Politics
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Editorial: For too many American kids, math isn't adding up
Math scores in the U.S. have been so bad for so long that teachers could be forgiven for trying anything to improve them. Unfortunately, many of the strategies they’re using could be making things worse.
It’s a crisis decades in the making. In the early 20th century, education reformers including John Dewey and William Heard Kilpatrick ...Read more
Commentary: What will AI automation of health care mean for patients?
Artificial intelligence is upon us, and just as other historical breakthrough technologies have proved, it is not a matter of how it will accommodate us but how we must accommodate it. Education, finance, law, transportation and energy are all sectors that are being dramatically transformed by AI, and medicine will be no exception. What will the...Read more
Commentary: I found faith at a Chicago food pantry
Every Monday evening years ago, I would walk by a long line of people with grocery carts and bags a few blocks from my house on my way to my favorite farm-to-table restaurant. The line was for a local food pantry.
I remembered the pantry years later, after I lost faith in the world and in God for a number of reasons. I decided to walk in one ...Read more
Commentary: We need an urgent and unified response to the coming Alzheimer's crisis
In the early 1980s, men and women in the prime of their lives began arriving at Walter Reed Medical Center, wrecked by a disease for which we had no name, no cause and no hope. As an infectious disease doctor there, I saw patient after patient bedridden and dying by the time they reached my care.
Those early stages of the AIDS epidemic were ...Read more
Editorial: The chutzpah of Democrats and the 'affordability' theme
It’s the catchy new theme in Democratic circles. The memo is out: Drop the term “affordability” whenever you can to bludgeon President Donald Trump and Republican political candidates.
The idea is that GOP policies make life “unaffordable” for too many Americans. It’s an effort by progressives to own the “bread-and-butter” ...Read more
Commentary: Do our military leaders have the backbone to disobey illegal orders?
If killing men in boats at sea were truly legal, we wouldn’t need a secret memo to say so.
According to the Washington Post, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel quietly assured the Defense Department last week that U.S. service members cannot be prosecuted for the more than 20 “boat strikes” that have killed at least 80 ...Read more
Editorial: When they reduce crashes, ticket-generating cameras make sense
Ten years ago, red-light cameras seemed to be everywhere, silent witnesses that tattled on drivers who blew through intersections when they should have stopped. There’s significant evidence that cameras reduce dangerous collisions where they are installed — and there’s no doubt the cameras, which can generate dozens of tickets a day, are ...Read more
LZ Granderson: AI can perform a song, but can it make art?
The most insulting thing about the success of Breaking Rust, an artificial intelligence "artist" that topped Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales Chart this week, is the titles of the hits.
"Walk My Way."
"Living on Borrowed Time."
The EP — which is also on the charts — is called "Resilient," as if Breaking Rust spent years playing for ...Read more
Editorial: The US must stop sending people to be tortured in El Salvador
As the White House toys with the no-joke prospect of actually invading Venezuela out of (understandable) ire at the government of (reprehensible) strongman Nicolas Maduro, a damning new Human Rights Watch report says that 252 Venezuelans, many of them political refugees from the socialist dictator, that the Trump administration recently deported...Read more
John M. Crisp: Does Trump have a tipping point?
The term tipping point provides a useful way of thinking about that theoretical juncture along any path when the possible becomes the inevitable.
We often use the term in connection with climate change: The tipping point is the moment when the processes that contribute to global warming take on an irreversible life of their own. For example, ...Read more
Editorial: With Epstein files, Trump looks like a loser
President Donald Trump cannot accept defeat.
His psychologist niece explains it in her book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”
He showed it to the world on Jan. 6 by trying to persuade his vice president to overturn the election he had lost.
The same character flaw explains why he told ...Read more
Editorial: How to kill jobs
Democrats claim to be concerned about “affordability” and job creation. Why, then, do they repeatedly propose policies that undermine those goals?
Consider California, where the dismal results are in for the state’s experiment in restaurant central planning.
In 2023, the state bumped the minimum wage to $20 an hour for fast-food chains ...Read more
Commentary: Front-runner or flash in the pan? Sizing up Newsom, 2028
The 2028 presidential election is more than 1,000 days away, but you’d hardly know it from all the speculation and anticipation that’s swirling from Sacramento to the Washington Beltway.
Standing at the center of attention is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, fresh off his big victory on Proposition 50, the backatcha ballot measure that ...Read more
Commentary: The right laughs off its own offenders and takes umbrage at the left's
The phrase “kids will be kids” has long been used to excuse bad behavior. It grew out of a centuries-old idea that youth itself should confer some form of immunity — that immaturity, carelessness or even cruelty are simply part of growing up. What began as a forgiving nod to childhood mischief has evolved into a cultural permission slip, a...Read more
Commentary: Don't be a working class hero -- Just imagine!
Everyone knows John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
It floats through Times Square on New Year’s Eve, plays during Olympic ceremonies, and fills the air at corporate galas meant to celebrate “unity.” Its melody is tender, its message is simple, and its premise is seductive: If only we could imagine a world without possessions, borders, or ...Read more
Stephen Mihm: Threats of nuclear testing ignore its terrifying history
Should the U.S. and Russia resume nuclear testing?
The answer to that question must be a resounding “No.” Yet President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, eager to project strength, have raised fears that they may be moving to revive the dangerous practice.
While the significance of testing nuclear weapons dwindled over 60 ...Read more
Mihir Sharma: China's trade model is built on keeping others poor
The world has, for the most part, welcomed the trade truce between the U.S. and China. Exporters, in particular, are hoping for a period of quiet that will allow them to adjust to a new world with higher tariffs and more restrictions.
Yet for workers and companies across the developing world, the possibility of a return to a status quo ante isn...Read more
Gustavo Arellano: Catholic Church puts foot down on Trump's mass deportation policy. That's a start
When millions of European immigrants came to the United States in the 19th century only to be scorned by mainstream society, it was the Catholic Church that embraced them, taught that keeping the customs of one's native lands was not bad and created systems of mutual aid and education for the newcomers that didn't rely on the government.
The ...Read more
Editorial: Fifty-year mortgage plan ignores real issue
Members of the Trump administration have floated a new proposal to address the nation’s housing crisis. It’s a dud. They should stick to the basics.
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social last weekend to advocate for the creation of a 50-year mortgage loan. Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, then called the ...Read more
Commentary: Rethinking drug policy -- From punishment to empowerment
America’s drug policy is broken. For decades, we’ve focused primarily on the supply side—interdicting smugglers, prosecuting dealers, and escalating penalties while neglecting the demand side. Individuals who use drugs, more often than not, do so out of desperation, trauma, or addiction. This imbalance has cost lives, strained law ...Read more






















































