Editorial: What’s past is prologue
The FBI’s search of and seizure of documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida is not only dramatic and serious, but unprecedented: no other former president has faced such an action. Yet Mr. Trump’s ability to survive and thrive politically on similar moments is also without precedent. Even when damaging evidence emerges, he has walked away largely unscathed in the eyes of his base, while the U.S. itself has been diminished. Nor has he yet experienced legal consequences for his actions in office.
Editorial: Alex Jones soils free speech
Alex Jones disgraces all that’s good about the First Amendment.
Editorial: The matter with Kansas: Abortion rights could be a winner for Democrats in the fall
In 2020, Donald Trump won Kansas over Joe Biden 56%-42%. In 2016, he bested Hillary Clinton there 56%-36%. And Tuesday, by a similar margin, 59%-41%, Kansans voted to keep state constitutional provisions that protect abortion rights.
Editorial: Biden’s border fiasco is expanding
From Day One, President Joe Biden’s immigration policy has been largely incoherent. It’s now verging on a crisis.
Commentary: Who’s to blame for the priciest housing in history?
With so much attention fixed on soaring prices for gasoline and groceries, one can almost overlook the fact that we’re also enduring an affordable housing crisis. The question is, why?
Editorial: Bill Russell and Nichelle Nichols, American heroes
There’s a reason for the simultaneous mourning and celebration of the lives of a basketball player and an actress, both out of the public eye for years. Nichelle Nichols, 89, and Bill Russell, 88, were born during the Great Depression into a society that defined them as second-class citizens simply because they were Black.
Editorial: Alex Jones lawsuit must be coupled with social media reform
We are glad to see the consequences for the devastating lies that conspiracist Alex Jones promoted about the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre begin to materialize this week in an Austin courtroom.
Editorial: Kansas voters showed the nation how to keep abortion rights safe
In record numbers, Kansas voters went to the polls Tuesday and definitively told conservative state legislators to back off from trying to take away abortion rights. Voters across Democratic and Republican swaths of Kansas resoundingly defeated a ballot measure that would have amended the state constitution to remove the right to abortion.
Editorial: Audubon’s beautiful birds don’t erase his racist life
You don’t need to be a bird nerd to know that the name “Audubon” is synonymous with our feathered friends. Less well known is that John James Audubon was a slave-owning racist. That past should disqualify him from having his name attached to Seattle’s birding organization and every other Audubon society.
Lisa Jarvis: At last, a simple strategy for COVID booster shots
The Food and Drug Administration reportedly has a new strategy for rolling out new booster shots that should bring needed clarity to COVID vaccination in the U.S. Going forward, most Americans will get the same advice about when to get their next shots.
Ramesh Ponnuru: There’s a new centrist political party. It’s going nowhere
The founders of a new political party, “Forward,” acknowledge that third parties usually fail. They say that previous third-party efforts flopped “either because they were ideologically too narrow or the population was uninterested.”
Editorial: Biden, Democrats are tempting fate by dragging their feet on judicial vacancies
Even as Democrats reel from draconian impact of Republicans’ success at stacking the U.S. Supreme Court, the Biden administration is in danger of leaving scores of lower-court federal judgeships vacant by the end of this year — at which point, a Republican Senate might be in place to continue pushing the bench far to the right of America.
Commentary: Putin won’t let OPEC help bring down oil prices
Oil producers from the OPEC+ group meet on Wednesday to agree to the next step in their market management. For the first time in a year, there is no clear policy for them to rubber stamp. That could make for an interesting (virtual) gathering.
Commentary: The Pentagon can’t counter white supremacy
After the Jan. 6 insurrection, a CBS News analysis found that at least 81 of the more than 700 individuals charged in relation to the attack were current and former armed service members. In response, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin committed to addressing extremism within military ranks. But the Biden administration’s approach, which draws on a long and fraught U.S. history of targeted surveillance in the name of protecting national security, only risks traumatizing the same communities it claims to keep safe.
Editorial: New budget deal would be a big win for Congress — and the country
Rather unexpectedly, the 117th Congress is shaping up to be one of the most productive in recent memory. A new compromise reached by Sen. Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could prove to be its most significant achievement yet.
Commentary: Alarming new study shows it’s time to get serious about eating better
Fewer than 7% of Americans are in excellent cardiometabolic health, which is measured by evaluating a person’s weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, blood cholesterol levels and signs of heart disease.
Editorial: Closing the electoral loopholes that inspired the Capitol insurrection
The House select committee hearings into the Capitol insurrection have established two facts virtually beyond debate: One, former President Donald Trump is culpable for what his followers did that day in support of his unprecedented attempt to overthrow a valid election. And, two, Trump’s scheme was aided by deep flaws in the federal statutes guiding the process of counting and certifying electoral votes.
Commentary: The federal American Data Privacy and Protection Act protects everybody’s data
When a business signals “whites only,” it does not matter if it is written in ink or pixels, words or code. The discrimination is the same. The harm is the same. And the legal consequences should be the same.
Commentary: Everything is on fire. It doesn’t have to be
The Democratic Republic of Congo is home to one of the world’s largest rainforests, second only to the Amazon. Larger than Alaska, it contains a massive peatlands area that has trapped the equivalent of three years’ worth of global carbon emissions.
Commentary: A research initiative to stem gun violence
We see so many remarkable families whose loved ones have been silenced by bullets, stand before crowds and cameras and, despite unfathomable grief, plead for their fellow Americans to act out against senseless, preventable gun violence.