation that White House officials mistakenly included a journalist on a group chat about potential American airstrikes against rebels in Yemen. It’s not a good look for the administration, but it also doesn’t appear to be the massive scandal that Democrats ...Read more

James Stavridis: What Colin Powell would say about the Pentagon DEI purge
The Defense Department has been roiled by the Donald Trump administration’s desire to root out diversity, equity and inclusion programs his administration believes are divisive and unfair. This has manifested itself in closing offices focused on DEI; rescinding a variety of internal directives; restoring the names of military bases originally ...Read more

Editorial: Trump administration's Signal breach was a dangerous error. Treat it as such, Mr. President
Imagine you’re a senior manager for a company. You and other members of your corporate braintrust, working in different locations, hop on a group text to discuss strategic plans relating to your chief competitor, but you mistakenly add to the group a business reporter with whom you’ve spoken in the past. That reporter then blows the cover on...Read more

Commentary: Why no more Education Department is good news for parents of special-needs children
President Donald Trump’s recent executive order laying out a plan for dismantling the federal Department of Education represents good news for families nationwide. As the mother of a child with special needs and a former member of the National Council on Disability, I can attest that the benefits will extend to children with disabilities as ...Read more

Editorial: Hold accountable officials who recklessly compromised national security
Everyone involved in the nation’s defense — from the newly enlisted up to and including the military’s top brass — should be incensed that members of the Trump administration carelessly discussed pending operations against the Houthi militia in Yemen over Signal, a commercial messaging app.
Such recklessness not only appears to violate ...Read more

Editorial: Leaking secrets: Trump cabinet Signal chat fiasco is an alarm bell
The country should thank The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeff Goldberg, for showing that the entire top echelon of the Trump administration was reckless and careless in discussing secret classified military matters on the non-secure commercial messaging app Signal.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz made the blunder of including Goldberg in...Read more

Commentary: Gavin Newsom has lots to say. Is it worth listening?
Gavin Newsom has a new political podcast, in case you hadn't heard, and he's not the only one who's talking.
California's gallivanting governor has made national headlines and stirred no small amount of discussion among fellow Democrats by undertaking a series of cross-partisan conversations with the likes of MAGA megastars Charlie Kirk and ...Read more

Commentary: Why liberals should celebrate the end of diversity statements at UC
Amid the Trump administration’s assault on higher education and academic freedom — shaking down institutions like Columbia, targeting pro-Palestinian scholars and students for deportation and dispatching chilling letters meant to silence dissent — last week brought an unexpected but welcome development: The University of California ...Read more

COUNTERPOINT: Wrong time, wrong president for mandatory national service
There could not be a worse time to implement a required national service for young people.
In a nation that has turned individual freedom into a fetish, such an idea would always be a hard sell. Now, with an autocratic president and his sidekick car salesman slashing federal jobs, it would be a disaster.
Forced service would further sap ...Read more

POINT: A case for mandatory national service
As someone who firmly believes in libertarian/conservative values and principles, I fully understand that compulsory national service could seem like an infringement upon one’s personal freedom. However, I still think it is worth exploring under specific guidelines.
When most people hear the term national service, they automatically think of ...Read more

Matthew Yglesias: Democrats need more combative centrists
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is under fire from progressives for not having a clear plan to fight President Donald Trump. He certainly deserves some criticism — but for an entirely different reason: He doesn’t have a clear plan to help Senate Democrats regain a majority.
For House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the path to a ...Read more

Editorial: Kneecapping Social Security could mean misery for millions
How do you say, “I am going to break Social Security” without actually saying “I am going to break Social Security”?
Donald Trump doesn’t have to have to say a thing. A leaked memo says it all.
Starting March 31, the Social Security Administration will shut off its phones to newly disabled claimants and new retirees, people trying ...Read more