Isabel Wilkerson: Our founding ideals promise liberty and equality for all. Our reality is an enduring racial hierarchy that has persisted for centuries. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power - which groups have it and which do not. It is about resources - which groups are seen as worthy of them and which are not, who gets to acquire and control them and who does not. It is about respect, authority and assumptions of competence - who is accorded these and who is not. read more
Jennifer Rubin: Perhaps President Trump's remarks at Mount Rushmore on Friday will become known as the super-spreader speech, where a few thousand people, nearly all unmasked, sat next to each other (on chairs actually tied together, which prevented social distancing) in rapt attention and thereby duplicated the monstrously dangerous stunt Trump recently pulled in Tulsa. Maybe it will be vaguely remembered as the worst Independence Day speech in American history. I'm betting it will be known as the "toe-tally-terry-tism" speech: read more
Kanye West tweeted Saturday night that he wants to run for president in 2020 -- four months before the election and apparently without having filed with the Federal Election Commission or created a campaign committee. read more
For weeks, a mysterious figure on social media talked up plans for antifa protesters to converge on this historical site on Independence Day to burn American flags, an event that seemed at times to border on the farcical. read more
Former national security advisor Susan Rice says President Trump sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin following news that Russia allegedly offered bounties for those who targeted American soldiers in Afghanistan. Rice said on MSNBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday: "In everything [Trump's] done since, from dismissing the intelligence and standing up for Putin at Helsinki, to inviting him back into the G7 against the objections of our long-standing allies, to unilaterally withdrawing a third of our troops from Germany, all these steps benefit Putin."
Six months into a pandemic that has killed over half a million people, more than 200 scientists from around the world are challenging the official view of how the coronavirus spreads. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintain that you have to worry about only two types of transmission: inhaling respiratory droplets from an infected person in your immediate vicinity or -- less common -- touching a contaminated surface and then your eyes, nose or mouth. But other experts contend that the guidance ignores growing evidence that a third pathway also plays a significant role in contagion. They say multiple studies demonstrate that particles known as aerosols " microscopic versions of standard respiratory droplets " can hang in the air for long periods and float dozens of feet, making poorly ventilated rooms, buses and other confined spaces dangerous, even when people stay six feet from one another.
A weekly Kansas newspaper whose publisher is a county Republican Party chairman posted a cartoon on its Facebook page likening the Democratic governor's order requiring people to wear masks in public to the roundup and murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. The cartoon on the Anderson County Review's Facebook page depicts Gov. Laura Kelly wearing a mask with a Jewish Star of David on it, next to a drawing of people being loaded onto train cars. Its caption is, "Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask ... and step onto the cattle car."
Cleveland manager Terry Francona won't sidestep the hot-button topic any longer. He believes the Indians need to change their contentious nickname. "I think it's time to move forward," Francona said Sunday. The team's announcement -- an initial step toward a possible name change -- came hours after the NFL's Washington Redskins said they will undergo a review of their name and logo.
Around 30 years ago, a town in Oregon retrofitted an old van, staffed it with young medics and mental health counselors and sent them out to respond to the kinds of 911 calls that wouldn't necessarily require police intervention. read more
The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby. read more
Donald Trump is a supervillain with weaknesses that may well destroy him, no matter how much he rages. He's turned a great republic into a comic-opera version of every Third World kleptocracy, with everything right down to its own Uday and Qusay. From that fateful day in 2015 until this year, the impenetrable reality distortion field around Trump was immune to things like consequence, accountability and the law. While this election is a long way from over, Donald Trump's position today is the weakest of any incumbent president since Jimmy Carter. read more
At least 12 counties in Texas announced they will not be enforcing a statewide face mask mandate declared Thursday by Governor Greg Abbott. Meanwhile, public health officials in Texas reported 7,555 new positive cases of coronavirus on Friday, bringing the state's total to 183,532. read more
President Trump, in a speech Friday at Mount Rushmore that lasted more than 40 minutes, focused on statues and "cancel culture," and accused his political opponents of fascism. But he spared just a few words for the pandemic that has killed 130,000 Americans, thanking "the doctors, nurses and scientists working tirelessly to kill the virus." And that was it. read more
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has confirmed a report by The Associated Press that some of the service members who were mobilized to Washington, D.C., last month in response to civil unrest over the killing of George Floyd were issued bayonets. read more
These Charts Show Why. The United States is different. In nearly every other high-income country, people have both become richer over the last three decades and been able to enjoy substantially longer lifespans. But not in the United States. read more
Advertisement
Advertisement
