Politics
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Patricia Lopez: Trump's immigration crackdown will be swift and ugly. Here's how
As Inauguration Day nears, it’s clear that President-elect Donald Trump believes he has a mandate to enact the largest deportation in U.S. history. What happens next could forever alter what it means to be an American.
Immigration under President Joe Biden surged to levels unmatched in more than a century — an estimated net increase of 8 ...Read more
Editorial: Keep the FBI on terror guard -- New Orleans attack shows that Kash Patel must never lead bureau
The 400 New Orleans police officers on duty in the French Quarter were not able to stop the New Year’s Eve ramming attack with a pickup truck used to run down revelers on Bourbon St., nor should those cops have been expected to, even as three of those officers heroically shot dead the killer when he opened fire.
It is the FBI that is America�...Read more
Editorial: NoLa attack a security wake-up call for cities
Updates keep coming in on the New Year’s Day terrorist attack on Bourbon Street, but one detail thus far is especially disturbing and serves as a wake up call to cities across the country.
Normally, bollards are part of a protective infrastructure preventing vehicles from entering areas crowded with pedestrians.
They weren’t there in the ...Read more
Editorial: Some honesty (at last) about Biden's decline would help Democrats move on
With less than a month left now in Joe Biden’s presidency, it might seem pointless to discuss yet again the president’s cognitive fitness for office. But there are two reasons that discussion shouldn’t yet be over:
One, there are serious questions right now about who is actually making decisions in the White House — questions driven ...Read more
Commentary: A president, not a king
Let's not sugarcoat it. If President-elect Donald Trump attempts what he has foreshadowed, we are about to enter the most challenging period of our 248-year-old republic.
At the same time, Americans remain an idealistic, compassionate people who believe in our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and principles of fairness and opportunity. And our ...Read more
Editorial: Republican budget gimmicks: Just say no
Even before taking office, the Republican Party’s new majority has become deeply split over the legislative path ahead. Some lawmakers want to prioritize defense, energy and immigration; others want to focus on taxes first; still others want everything, all at once, preferably while humiliating their opponents. A more modest agenda would ...Read more
Commentary: Will Joe Biden's last push to end war in Sudan be enough?
In its waning weeks, President Joe Biden’s administration has revved up engagement on Sudan in an attempt to end, or at least pause, a devastating war that has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The next administration is unlikely to take up the cause, which is so far off the radar that no one is even speculating what Donald ...Read more
Editorial: To shorten the war in Ukraine, tighten oil sanctions for real
As Bloomberg News has reported, President Joe Biden is considering ramping up sanctions on Russia before he leaves office, hoping to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of possible talks to end the war in Ukraine. As with previous decisions to loosen restrictions on Kyiv’s use of U.S. weapons, such a shift would be overdue — but ...Read more
Trudy Rubin: Trump's Ukraine policy in 2025 will show if he is a winner or a loser
As Russia viciously bombed Ukrainian cities over Christmas and shot down an Azeri airliner with antiaircraft fire, it was hard to ignore the message from Moscow.
A new foreign policy era has begun even before Donald Trump takes office. It will be quickly defined by how the president-elect deals with Moscow's war on Ukraine.
The post-Cold War ...Read more
Commentary: New Year's resolutions seem to set us up for failure. How can we course-correct?
Are you a New Year’s resolution hater? Could you care any less that early Christians reflected on past sins at this time of year or that your neighbor will finally use that Peloton to work out in January? If that’s the case, you’re in good company.
As many as 70% of Americans opt out of the resolution contest, according to the Pew ...Read more
Editorial: Slowly sinking coastal condos warn of Florida's peril
Florida has a long history of unwarranted optimism when it comes to coastal building risk.
Faced with a disturbing new University of Miami study, the coastal town of Sunny Isles Beach in Miami-Dade did not disappoint.
“No buildings in Sunny Isles Beach are sinking!” the city’s mayor protested to Newsweek.
But they are.
In North and ...Read more
Commentary: What is Trump really going to do?
President-elect Donald Trump is rapidly turning out names of potential nominees for his incoming administration. Most are strong supporters not only of Trump himself, but also his agenda. It is highly likely that they will be more than happy to help the incoming president implement his wishes.
Trump may also be emboldened by what he perceives ...Read more
Editorial: Jimmy Carter's fruitful postpresidential life shouldn't overshadow his accomplishments in the Oval Office
“Give me my flowers while I’m alive” is an expression older folks once used to hint that it sure would be nice to hear the good things people thought about them before the preacher was reading the eulogy at their funeral.
That sentiment comes to mind following the death of former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at age 100.
Carter...Read more
Commentary: Why we should stop waiting for the pre-COVID economy to return
For those waiting and hoping to see the economy return to pre-COVID levels of activity, recent employment data, while showing considerable strength, must be discouraging.
The data are reminiscent of American novelist and playwright Gertrude Stein’s comment following a disappointing visit to her childhood hometown, where she had hoped to see ...Read more
Commentary: Does AI have a place on the football field?
The final week of the NFL regular season has a handful of teams jockeying for playoff position. Just one upset loss can move a team from hosting a first-round game to an early offseason.
In closely contested contests, a missed call by a referee can make a big difference. Given that artificial intelligence has become ubiquitous in society, and ...Read more
Editorial: The blue state blues
Progressives are frantically sounding the alarm about blue state governance. The motivation isn’t improving quality of life but the downstream political implications.
“Bad news, Democrats: America is about to get even redder,” warned a recent New York Times opinion video. The Atlantic put it this way, “The Democrats are committing ...Read more
Mary Ellen Klas: Is democracy dying? These states will tell us
If you want to understand the health of American democracy, what happens in state legislatures matters just as much as what happens in Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago.
In 2025, we can assess the health of democracy at the state level by watching four pressing issues: how states respond to federal spending cuts; how legislatures handle November...Read more
Commentary: In Imperial County, we've been abandoned by Democrats and Republicans
Since the conclusion of the election, much of the media have painted Imperial Valley as having dramatically shifted its politics. With President-elect Donald Trump jumping from 37% of the 2020 vote in the region to 49% this year, many now claim that it has “flipped” from blue to red. Are we a once-blue county making a revolutionary ...Read more
Editorial: Tether and Trump could be a dangerous combination
Perhaps nothing encapsulates the perils of crypto better than Tether Holdings Ltd.
Tether is a so-called stablecoin. It addresses one of cryptocurrencies’ greatest drawbacks — extreme volatility — by mimicking the government-issued currencies crypto was supposed to replace. In return for actual dollars, it provides dollar-denominated ...Read more
Commentary: How Mexico can strike back if Trump follows through on his threats
President-elect Donald Trump has made clear his intent to supercharge his “America First” approach to foreign policy in his second term — and Mexico looks set to be at the tip of the spear.
While many of Trump’s predecessors have also followed a “realist” strategy— that is, one in which relative power is at the forefront of ...Read more