Politics
/ArcaMax
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Editorial: In praise of federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon's bravery in the face of Trumpian intimidation
Danielle Sassoon, a lawyer with impeccable academic and professional credentials and unquestionable conservative bona fides, represents a true profile in courage in her refusal as acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to file for dismissal of federal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Sassoon’s Feb. 12 letter...Read more
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Editorial: Musk, DOGE hit a Democratic nerve
The past few weeks have been highly instructive as Democrats rush to defend federal waste and fiscal folly in the face of the DOGE onslaught. The level of hand-wringing signifies far more than a concern over the “unelected” Elon Musk or executive branch overreach.
It can’t be the latter that has generated so much mewling. After all, ...Read more
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Tyler Cowen: What's the best way to reveal a government secret?
House Republicans last week announced their “Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.” This follows an executive order issued last month by President Donald Trump ordering the release of records about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The broad idea is to get the federal government...Read more
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Editorial: Credit card bill will hurt those it's supposed to help
President Donald Trump has taken many productive steps during his first weeks back in the Oval Office. But supporting a bill to cap credit card interest rates — based on a campaign promise the president made — wouldn’t be one of them.
The odd couple of Sens. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, and Josh Hawley, a conservative Missouri ...Read more
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Commentary: Could Trump's tariffs have unintended consequences that hurt America?
The first few weeks of the Trump administration have been head-spinning. President Donald Trump and his team were well-prepared to launch their policy agenda, signing over 50 executive orders, the most in a president's first month in more than 40 years.
A major focus has been economic policy, first with immigration raids, which were quickly ...Read more
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Commentary: The Trump administration's first trip to Europe spurs more questions than answers
If our European allies were hoping for reassurance from President Donald Trump’s administration during the Munich Security Conference in Germany last weekend, then they left the hotel ballroom sadly disappointed. The multiday event, previously used by senior foreign policy officials as a platform for convincing the rest of the world that the ...Read more
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Editorial: California lags on fire safety rules, but even common sense should limit combustibles near homes
In the unprecedented wind-driven fires of January, a fusillade of embers flew from burning hillside brush to neighborhoods, igniting houses and any fencing and furniture around them that would burn.
Those flames spread to adjacent houses, and the winds propelled millions more embers through the air to more houses and yards. Whether more ...Read more
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David Mills: JD Vance, the 13th century Trumpian thinker
The vice president could be leading a movement to Make America Think Again, or he could be leading a movement to make part of America think it's thinking when it's doing what it always wanted to do.
I hope for the first, but I'm afraid I think the second.
Vance thinks
JD Vance thinks about things, or did, in a way rare for American ...Read more
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Editorial: How ill-conceived 'affordable' housing becomes unaffordable for Chicago
In Chicago, there’s just not enough housing available to keep up with demand. Especially affordable housing.
City policymakers recognize the problem and profess to want to step up residential development, whether through direct Department of Housing involvement or through leveraging what’s happening in the private sector. But, at least when...Read more
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Commentary: The Republican Party can build a winning coalition with independents
The results of the 2024 election should put to bed any doubts as to the power of independent voters to decide key elections. Independents accounted for 34% of voters in 2024, handing President Donald Trump the margin of victory in every swing state race and making him only the second Republican to win the popular vote since 1988.
The question ...Read more
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Matthew Yglesias: Democrats need to channel their inner DOGE
The American public, according to the president, was “sick and tired of wasteful spending.” So he proposed to “slash federal hiring and reduce the federal workforce” as well as “restrain federal pay.” For good measure, he threw in a plan to “remove needless regulations.”
Was this Ronald Reagan in 1981? George W. Bush two decades...Read more
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Editorial: Emperor Donald Bonaparte? Trump must obey the federal courts
Should the Trump administration’s promises to the Supreme Court that it will obey the orders of federal courts be believed when President Donald Trump is aspiring to the powers of a king or an emperor?
The administration’s first appeal to the high court is an emergency request for the justices to stay a D.C. trial judge’s ruling that ...Read more
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Commentary: Let's fight Trump's attacks on trans people
Since returning to the presidency, Donald Trump has issued a wave of executive orders that target transgender people. We all knew it was coming, but feeling each one wash over us like a blast of waste water is still agonizing.
He’s playing to his anti-trans base, hoping they’ll overlook the high price of eggs as long as some trans people ...Read more
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Commentary: Where is Ted Cruz when American democracy needs him?
The president is ignoring the law when he isn’t intentionally violating it. He is dissolving federal agencies created by Congress and impounding funds even though that is clearly prohibited. He is governing by issuing executive orders and even claims the power to roll back birthright citizenship, ignoring the Constitution itself.
All of this ...Read more
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Commentary: Should we be concerned about the tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas?
Why doesn’t the public know more about the troubling tuberculosis outbreak in eastern Kansas?
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) is tracking 384 individuals with suspected tuberculosis in the Kansas City metro area — at least 67 have an active infection, and two have died. While Kansas public health officials called it ...Read more
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Commentary: The high price of crying fraud
Seminal is a strong word. It means that when an event is seminal, nothing will ever be the same again.
Elon Musk and his marauding young minions will leave the United States damaged in ways that won’t be easily put right, toppling the country from the position it has held so long as the world’s pillar of decency, generosity and law. As ...Read more
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Nolan Finley: O Canada, we don't really want you
I've never had much luck with Canadians.
Years ago, I kept a boat at a marina on the Thames River outside of Windsor. I headed up there after work one evening with a buddy for a sail, and before I had even loosened the dock lines, he and an employee of the marina were bumping bellies over some slight committed by one or the other — I never ...Read more
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Editorial: Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan as Kennedy Center honorees? Donald Trump must respect artistic freedom in Washington and beyond
“Why must every president overplay his hand?” Christopher J. Scalia wrote on X the other day. Scalia, the son of the famed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and hardly a raging progressive, was referring to a presidential communication Feb. 7 that declared Donald Trump’s intention to “make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT ...Read more
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Commentary: Why homelessness skyrocketed in 2024 – and what to do about it
In 2024, the U.S. saw the largest spike in homelessness since the federal government began regularly collecting data in 2007. This wasn’t a fluke. U.S. homelessness has been on a steep and steady climb – and immigration is largely responsible.
U.S. homelessness hit record highs in both 2023 and 2024, in large part because of major increases...Read more
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Commentary: Amid Trump's war on LGBTQ+ teens, social media platforms must step up
With Trump’s war on inclusion, life has suddenly become even more dangerous for LGBTQ youth. The CDC has removed health information for LGBTQ+ people from its website—including information about creating safe, supportive spaces. Meanwhile, Trump’s executive order, couched in hateful and inaccurate language, has stopped gender-affirming ...Read more