Politics Archives - Page 47 of 109

Politics

Conservative Democrats Play Legislative Ball While Republicans Deliberately Fumble It

This is how the democratic process works

March 4, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ On Saturday, the US House of Representatives passed a Covid relief package totaling almost $2 trillion. The US Senate is taking up the bill this week. The upper chamber will probably send it to the president as-is, mostly, but for a major exception. It’s unlikely to contain provisions for raising the federal ...

Conservative Democrats Play Legislative Ball While Republicans Deliberately Fumble It

Activism

Betty Friedan’s Radical Century

Because of this organizer, you can’t understand the twentieth century without talking about feminism

March 4, 2021 • by Peter Dreier

"A century after her birth, Betty Friedan’s radical ideas are common sense, and that’s a victory not just for feminists, but for everyone."...

Politics

Ronald Reagan’s Worst Decision Created Rush Limbaugh

When the Fairness Doctrine was demolished in the name of free speech, a new conservative media rose up from the ashes

March 3, 2021 • by Robert Slayton

_____ When Rush Limbaugh died of lung cancer on February 17, 2021, all I could think of was Ronald Reagan’s worst decision. There are many contenders for that crown: his neglect as the AIDS crisis became an epidemic has to be a top pick. But another must go to his deregulation of ...

Ronald Reagan’s Worst Decision Created Rush Limbaugh

Past Present

Minimum Wage and the Fight for $15

Past Present Podcast, Episode 269

March 2, 2021 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: House Democrats have proposed a federally guaranteed fifteen-dollar an hour minimum wage as part of their coronavirus relief bill. Niki drew on this New York Times piece about the effective minimum wage, and Neil referenced this New Yorker article about ...

Democracy

On Treason: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law

An excerpt exploring the meaning of treason and the present-day prevalence of alleging treason

February 25, 2021 • by Carlton F.W. Larson

As a professor of American constitutional law and legal history, I regularly answer questions for the media about legal issues. But for the most part, those calls tended to focus on constitutional law more generally and on other subjects I have written about, such as the Second Amendment or the ...

On Treason: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law

Columnists

This Is What Government Looks Like

As the winter’s Covid-19 surge pushes deaths past 500,000, the Biden administration focuses on policy

February 25, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

This week the United States passed the heartbreaking marker of 500,000 official deaths from COVID-19. President Biden held a ceremony to remember those lost, saying "On this solemn occasion, we reflect on their loss and on their loved ones left behind. We, as a Nation, must remember them so we ...

The Internet

Why We Should Ban Oppressive Speech Acts

The debate around deplatforming and “cancel culture” remains mired in a naive understanding of how language really works

February 24, 2021 • by Natasha Lennard

_____ When Twitter and Facebook shuttered the account of Donald Trump, along with thousands of others for allegedly spreading far right violence and conspiracy theories, many felt that it was long overdue. Antifascist organizers and writers, myself included, have for years argued against giving platforms to white supremacists, including powerful public ...

Why We Should Ban Oppressive Speech Acts

Politics

When Politics is Music to Your Ears

A political composer sets the reconstruction amendments to music

February 23, 2021 • by Neely Bruce

_____ In an interview on NPR, shortly before the inauguration, Amanda Gorman said: “Everything is political. Especially art.” How true. In graduate school the same idea was drilled into my brain by Herbert Brün, brilliant composer, computer music pioneer, and one of my professors at the University of Illinois. I grew up ...

The Right

Stop calling the GOP ‘conservative’

That’s the lesson today from Texas.

February 18, 2021 • by John Stoehr

"As the late Rush Limbaugh said, if conservatism animated the Republican Party, there would be no President Donald Trump."...

Democracy

The United States Is in Recovery

What Texas, white supremacy and coronavirus can teach us about American history

February 18, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

"In the exchange, Americans saw a president who cared, and a government that finally, after its previous leaders had told them to get out of a terrible catastrophe on their own, responded to their needs."...

Democracy

“Carl Schmitt’s Comeback?”

Understanding Trump and global authoritarianism

February 17, 2021 • by William E. Scheuerman

As the saying goes: “that was then, but this is now.” I had little inkling that Schmitt would soon become pertinent to present-day political developments. With the dramatic worldwide emergence of authoritarian populism, Schmitt’s thinking seems disturbingly relevant. As the Cambridge jurist Lars Vinx has correctly noted, Schmitt’s significance today ...

Politics

Nevada Gambles on a Tech Hub in the Desert

It’s not too late to stop it

February 17, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ As a general rule, anytime a lawmaker rolls out some hot new economic policy idea with the word “zone” in it, I start to get nervous. We all should. It’s usually less a way of helping struggling areas than an efficient plan for transitioning state resources to wealthy investors. But Nevada’s Democratic ...