Politics
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Commentary: Tehran has only bad options. Trump and Netanyahu have golden opportunities
Following the U.S. attack on Iran’s primary nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, Tehran faces nothing but bad options. Militarily, Iran can escalate the conflict by attacking U.S. forces and allies in the region, as it did on Monday with missile attacks on U.S. bases in Qatar and Iraq.
Iran could also close the Strait of Hormuz, ...Read more

Commentary: Why 'bunker busters' won't end Iran's nuclear ambitions
On Sunday at approximately 2 a.m. Tehran time, seven B-2 stealth aircraft attacked the Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, strikes enabled as much by the belief that Iran had this coming as the particular technology of the American bombers.
A drawling President Donald Trump put it in stark terms shortly after the operation...Read more

Commentary: Dispelling Russia's myths about Ukraine
The McCain Institute just returned from a weeklong mission to Ukraine, visiting Bucha, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Kyiv, with a bipartisan delegation of senior staff from the House of Representatives. It was a critical opportunity to see an unvarnished view of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Most Americans have no choice but to rely on various and often ...Read more

Commentary: The Stars and Stripes forever?
“But should old acquaintance be forgot, keep your eye on the grand old flag.” George M. Cohan’s famous verse reminds us that a flag can call a nation back to its core values in times of distress. But, in a nation of immigrants, which flag and what values?
The vivid images of protesters against ICE raids in Los Angeles brandishing the ...Read more

Gene Collier: The president praises the military, but cuts care for veterans
Regardless of their advisability, legality, or ultimate utility in the long sordid history of Middle East conflict, the American military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend gave Donald Trump an opportunity to compliment someone other than himself.
“Congratulations to our great American Warriors,” the president ...Read more

Editorial: Go slow on Waymo -- Several cautions before self-driving cars come to NYC streets
Waymo, a leader in self-driving cars, is seeking permission to roll out its AI-driven taxi in New York City, with a safety driver behind the wheel at all times. Before saying yes, the city must put on several guardrails, from limiting the number of vehicles, to where they can operate, to their safety and technical information.
Fully self-...Read more

Commentary: Cracks in the Trump coalition? They won't matter
President Donald Trump’s coalition has always been a Frankenstein’s monster — stitched together from parts that were never meant to coexist.
Consider the contradictions: fast-food fanatics hanging out with juice-cleanse truthers chanting “Make America Healthy Again” between ivermectin doses, immigration hardliners mixing with business...Read more

John M. Crisp: The United States v. Iran -- What's next?
About 12 hours before its Sunday morning deadline, this column was overtaken by events.
By Saturday night, I’d written 675 words in support of diplomacy over an attack by the United States on Iran. Arguably, diplomacy worked in 2015 when the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, developed—and Iran agreed to—...Read more

Editorial: Illinois is wooing foreign tourists, despite a hostile White House and a blue-red divide
Chicago hosted an influential travel group at McCormick Place last week, putting on a show to win international tourist and convention business. From a blowout opening night at the Field Museum to tours of neighborhoods, sports venues and dining hotspots, the program was impressive. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker ...Read more

Joe Battenfeld: Massachusetts Dems out of touch with Trump derangement fever
Massachusetts Democrats are so out of touch and infected with Trump derangement fever that they’re defending Iran and illegal immigrant gang members.
After U.S. missile strikes over the weekend against three Iranian nuclear sites, some lawmakers are questioning whether Iran was a nuclear threat – only because President Donald Trump ordered ...Read more

Editorial: Revised land bill would still be a step forward
Sen. Mike Lee’s proposal that the federal government jettison an infinitesimal portion of its vast land holdings in Nevada and 10 other Western states to spur housing and infrastructure development fell victim to Senate rules this week. The Utah Republican should ready his bill for another day.
Under Lee’s original plan, Congress would have...Read more

Trudy Rubin: Trump is now co-owner of the Israel-Iran War
Now that the United States has bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, many Americans are recalling the long-term war we got sucked into by invading Iraq in 2003.
I spent weeks in Iran and Iraq just prior to that March 20, 2003, attack and logged a huge amount of time in Iraq over the next eight years, so the comparisons feel very personal.
Yet, as the...Read more

Commentary: The great American rewrite -- Time to hit refresh on the US Constitution
We are standing at the edge of a precipice—and the Constitution, once a beacon of hope, is being hijacked as a prop in an anti-constitutional power grab.
On June 14, 2025, I watched with a grief-stricken heart as tanks rolled down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. It was billed as a patriotic military parade. But behind the red, white, ...Read more

Martin Schram: The remaking of a president
Sometimes, when presidents discover they are being slowly manipulated into Washington’s political quicksand, it can be helpful if they check out how a predecessor dealt with a similar problem – to avoid getting trapped, big-time.
So we are here today to help America’s 47th president, Donald Trump, by replaying for him a predecessor’s ...Read more

Editorial: Want to know how a socialist mayor would govern New York City? Ask Chicago
A major city. A heated mayoral election. A familiar dilemma: a moderate, business-friendly Democrat versus a democratic socialist. New Yorkers, take it from Chicago — we’ve seen this movie before, and the ending isn’t pretty.
New Yorkers will cast their ballots Tuesday in New York’s mayoral primary, where 11 candidates are vying to win ...Read more

Editorial: Division at the water's edge -- Stopping Iran's nukes should be not a partisan matter
If the Pentagon had used bunker buster bombs and cruise missiles to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapon facilities last year, a necessary act as the fanatical mullah regime in Tehran will never voluntarily give up on nukes, the congressional Republicans would be calling President Joe Biden’s action unconstitutional and saying that he was starting ...Read more

Editorial: Will Iran continue down path of self-destruction?
President Donald Trump prefers to leave America’s enemies guessing, but there can now be little doubt that the United States is deadly serious about containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
On Saturday, the president gave the green light to Operation Midnight Hammer, which used stealth bombers to hit Iran’s nuclear development sites. Trump ...Read more

Leonard Greene: NYC Mayor Adams should lift his press conference ban on Daily News reporter
With all that’s going on in New York City these days, from elected officials being arrested by ICE agents to passengers being pepper sprayed on the subway, you would think Mayor Eric Adams would have more important things to do than picking a fight with a reporter.
But there he was, the mayor of the nation’s largest city, banning a reporter...Read more

Commentary: Trump's remittance tax is a cruel double-tax on immigrant's dignity
Every week, millions of immigrants in the United States wire money across borders to their families and hometowns, not because they can afford to, but because they have to. Those funds can mean food on the table, payment of school fees or medicine for someone sick.
Now, President Donald Trump and the Republicans want to impose a burdensome tax...Read more

Editorial: US Senate should strike AI regulation ban from budget bill
In the current national political climate, bipartisanship is extremely rare, especially when it comes to important topics such as states’ rights and regulating the use of artificial intelligence.
But it was exactly such legislation that brought U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, together.
...Read more