Politics
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David Fickling: Breaking our plastics habit is easier said than done
Could our unshakeable addiction to plastics be broken?
That’s certainly the hope of activists. The U.S. — birthplace of the modern polymers industry, and the biggest producer of its key feedstocks, oil and gas — has joined a bloc supporting a worldwide treaty capping plastics production. That could make a United Nations meeting in South ...Read more
Editorial: California restaurant closings show true minimum wage is $0 an hour
President Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” California Gov. Gavin Newsom keeps proving him right.
Last September, Newsom signed a bill mandating a $20 per hour minimum wage for fast-food workers. The requirement went into effect in ...Read more
F.D. Flam: The first lyme disease vaccine failed. It's time to try again
Nearly half a million Americans received an unpleasant surprise this summer, according to insurance billing data: a new diagnosis of Lyme disease. Those numbers could shrink if scientists succeed in developing a vaccine for the tick-borne illness.
Low consumer demand scuppered a previous vaccine in the 1990s, but the situation is very ...Read more
Commentary: Impactful advocacy requires moving past cynicism
Why does cynicism feel like a reasonable, inevitable, even smart posture these days? I think most of us have been there … ready to write off politics as corrupt or hopeless, ready to identify those on the other side of an issue as heartless or evil, feeling like the savvy thing is to keep our cards close, our hearts protected, our hopes low. ...Read more
Commentary: America's two-party system is failing us
Are Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump really the two best candidates for America's most demanding and important job? Hardly. Trump tried to reverse the last election. And while Harris would be a reversion toward the mean — after an unfit Trump and an aging Joe Biden — she's far from the most talented executive in...Read more
Commentary: Redefining America's political lingua franca
A seismic shift has occurred in America's race, identity and power discourse. Like tectonic plates beneath the Earth's surface, long-held assumptions are adjusting and giving way to a reimagined lingua franca for civic engagement. This revived language of liberation redefines the terms of debate. It empowers us to reclaim and reinvigorate words ...Read more
Lorraine Ali: 'Stopping the Steal' examines Trump's attempt to subvert 2020 election, and what it means for 2024
Getting folks to watch a documentary about the Big Lie is a Big Ask. Who wants to relive that horrible chapter in America’s political history, especially while we’re writing a new, possibly less-horrible chapter?
Despite its title, HBO’s “Stopping the Steal” is as much about what lies ahead of us as it is about that other election ...Read more
Michael Hiltzik: Trump's proposal to make overtime pay tax-exempt obscures how awful he was for all workers
Donald Trump, in his determined effort to claim the mantle of friend of the working man and woman, unveiled a proposal the other day to make overtime pay tax-exempt.
"People who work overtime are among the hardest-working citizens of our country, and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them," he told a rally in Tucson.
...Read more
Editorial: Mind and body -- New mental health parity rules will keep us all healthier
Last week, President Joe Biden and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury issued new rules meant to ensure that insurance coverage for mental health conditions and substance abuse disorder has parity with the level of services available for physical health.
The provisions will be phased in between now and 2026, ...Read more
Commentary: How the University of Pennsylvania lost its way on free speech
I teach at the University of Pennsylvania, which is an equal-opportunity censor. It suppresses voices on the right and the left, even as it proclaims its commitment to free and open dialogue.
That’s the sad takeaway of last week’s report by the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which ranked Penn 248th out ...Read more
Commentary: Prioritizing leadership and mentorship will prevent teachers from leaving the profession
Our eighth graders have a yearly tradition: They walk the hallways on their last day of school while the sixth and seventh graders and their teachers stand and honor them as they leave. As I walked with one of my eighth graders, Murphy, sixth and seventh grade teachers were giving him high-fives. I noticed him looking lonely and asked him what ...Read more
Commentary: A Head Start is not the finish line
The child care challenges in the United States are many, and how candidates focus on the issue between now and Election Day may impact the outcome. A new poll indicates that voters want candidates to have a plan to address both child care and childhood education.
“Voters understand the strain that finding and affording care has on families. ...Read more
F.D. Flam: AI can debunk conspiracy theories better than humans
Scientists surprised themselves when they found they could instruct a version of ChatGPT to gently dissuade people of their beliefs in conspiracy theories — such as notions that COVID-19 was a deliberate attempt at population control or that 9/11 was an inside job.
The most important revelation wasn’t about the power of AI, but about the ...Read more
Commentary: 'Why do I have to hide, Mommy?' My kindergartener's first lockdown drill
I send my 6-year-old son to kindergarten wearing an AirTag.
I take pictures of him every day in the school drop-off line to remember his outfit.
I avoid buying light-up sneakers. I subconsciously stay away from bright colors.
I’ve memorized the shape of his birthmark and every single scar on his little body.
I do all this just in case.
...Read more
Editorial: When government has to subsidize people's property taxes, something is badly wrong
How do you know property taxes are too high in this state?
Most homeowners if asked that question would laugh at the notion that there was any doubt. But there hardly could be starker evidence than that local politicians, led by Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi, are proposing to have taxpayers cough up more money — potentially lots of it — ...Read more
Commentary: Living in Los Angeles helped me discover what being Jewish meant to me
There’s a powerful Jewish value, elu v’elu, that means “these and those.” As in, both these and those ideas have merit. Both these and those people contain a holy spark. Both this and that answer can be right.
When I moved from Tucson to L.A. in 1997, I left a greater metro area of a little over half a million people for a city with a ...Read more
John M. Crisp: What I wish Kamala Harris had said during the debate
The left gushed over Kamala Harris’ performance during last week’s debate with Donald Trump. The enthusiasm is largely justified.
But I’m having trouble suppressing a feeling of mild disappointment. Could a better debater have more effectively called out Trump on some of the things he said during the debate that are simply not true? In ...Read more
Robin Abcarian: Think Donald Trump isn't really serious about being a dictator? Think again
One of the pleasures of last week's presidential debate was watching Vice President Kamala Harris deftly filet former President Donald Trump over his affinity for dictators such as Russia's Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un.
"It is absolutely well known that these dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again ...Read more
Jackie Calmes: The GOP House won't govern. Send it to the backbenches in November
Lucky for the Republicans who run the House, few Americans are paying attention to their antics of late, given the focus on the presidential race. Here's what they're up to: busily exemplifying the definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
"Led" by Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson, ...Read more