Politics
/ArcaMax

Ronald Brownstein: Congress is addicted to megabills -- despite their risks
Extraordinarily narrow and unstable House and Senate majorities have become routine in modern American politics. The frantic, final maneuvering last week before Congress approved President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act shows why that’s likely to persist for some time. And that means business, local governments, non-profits and ...Read more

Editorial: Will Dems re-embrace Musk now that he's feuding with Trump?
Elon Musk is ramping up his feud with Donald Trump. Does that mean Democrats can like him again?
They used to. It wasn’t that long ago that the tech titan won praise from the left for his electric vehicle innovations, and the Tesla became the status symbol of choice for clean-energy elites. Last October, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) told Chris...Read more
Commentary: Private equity's black eye legacy should cause concern for family-held businesses
Across the Midwest, family businesses once woven into the fabric of local life are vanishing. Not because of globalization or waning demand, but because of something closer to home: private equity. What began as a tool for capital efficiency has, in too many cases, become a wrecking ball for generational legacies.
As someone who has spent ...Read more

Catherine Thorbecke: We're losing the plot on AI in universities
An artificial intelligence furor that’s consuming Singapore’s academic community reveals how we’ve lost the plot over the role the hyped-up technology should play in higher education.
A student at Nanyang Technological University said in a Reddit post that she used a digital tool to alphabetize her citations for a term paper. When it was ...Read more

Michael Hiltzik: Does America need billionaires? Billionaires say 'Yes!'
What's the most downtrodden and persecuted minority in America?
If you said it's transgender youths, immigrant workers or women trying to access their reproductive health rights, you're on the wrong track.
The correct answer, judging from a surge in news reporting over the last couple of weeks, is billionaires.
Concern about the welfare of ...Read more

Editorial: Texas camp tragedy brings out best and worst of us
Tragedies bring out the best in people — at least that’s the assumption of a decent society. For some, however, the misfortune of others prompts them to unleash the most vile and abhorrent of screeds.
When torrential rains in central Texas caused the surging Guadalupe River to flood Friday morning, the swift, deadly waters washed away much ...Read more

Commentary: A plan to take human rights off the table at the State Department
What a difference eight years makes. During President Trump’s first term, then-Sen. Marco Rubio pushed the president to expand his human rights diplomatic agenda. Rubio recognized that promoting human rights abroad is in the national interest. He urged the president to appoint an assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights ...Read more

Commentary: Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill is a $4 trillion tax charade
The One Big Beautiful Bill Republicans just jammed through Congress represents a $4 trillion fraud foisted on the American people. Even though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, the core of the legislation, will add almost $4 trillion to the federal debt including interest, Republicans claim...Read more

Commentary: Congress must protect the lifeblood of medical progress
A few weeks ago, I joined other leaders from academic medical centers and research institutions in Washington, D.C., to talk with policymakers about the urgent need for continued federal investments in health care and biomedical research. Despite mo re than 30 years in the field, I came away with a deeper understanding of the increasing threat ...Read more

Commentary: Donald Trump's bill further erodes access to reproductive health care
The Supreme Court has dealt another blow to abortion access. It decided that states can ban Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements because it provides abortions. Women between the ages of 19 to 44 account for nearly two-thirds of Medicaid beneficiaries. Prior to this decision, they were able to access reproductive health care ...Read more

Lisa Jarvis: When an HIV scientific breakthrough isn't enough
A landmark breakthrough in HIV prevention — a scientific feat decades in the making — received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration last month. Gilead Sciences’ lenacapavir is so effective that global health leaders had started to cautiously talk about the end of an epidemic that continues to kill more than 600,000 people ...Read more

Steve Lopez: Trump priorities clear: Derail medical and scientific research, invade MacArthur Park
LOS ANGELES -- The nation's priorities are now crystal clear.
We are adding ICE and Border Patrol agents, activating troops and invading American neighborhoods, including L.A.'s MacArthur Park on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, we are getting rid of medical researchers and weather forecasters, even as extreme and deadly weather events become more ...Read more

Editorial: A tour of depravity in the Everglades
Unable to resist the political clickbait, President Donald Trump muscled Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier out of the limelight June 30, to celebrate the opening of a Florida first.
It is an armed camp where thousands of immigrants targeted as undesirables will be confined, possibly without hearings, under the brutal...Read more

Editorial: Dawdling on Social Security will only increase the pain
President Donald Trump has vowed not to cut Social Security benefits, and it’s easy to understand his position: Proposing even modest reforms to the entitlement program represents a likely path to early retirement for even the most popular politician.
But the structural defects of Social Security have become harder to ignore. And as the ...Read more

Commentary: The Texas floods were made worse by climate denialism
The tragic news out of central Texas has been heartbreaking, but it’s also been maddening — because so many lives could have been saved if elected officials had done their jobs. They owe the families who lost loved ones — the death toll from the Fourth of July floods is now at more than 100 — more than thoughts and prayers. They owe them...Read more

Commentary: Go local to save the environment
As the Trump administration dismantles federal environmental protections and strips the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of its capacity to do its job, local governments are emerging as frontline defenders against dangerous and unchecked pollution.
On Chicago’s southeast side, where I live, our parks, schools and homes are surrounded by ...Read more

Editorial: Indiana University, Ball State and Purdue are gutted without logic or thought
The list of executions is a stunner.
B.A. in French — dead, or in Hoosier political-ease, “Suspend (with Teach-Out toward Elimination)/Written Commitment to Merge/Consolidate the Program before AY26-27.”
B.A. in Art History — dead. B.A. in Italian — dead. M.A. in Japanese — dead. M.A. in Theater and Drama — dead. M.A. in Chinese ...Read more

Anita Chabria: What this formerly undocumented congressman understands about patriotism that Trump doesn't
Rep. Robert Garcia's relatives, many of Peruvian decent, have been asking him recently if they need to carry identification with them, as federal agents seemingly round up brown people at will.
His answer? Yes, but don't let fear quell resistance.
"What's happening right now with the terror of seeing masked men with rifles running into ...Read more

Commentary: A university president stands up for higher education as it's under assault
The Trump administration’s attack on higher education is both wide-ranging and carefully targeted at certain institutions. It has included, figuratively speaking, cluster bombs and surgical strikes.
The ordinary human impulse when under assault is to flee or to hide. The more noble response, however, is to stand up and confront one’s ...Read more

Commentary: Hooked on cruelty -- Science proved fish suffer
Imagine you can’t breathe. Panic sparks through your body like an electric current. And every second hurts more than the last. That’s what death looks like for rainbow trout and countless other fish slaughtered by air asphyxiation, a practice still common around the globe.
New research published in Scientific Reports establishes that fish ...Read more