The Trump premium tax will increase premiums up to $2,500 next year

  Since he entered office, President Donald Trump has taken numerous steps to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by driving up costs and driving out insurers. With the failure of ACA repeal in the U.S. Senate, Trump has threatened to accelerate his efforts. In particular, by undermining enforcement of the ACA’s individual coverage mandate and threatening to stop billions of dollars in cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments that help lower consumers’ deductibles and copayments, Trump will significantly increase 2018 premiums.

Charlottesville shows that states must amend their open-carry laws

  We’ve all seen the pictures from Charlottesville.

  Peaceful protesters being met with men carrying military-style weapons. Many of those unarmed were probably intimidated. I certainly think I would have been.

  What did the scene represent? Were we looking at a clash of grand constitutional values, a clash between the cherished First Amendment right to protest peacefully and the revered Second Amendment right to bear arms? Or were we looking at something much more mundane?

  The answer is the latter. Our Founding Fathers didn’t tie us into a constitutional knot. Our state legislatures, bowing to pressure from groups like the NRA, did so not too many years back.

Confederate monuments expert explains how we memorialized white supremacy

  In the wake of the neo-Nazi attacks in Charlottesville, officials in several Southern states have renewed calls to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces.

  This week, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) called for the removal of all Confederate monuments in North Carolina. Mayor Jim Gray (D) of Lexington, Kentucky, announced the removal of two Confederate statues from a historic courthouse in the city. And officials in Florida and Maryland made similar announcements.

Gene Policinski: ‘Freedom’ is best response to white supremacy hatemongers

  Let them march in Charlottesville. Let them speak.

  Hate-propagating neo-Nazis and bottom-dwelling white supremacists — the dregs of our open society — have and should have First Amendment rights to speak and march in public.

  We need to see them for what they are: a disappointing collection of the disaffected; some parading around in silly costumes, often ignorant of the real meaning and history of the symbols they display, carrying torches meant as much to intimidate as to illuminate.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Will the next junior U.S. Senator from Alabama even matter?

  You know the results of Tuesday’s primaries for our U.S. Senate seat. I had to go to press before the vote. However, the assumption was that there would be a runoff in the Republican Primary. It is safe to say that the winner of that runoff on September 26 will be elected as our next junior U.S. Senator. We are such a reliably Republican state that winning the GOP Primary will be tantamount to election in December.

  It may surprise you for me to say that it really makes very little difference as to who ultimately wins this seat. Whichever Republican prevails will vote no differently than the other. Despite all the money spent, name calling, and campaigning, whoever the Republican Primary victor is will vote conservatively right down the line. They will have the identical conservative voting record as Jeff Sessions. They all would vote right on the litmus test, hot button GOP issues like abortion, immigration, balanced budget, pro-military, pro-gun and pro-agriculture. Whoever wins will support President Donald Trump and the most conservative Supreme Court nominee available.

Don’t let Trump start a war with North Korea

  North Korea’s recent launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that might be able to reach the continental United States is a stark reminder of the dangers posed by the rogue regime in Pyongyang. With the stakes so high, too often policy options are presented as a false choice: attack North Korea or allow it to have nuclear weapons. Instead, the United States needs a clear, consistent approach to deter threats from North Korea—one that ensures North Korea does not attack the United States or our allies or proliferate its nuclear and missile technology, while at the same time makes possible a path to the eventual denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington: Let me remind you who Jeff Sessions is

  For the past several weeks, media coverage of Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a sympathetic turn. In article after article, the “beleaguered” Sessions is described as a victim of bullying, under Twitter assault by the president who appointed him. Meanwhile, Trump—angry that the law-and-order man he chose did not live up to his idea of loyalty—seems to be taking some joy in Sessions’ discomfort.

  I have been reading about Sessions with a kind of perverse fascination—but I have not read anything that makes me feel sorry for him. The things he stands for—the things he has stood for over the course of his decades-long career—are abhorrent. The President’s mean tweets haven’t made Sessions’ brand of law enforcement any kinder to poor and black and brown people.

Trump again refuses to take responsibility for a resurgence of white nationalism

  After the deadly clash between hundreds of white supremacists and counter-protesters yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump called for Americans to “come together."

  He used similar words in his victory speech in the wee hours of Nov. 9, even as white supremacists began to celebrate.

  The problem is that Trump’s words are hollow.

  His calls for the country to unite will continue to be meaningless as long he fails to take responsibility for his role in dividing it – something he conspicuously avoided again during his press conference yesterday.

Jacob G. Hornberger: The Cold War roots of a new Korean war

  While President Trump’s impulsiveness and erratic behavior are clearly bringing America closer to war with North Korea, the real root of the Korean crisis lies not with him but rather with the Pentagon and the CIA, whose overwhelming power within the federal governmental structure is what really governs foreign policy, especially with respect to Korea.

  Who would have ever thought that the national-security state’s anti-communist crusade in the 1940s and 1950s would lead to the possibility of another war in Korea in 2017, one that could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of Americans?

Interior Secretary Zinke’s guide to running a sham review

  In April, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior to conduct a review of 27 national monuments, with an eye toward altering or revoking their status. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has been charged with leading the review and providing recommendations to the White House by August 24. So far, the review has amounted to nothing more than a popularity contest based on Zinke’s secret, ever-evolving, and seemingly personal criteria.