Politics
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Commentary: How do we support young people's desire to serve society?
I never imagined that after graduating from college and working in the offices of a respected consulting firm in the Midwest, one day I would walk away from what looked like a secure and enviable path. But after months spent helping companies squeeze out higher profits, I began to wonder, like Leo Tolstoy, whether a life devoted entirely to ...Read more
Commentary: The rise of pet-vaccine hesitancy -- and why it matters
Vaccine resistance in the United States isn’t limited to people. Alongside skepticism toward routine childhood and some adult vaccines, veterinarians are seeing the same hesitation spread to pets. What was once a routine part of preventive care has become a fraught interaction — and the implications extend well beyond animal health.
The ...Read more
Commentary: Voting rights are back on trial... again
In October, one of the most consequential cases before the Supreme Court began. Six white Justices, two Black and one Latina took the bench for arguments in Louisiana v. Callais.
Addressing a core principle of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: representation. The Court is asked to consider if prohibiting the creation of voting districts that ...Read more
Editorial: What good is a high-school diploma if the kids can't read or do math?
Call it graduation inflation. The latest California School Dashboard, compiled by the state Board of Education, showed the graduation rate for all students rose to 87.8% in 2025, up 1 percentage point from 2024. It included all public schools, folding charters into their local districts or county departments of education (not the chartering ...Read more
Commentary: The future we'll miss: Political inaction holds back AI's benefits
We’re all familiar with the motivating cry of “YOLO” right before you do something on the edge of stupidity and exhilaration.
We’ve all seen the “TL;DR” section that shares the key takeaways from a long article.
And, we’ve all experienced “FOMO” when our friends make plans and we feel compelled to tag along just to make sure ...Read more
Adrian Wooldridge: The West is facing five fearsome new giants
The Second World War was won on the home front as well as the battlefield. As early as 1942, the British government pledged itself, as soon as the Nazis were defeated, to slaying “Five Giants on the road to reconstruction”: Disease, Want, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. This pledge boosted morale and provided the template for the postwar ...Read more
Allison Schrager: AI is more likely to cause a labor shortage. Here's why
There are two big worries when it comes to the rapid advances in artificial intelligence. The first is that it will lead to robot overlords that will eradicate humanity. The second is that AI will eliminate many jobs. The more likely scenario is that it creates a labor shortage, or at least a dearth of skilled workers who can make the most of ...Read more
Patricia Lopez: DHS has better ways to spend $200 million than this
The ads have been popping up on Fox News, Good Morning America, the Today Show and Univision. They feature Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem against a backdrop bristling with American flags, galloping past Mount Rushmore on horseback, or dressed as an ICE agent.
This is the $200 million ad campaign that has saturated television and social...Read more
Editorial: Want kids to learn? Start by removing smartphones from the classroom
Hand your child a phone when you are ready for their childhood to end.
We’d suggest another spin on that online proverb: Let kids bring their phones to class when you want them to stop learning.
Last spring, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker championed a bill banning cellphones from classrooms. It didn’t pass, but he’s indicated he’ll be ...Read more
Commentary: Subsidizing insurance just props up dysfunction. Empower consumers instead
Congress ended its impasse to reopen the government, but the Democrats’ reason for the shutdown remains unresolved: the renewal of expiring subsidies for insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act.
Republicans offered an olive branch to end the standoff by proposing to make payments into Americans’ health savings accounts or flexible ...Read more
Editorial: Palisade fire aftermath burns up government's credibility
Anyone who believes that the government can solve their problems needs to spend some time in Southern California.
This month, Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., held a public hearing on the destructive Palisades Fire. Earlier in the year, it killed 12 people and destroyed almost 7,000 structures. Many of them were homes in the ...Read more
LZ Granderson: Men like Trump represent what the founders were fighting against
George Washington was quite the man.
Life handed him the keys to this brand-new country, and instead of clinging to the steering wheel until he drew his last breath, he pulled over and let someone else drive.
It was this peaceful transfer of power that made America exceptional — and Washington the defining figure of American masculinity. ...Read more
Lara Williams: There's already a deal to beat dirty fossil fuels
A United Nations climate summit has once again failed to strengthen a pledge made two years ago to transition “away from fossil fuels.” Instead these dirty drivers of the climate crisis went completely unacknowledged last weekend’s COP30 agreement. It’s disappointing, certainly, but a more ambitious outcome wouldn’t have been much ...Read more
Commentary: The unfolding democratic insurgency
The Democratic Party stands at the precipice of a profound internal reckoning. For decades, it has balanced precariously between populist aspiration and corporate capture, a tension that has now reached its breaking point.
The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City has shattered the illusion of establishment inevitability. What ...Read more
Commentary: Even with SNAP, workers face food crisis
Although the longest federal government shutdown in our nation’s history has formally ended, and payments to the one in eight U.S. residents who rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have resumed, the problem of hunger in America remains unsolved.
Kids are still going hungry, inflation is out of control and the ...Read more
Commentary: What are American values?
There are fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives—and certainly MAGA adherents—on what are “American values.”
But for both liberal and conservative pundits, the term connotes something larger than us, grounding, permanent—of lasting meaning. Because the values of people change as the times change, as the culture ...Read more
Ronald Brownstein: The GOP tried loyalty, then rebellion. Both failed
For Republicans, November was bookended by two ominous developments: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation and the party’s resounding defeats in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races.
The Republican candidates in those races — Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey and Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia — tried one strategy for ...Read more
Noah Feldman: How constitutional limits become negotiable
The most astonishing feature of Donald Trump’s decade as one of the most dominant figures in American politics is his ability to make the unthinkable seem not only thinkable, but possible. The president’s latest attempts to push the boundaries of what is conceivable — and legal — in our system of government include claims that his ...Read more
Commentary: Comey and James may not be in the clear just yet
The dismissals of the indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were a victory for the rule of law, but the victory may be short-lived.
On Monday, a federal judge concluded that the appointment of interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was invalid, thereby voiding the indictments she ...Read more
Allison Schrager: The American middle class is shrinking, and that's OK
The good news is that Americans have never been richer. The bad news is that most of them don’t feel like it.
There has been tremendous growth in income and wealth in the U.S. in the last half century, even for poorer and middle-class households. But because of the nature of that growth, as well as the changing structure of the national ...Read more






















































