States are weakening their child labor restrictions nearly 8 decades after the US government took kids out of the workforce

  A movement to weaken American child labor protections at the state level began in 2022. By June 2023, Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey, and New Hampshire had enacted this kind of legislation, and lawmakers in at least another eight states had introduced similar measures.

  The laws generally make it easier for kids from 14 to 17 years old to work longer and later – and in occupations that were previously off-limits for minors.

Civil rights legislation sparked powerful backlash that’s still shaping American politics

  For nearly 60 years, conservatives have been trying to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. As a scholar of American voting rights, I believe their long game is finally bearing fruit.

  The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder seemed to be the death knell for the Voting Rights Act.

Texas voting law builds on long legacy of racism from GOP leaders

  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill on Sept. 7, 2021, that reduces opportunities for people to vote, allows partisan poll watchers more access, and creates steeper penalties for violating voting laws.

  The Republican governor argued that the legislation would “solidify trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections by making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.” Democratic opponents of the measure, however, said Republican legislators presented no evidence of widespread voter fraud during debate on the bill.

The War on Medicaid is moving to the states

  In the early 1960s, as the Johnson administration worked to enact Medicare and Medicaid, then-actor Ronald Reagan traveled the country as a spokesman for the American Medical Association, warning of the danger the legislation posed to the nation. “Behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country,” he said in one widely distributed speech. “Until one day … you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

  Reagan set the tone for a conservative war against Medicaid that is now in its 52nd year. Recent congressional proposals to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act would have reduced Medicaid enrollment by up to 15 million people, and, despite being defeated, congressional Republicans aren’t done yet: It’s likely they will attempt to gut the program during the upcoming budget debate. Meanwhile, more than half a dozen conservative governors are trying to take a hatchet to the program—at the open invitation of the Trump administration—through a vehicle known as a “Medicaid waiver.”

Jacob G. Hornberger: Do you want a peaceful and prosperous society or not?

  Every Sunday at my church, we are exhorted to pray, among other things, for peace in the world and for the men and women who serve our nation — i.e., the military and the CIA. Naturally, the priests who craft the prayer, along with most of the congregation, fail to see the irony of those two prayers. That is, they fail to see that it is the Pentagon and the CIA whose activities around the world, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan, are a major reason that Americans live without peace and prosperity.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Life after the White House

  This week our 39th President, Jimmy Carter, turns 90 years old. In my lifetime, he is the most ethical, moral and Christ-like president to occupy the Oval Office.

  Most, if not all of our presidents, have claimed to be Christians. However, Jimmy Carter truly walked the walk. There is no spectre of hypocrisy surrounding his life. Everything he did while in the White House was above reproach and his life after his presidential tenure has been an example of living your life humbly and being a true Christian servant.

Gary Palmer: A Tribute to Margaret Thatcher

  “All beginnings are hopeful.”

  That’s what the principal of Somerville College, Oxford said to the students who arrived there in 1944. That statement made a lasting impression on Margaret Roberts, who would become Great Britain’s only female prime minister and rank among Britain’s greatest leaders.

Gary Palmer: Reagan: America is too great for small dreams

  February 6th would have been Ronald Reagan’s 101st birthday. Considering the current condition of America and the world, I tried to imagine what he would say if he were still with us. Here are some of my thoughts.

  First of all, I believe Reagan would challenge us directly and not with the impersonal language of a national collective. Our problems are really ‘our problems’ and the only way we will solve them is when we engage as individuals.