Politics
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Commentary: Sexual assault thrives in silence
Dolores Huerta broke her silence 60 years after Cesar Chavez had assaulted her. In her statement, Dolores Huerta said, “I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work.” She did not want to hurt the movement.
After 15 years of working with survivors and supporting ...Read more
Commentary: American Muslims' unique role against anti-US sentiment and Islamophobia
It is not easy to be an American Muslim today. At a time when the United States is engaged in yet another conflict involving a Muslim-majority country, rhetoric from a growing number of public figures, including some of our highest officials, continues to vilify Islam and cast suspicion on Muslims as disloyal or dangerous. Too often, national ...Read more
Mark Z. Barabak: It's been decades since California had a governor's race like this one. That was a shocker
The year was 1998. Bill Clinton was in the White House, Titanic was packing movie theaters and a startup with a funny name, Google, was just launching.
In California, voters were choosing their next governor.
There was great anticipation surrounding a political heavyweight and whether she'd jump into the race. There was a rich businessman ...Read more
Editorial: What's essential: Hochul must reduce the pain with Essential Plan changes
Gov. Kathy Hochul said that she had no choice from a hostile federal government and had to change the state’s Essential Plan health coverage and thus potentially remove nearly a half-million New Yorkers from this zero-premium plan. The request to alter the program received preliminary approval from Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers ...Read more
Commentary: NYU's decision to air prerecorded graduation speeches is cowardly
On May 31, 1969, the first student speaker to address a Wellesley College graduation took the stage. You already know her name: Hillary Rodham.
The future first lady and secretary of state — who later took the last name of her husband, Bill Clinton — was preceded at the podium by Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brooke, a moderate Republican and ...Read more
Editorial: EVs skirt the gas tax
User taxes don’t function properly when some users are able to avoid the tax.
Fuel taxes and vehicle fees are two major sources of revenue for Nevada’s State Highway Fund. This makes sense. Officials use the State Highway Fund to build and maintain roads for vehicles.
Nevada Department of Transportation Director Tracy Larkin Thomason ...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: Here are all the good things we could buy for the billions being spent on Trump's Iran war
Governing, the political sages tell us, is all about making choices, particularly when leadership faces finite resources and the choices are between war and peace; this is the "guns or butter" balancing raised by Lyndon Johnson's pursuit of the Vietnam War and, appropriately, by President Donald Trump's Iran war.
Thus far, according to budget ...Read more
Abby McCloskey: Universal child care isn't always good for kids
Free child care is starting to take root in the U.S. But is it good for kids?
Last year, New Mexico became the first state to offer free universal child care. This year, New York began offering free child care for children ages 0-3 in certain cities, with a goal of reaching all children under 5 by 2028. Massachusetts has set its sights on ...Read more
Editorial: Supreme Court appears ready to jeopardize how we vote by mail
On Monday, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised to threaten voting by mail, as Washington and other states do it, during oral arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee.
This troubling development comes at the same time the RNC, with President Donald Trump’s backing, is pressing Congress to pass the Safeguard ...Read more
Commentary: The lost art of disagreeing without being disagreeable
I was incredibly close to my grandparents. They were thoughtful, well-read and deeply engaged citizens who believed strongly in civic participation. They followed the news and took voting seriously.
Despite my curiosity and more than a few questions over the years, I still have no idea for whom they voted.
That was not unusual for their ...Read more
COUNTERPOINT: Trump's Iran war has done Russia and China a service
President Donald Trump’s disastrous war on Iran is weakening the United States, while presenting America’s principal adversaries, China and Russia, with a strategic opportunity to expand their global influence.
The war in Iran is already diverting U.S. attention and resources from Ukraine and East Asia at an alarming level, giving China and...Read more
POINT: Add Russia and China to the list of losers in US-Iran war
The United States and Israel are devastating the parasitic Islamic regime that has squandered the wealth of Iran for decades and exported terror across the Middle East. Understanding the biggest losers in this war is just as important as any battle damage assessment on the rubble of government buildings in Tehran.
The third Gulf War is very bad...Read more
Catherine Thorbecke: Your birthday won't magically fix social media
Australia led the charge on banning children under 16 from social media platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok, and now much of the Asia-Pacific region — with its young, tech-savvy markets — is eager to follow. The collective push will be impossible for tech platforms to ignore.
Indonesia plans to implement its restrictions later this ...Read more
Commentary: Social media platforms aren't the new cigarettes. They're worse
A jury in Los Angeles may have just done for social media what early lawsuits did for Big Tobacco. Outside the courtroom, families who said they have lost children to the effects of these platforms gathered in shirts that read “We Are K.G.M.,” expressing solidarity with the 20-year-old plaintiff. Inside the court on Wednesday morning, the ...Read more
Commentary: Donald Trump's war on Iran masks his support of Vladimir Putin
If there is a familiar refrain from the critics of President Donald Trump these days, it’s about his foreign policy excursions overwhelming his administration and preventing him from focusing on the economy and other domestic challenges, which register his approval rating at around 40%. Some of his MAGA loyalists are now questioning their 2024...Read more
Gene Collier: How's it lookin' for that Peace Prize again?
As the U.S. president continues his quest to spread peace throughout the world, even if we have to “keep bombing our little hearts out” and threatening imminent war crimes in the process, it’s a good time for an update on the Nobel Peace Prize, don’t you think?’
The Nobel, or “the Noble,” as Trump sometimes types it in his ...Read more
David M. Drucker: Joe Kent is a conspiracy theorist, not a principled dissenter
Joe Kent is a cautionary tale.
When Kent resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center to protest the Iran war, critics of the conflict — especially opponents of President Donald Trump — quickly cast the decorated military combat veteran as a principled dissenter. Superficially, that tracks. And yet those tracks are laid on ...Read more
Editorial: Democrats need a better affordability agenda
As midterm elections approach in November, voters have one thing on their minds: Life is too expensive. Democrats are wise to campaign on “affordability.” Unfortunately, many of their ideas are likely to make matters worse.
Most poll respondents now rank some variant of “high prices” as their top concern, with good reason. Inflation, ...Read more
Commentary: The lockout at BP's Whiting refinery is one that America cannot afford
BP, the British oil major, has locked out roughly 800 union workers at its Whiting, Indiana, refinery after contract talks with the United Steelworkers broke down. This is no local matter. Whiting is the eighth-largest refinery in the nation, the largest in the Midwest, and a critical supplier of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to the American ...Read more
Gustavo Arellano: Why I'm not taking down my César Chávez photo
The framed photo of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta sits in my personal office on a bookshelf crammed with volumes about California and the American West.
The two are at a 1973 United Farm Workers convention, presiding over the union they co-founded. After years of victories in the name of campesinos, the group and its charismatic leaders ...Read more




















































