Politics
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Aaron Brown: What we still don't know about private credit is troubling
What’s going on in the $3 trillion private credit sector? To understand, let’s start with a sampling of the recent news that’s put investors on edge:
•In February, Blue Owl Capital Inc. gated withdrawals from a retail credit vehicle, meaning investors who wanted their money back were told to wait. Then, it was forced to defend a sale of...Read more
Editorial: A megabucks bailout is brewing for Big Ag as the farm economy struggles
The White House has scheduled a party for Friday and you, taxpayer, will be picking up the check – in more ways than one.
The Celebration of Agriculture event at the South Lawn is intended to “shine a spotlight on the men and women growing our food, fiber and fuel.” Unfortunately, the spotlight also will illuminate trouble in the ...Read more
George Skelton: Trump attacking Newsom's dyslexia proves president's incompetence
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — President Donald Trump claims Gov. Gavin Newsom is unfit to be president because he has a “learning disability.” It’s a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The centuries-old pot-kettle idiom points out hypocrisy — as when one person accuses another of a flaw that afflicts himself.
California’s ...Read more
Commentary: The fuel shortages of the '70s were crazy. Will we be running on empty again?
LOS ANGELES -- Surely you haven’t forgotten those mad COVID weeks of scrambling for the most elementary necessities: the masks, the baby formula, the toilet paper?
Maybe we should start to think of that as … practice.
Twice in the last 50 years, crises in the Mideast, one of them centered in Iran, have turned Americans into frantic hunter-...Read more
Mihir Sharma: The theater of the absurd in trump's trade fight
The U.S. government’s trade lawyers are working overtime. So what if the work in question requires more imagination than it does expertise?
Over the past fortnight, investigations into 16 countries for supposed manufacturing “excess capacity” have been launched under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. The office of U.S. Trade ...Read more
Commentary: Tax season is here, but Americans are paying the debt bill in other ways, too
It’s tax season, and millions of American households are settling last year’s bill — but a much larger one is coming. For all the conversations taking place about trillions of dollars in accumulating government debt, we rarely talk about how the costs show up in everyday life.
Sometimes, this new tax bill shows up through future tax hikes...Read more
Commentary: Liberty and justice for some
Late February brought two stories that most Americans filed under separate categories. In Kansas, the state government invalidated the driver's licenses and birth certificates of transgender residents, erasing legal identities with the stroke of a pen.
In New York, a Columbia University neuroscience student named Ellie Aghayeva was taken from ...Read more
Mark Z. Barabak: California can have both easy voting and quicker election results. Here's how
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Every two years, elite athletes compete in the Olympics, biennial plants — like carrots and onions — produce seeds and people across America look on with consternation and mounting impatience as California counts its election ballots.
The prolonged tally has become as much a part of electioneering in the Golden State...Read more
Noah Feldman: A judge's vulgar dissent is a loss for everyone
A recent opinion by a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is a contender for the most vulgar piece of judicial writing in the 300-plus-year history of recorded judicial decisions in the English language.
The opinion in Olympus Spa v. Andretti — a dissent from the 9th Circuit’s decision not to rehear a case involving a ...Read more
Editorial: Amid mounting risks, the Fed wisely puts rates on hold
Much as expected, the Federal Reserve left its policy rate unchanged last week, stressing new uncertainties in the economic outlook and the limits of monetary policy in managing them. This was the right call: If ever there was a time for a central bank to wait and see before altering interest rates, it’s now.
Accordingly, the Fed’s new ...Read more
Commentary: President Trump and his allies are trying to make it harder for Americans to vote
President Donald Trump and his administration have been working diligently to try to undermine Americans’ trust in our elections. The steady drumbeat of lies and disinformation is intended to give cover to their efforts to interfere in our elections and stack the deck in their own favor. Time and time again, we see them justify their actions ...Read more
Robin Abcarian: Republicans fearing a midterm rout revive Islamophobia as political strategy
Boy, it's been a struggle whipping up ugly racist sentiment since President Donald Trump "closed" the border last year. No more stories about immigrant caravans marching ominously north to steal our jobs and rape our women. No more tall tales of Haitian gangs eating the cats, eating the dogs.
Sure, immigrants might still be "poisoning the blood...Read more
LZ Granderson: Trump wants to 'take' Cuba, but we've done that repeatedly before
During President Barack Obama's first term, when the U.S. and Cuba initially made attempts to thaw our icy relationship, I visited the island country as part of an educational delegation.
We met with government officials including Mariela Castro, the daughter of then-President Raul Castro, as she was working on pro-LGBTQ+ legislation. We ...Read more
Commentary: What an Austrian cow and Illinois' Fermilab teach us about scientific discovery
Apparently, cows know how to scratch an itch — with a broom. This fascinating new discovery provides the first known example of multipurpose tool use beyond chimpanzees. It required finding just the right cow (her name was Veronika) in just the right paddock (nestled in the Austrian countryside) with just the right owner (a particularly ...Read more
Commentary: Health care is the way for Democrats to win
When someone is sick in this country, they don’t ask for a politician. They ask for a doctor, a nurse, or a therapist — a front line health care worker. They look for someone they trust.
Right now, our country’s health care system is sick.
Families are anxious about their finances. Many are being forced to decide whether they can afford ...Read more
Commentary: Health care jobs surge mask a productivity crisis--and rising costs
Health care and social assistance professions added 693,000 jobs in 2025. Without those gains, the U.S. economy would have lost roughly 570,000 jobs.
At first glance, these numbers suggest that health care is a growth engine in an otherwise slowing labor market. But a closer look reveals something more troubling for patients and health care ...Read more
Commentary: China wants to dominate the future of food. And it might succeed
In early February, I was invited to visit a discreet industrial building just outside Beijing’s historic city center. What I saw inside has the potential to radically restructure the global food system.
Peering through laboratory windows at the New Protein Food Science and Technology Innovation Base, I watched as dozens of tissue engineers ...Read more
Commentary: Global oil crisis once again makes the case for renewable energy
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House and introduced an ambitious solar strategy to Congress. This came on the heels of the oil shocks of the 1970s caused first by the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab states and then the Iranian Revolution — both Middle East crises that reverberated across the globe ...Read more
Editorial: The US must not become a nation of emigrants
Since its earliest days, the U.S. has been a nation of immigrants. Increasingly, it’s also a nation of emigrants — a trend that should alarm elected officials and spur them to act.
A recent analysis found that U.S. emigration has reached unprecedented levels. Much of this exodus is due to the administration’s deportation efforts, but by ...Read more
Commentary: A Democratic takeover of the Senate is now imaginable
I’ve seen enough. It’s time to revise our expectations about the midterms.
For more than a year now, conventional wisdom has been that Democrats would take back the House — but not the Senate — in the November midterms.
That’s because this year’s Senate map would require Democrats to win numerous seats in red states.
In fact, if ...Read more




















































