Politics
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Commentary: SNAP is vital to the nation's well-being
As a single mother of two, I know what it means to work hard and still struggle to make ends meet. There was a time in my life when I relied on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to keep food on the table.
During that time, I was in college and always held a job, sometimes two. I submitted income reports every month as ...Read more
Nolan Finley: Reagan ad reminder of what we're missing
The best thing about the Canadians' use of a Ronald Reagan video to taunt President Donald Trump's trade policies is that it exposes the 54% of today's Americans who weren't alive during the Reagan presidency to what a real conservative sounds like.
I was in another room when I first heard the commercial featuring Reagan's voice coming from the...Read more
Editorial: Rahm Emanuel says men must take responsibility for ending domestic violence
Rahm Emanuel was our mayor. He was the U.S. ambassador to Japan. He’s a possible presidential candidate. He’s also an advocate against domestic violence.
Emanuel has co-founded the WINGS Men’s Alliance to End Domestic Violence alongside attorney John Sciaccotta, and the group’s mission is to mobilize men as allies, advocates and ...Read more
Patricia Murphy: Dick Cheney's last public act was to fight Trump
In the last year of his life, former Vice President Dick Cheney issued one of his final public statements to defend the country against what he said was one of the most dangerous forces it had ever come up against — President Donald Trump.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our...Read more
Noah Feldman: The Supreme Court's conservatives may be the end of tariffs
Until now, the U.S. Supreme Court has been modestly deferential to Donald Trump’s executive overreach. Oral arguments in the case challenging the legality of the president’s tariffs suggest that this may be about to change.
The court’s three liberal justices appear sure to vote that Trump lacked the authority to impose the tariffs under ...Read more
Mark Z. Barabak: Proposition 50 is a short-term victory against Trump. But at what cost?
One of the great conceits of California is its place on the cutting edge — of fashion, culture, technology, politics and other facets of the ways we live and thrive.
Not so with Proposition 50.
The redistricting measure, which passed resoundingly Tuesday, doesn't break any ground, chart a fresh course or shed any light on a better pathway ...Read more
Anita Chabria: MAGA's 'big tent' is burning down amid explosion of antisemitism, racism
South Asians have played a prominent role in President Donald Trump's universe, especially in his second term.
Second Lady Usha Vance is the daughter of Indian immigrants who came to California to study and never went back. Harmeet Dhillon, born in India and a devout Sikh, is currently his U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights ...Read more
Commentary: The sinister message behind Trump telling pregnant women to 'tough it out'
The 19th century “doctrine of maternal impression” held that a woman’s thoughts and experiences could physically mark her child. Someone born with a strawberry shaped birthmark must have had a mother who craved strawberries during birth. The family of Joseph Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, said publicly that his disability was caused ...Read more
Commentary: Don't forget the seniors as SNAP benefits are cut
Over the weekend, the federal government temporarily shut off funding for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, leaving more than 42 million Americans uncertain about how they’ll be able to feed their families in the coming weeks. For many older Californians like me, that cutoff isn’t a mere inconvenience. It’s a gut-...Read more
Editorial: Filibuster Trump's demand -- John Thune is right to refuse to alter Senate rules
Bravo to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republican senators for refusing to even consider President Donald Trump’s demand to get rid of the filibuster that protects the rights of the chamber’s minority. It’s rare these days for the MAGAfied GOP to push back on the wannabe king of America.
Trump is eager to change the Senate ...Read more
Lisa Jarvis: What if the COVID vaccine could save cancer patients too?
A stunning new study offers early evidence that COVID-19 vaccines might have a secret superpower: a precisely timed mRNA shot could help many cancer patients live longer.
The work still requires validation, but the strength of the signal in the study — which analyzed differences in outcomes between cancer patients who did and did not receive ...Read more
Editorial: An impulsive president wants to restart nuclear arms races. What could go wrong?
President Donald Trump’s penchant for impulsively making sweeping policy decisions on the fly is one of his most unsettling personality traits. Whether it’s ever-shifting tariffs seemingly based on little but his moods, or demolishing part of the White House to construct a vulgar monstrosity of a ballroom without a word to Congress, or the ...Read more
COUNTERPOINT: Expiring subsidies are a first step to meaningful healthcare reform
Democrats continue to hold basic government operations hostage in an effort to extend expiring health insurance subsidies and prove Milton Friedman’s dictum that nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program.
They are pointing to new estimates that average marketplace plan premiums will increase by 18 percent next year to try to ...Read more
Commentary: There is something deeper at work in Chicago than residents blowing whistles
President Donald Trump’s attempt to consolidate federal enforcement agencies into a national, occupying police force has faced growing resistance in Chicago for several months. It’s a tale of escalating overreach and of local revitalization of democratic organizing. People are working together to protect each other and their neighborhoods ...Read more
Commentary: The economic fallout of immigration enforcement -- and what Chicago can do about it
Take a walk through any of Chicago’s 15 majority-Latino communities today, and the empty storefronts will tell you everything you need to know about the state of the economy. While the murals are still bright and the smell of fresh bread still drifts from the panaderías, the rhythm of daily business has slowed. On streets once packed with ...Read more
Commentary: Salmon's comeback pits nature against Trump administration
For the first time in more than a century, migrating salmon have climbed close to the headwaters of the Klamath River’s most far-flung tributaries, as much as 360 miles from the Pacific Ocean in south-central Oregon. The achievement is the clearest indication yet that the world’s largest dam removal project, completed on the river a year ...Read more
POINT: Small businesses can't afford Washington's standoff
American entrepreneurs fuel this country through resilience, job creation and hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity. Right now, they’re caught in the middle of a congressional standoff, and the economy is already showing signs of a steep decline. Millions of small-business owners and self-employed workers are bracing for what ...Read more
Editorial: Protect the filibuster from petty politics
President Donald Trump is urging Senate Republicans to end the filibuster to bring the month-long government shutdown to a close.
That’s a really bad idea, and the Republicans know it’s a really bad idea. They told us so when Democrats threatened to end the cloture rule after President Joe Biden was elected, and they were frustrated that an...Read more
Commentary: Is Trump's military campaign against drug traffickers in Venezuela legal?
A few weeks ago, your humble columnist took issue with the Trump administration’s legal rationale for the ongoing U.S. military campaign against drug traffickers in the southern Caribbean.
At that time, there was very little information to go on. President Donald Trump and his advisers generally kept their constitutional arguments close to ...Read more
Editorial: Illinois Gov. Pritzker should veto 'right to die' bill
Last Friday, the Illinois General Assembly narrowly passed a law allowing terminally ill people to end their own lives.
The legislation now awaits Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature. If he signs it, Illinois will join 11 other states (and the District of Columbia) that allow terminally ill adults to choose when and how they want to end their own ...Read more






















































