Brain injuries from interventionism

  The number of U.S. soldiers who have suffered traumatic brain injuries from the Iranian missile attack last month in Iraq has now risen to more than 100. The injuries demonstrate the sheer inanity of foreign interventionism.

Trump’s K-12 education budget: Cuts for public schools, billions for private school vouchers

  For the fourth consecutive year, the Trump administration and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have proposed substantial cuts to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget. If Congress enacts their proposed budget for the fiscal year 2021, it would reduce the department’s total funding by $5.6 billion—a cut of nearly 8 percent from last year’s funding level—while dedicating $5 billion in tax credits to the administration’s private school voucher scheme.

The history of ‘coming out,’ from secret gay code to popular political protest

  You probably know what it means to “come out” as gay. You may even have heard the expression used in relation to other kinds of identity such as being undocumented.

  But do you know where the term comes from? Or that its meaning has changed over time?

Drunk and bitter on Valentine's Day

  I'm not opposed to love. In fact, I love love, especially the sex part. It's not even that I hate Valentine's Day. But like every event in our society that contains even the slightest hint of sappy sentimentality, it has been done to death. (Can you say, "Titanic?")

Trump’s newest budget would take food away from working families

  There are dozens of programs on the chopping block in the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2021 budget proposal. Yet the administration’s most blatant attempt to gut the programs on which American families depend comes in the form of additional cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program. The proposed budget contains a devastating $182 billion cut to SNAP over the next decade, a reduction of approximately 28 percent compared with the baseline level estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Legislative priority will be resolving prison problems

  The 2020 Alabama Legislative Session, which began last week, will be the second session of Gov. Kay Ivey’s administration. For the second straight year, she and the legislature will be facing a major obstacle.

  The prison problem is the paramount issue for the year. The state must address and resolve this dilemma, or the federal authorities will take over our prisons.

This is how ancient Rome’s republic died – a classicist sees troubling parallels at Trump’s impeachment trial

  The U.S. Senate has made its judgment in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, acquitting the president. Fifty-two of 53 senators in the Republican majority voted to acquit the president on the abuse of power charge, and all 53 Republican senators voted to acquit on the obstruction of Congress charge.

  All 47 Democratic senators voted to convict the president on both charges. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah was the only Republican voting to convict for abuse of power.

  The Republican senators’ speedy exoneration of Trump marks perhaps the most dramatic step in their capitulation to the president over the past three years.

Ignoring the Constitution

  Constitutional violations have become so commonplace in American life that when they occur, the reaction among many Americans is ho-hum.

  There are two classic examples of this phenomenon: the declaration of war requirement and gold and silver as legal tender.

Civility in politics is harder than you think

  When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up the text of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech in full public view, her supporters saw defiance of both his policies and his earlier refusal to shake her hand. But her political opponents cried foul, calling it “unbecoming” and “nasty.” This is yet another example of why U.S. citizens of all political stripes agree that politics has become unacceptably uncivil.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1704 - They said it could not be done, but we did it

  It was March 19, 1966. I and others huddled around the television screen. We were anxious. We were excited. We were scared. We were proud. The moment meant so much to us. The moment was pregnant with the overriding issue of race. They said it couldn’t be done, but we did it.