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Editorial

Hearings show lies can kill

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” President Donald Trump tweeted in December of 2020. “Be there, will be wild!” His supporters listened. This week’s hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol underscored the connections between key Trump associates and right-wing militia groups along with others who participated in the insurrection. The “unhinged” six-hour meeting in advance of Jan. 6, filled with expletives and shouting so loud it could be heard outside the closed Oval Office, remains disturbing as ever. So does the ...

Biden’s climate agenda at risk

Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia this month highlights the paradox of American power. The U.S. has the economic heft to punish an opponent — but not enough to alter the behavior of a determined adversary. Sanctions will see Russia’s economy contract by 9 percent next year. But Washington needs more nations to join its camp to halt Moscow’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Biden has been forced to prioritize war objectives over ethics in meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA says ordered the barbaric murder of the prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The havoc ...

Digital privacy at risk after Roe

In the 21st century, our phones might know we are pregnant before the people closest to us do — a reality that, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, has become more dangerous than ever. Digital-privacy advocates have long warned about the amount of our personal information that companies hoover up each day. Reproductive health data has never been an exception, but while this data has always been valuable to advertisers, now it will also be valuable to law enforcement in states where abortion is criminalized. Naturally, niche apps such as period trackers hold troves of knowledge about ...

Government for the good of all

“Let’s see what we can get away with.” A bold, contemptuous statement, for sure. A short series of words guaranteed to quickly raise the ire of anyone on the receiving end. What really sets tempers aflame is when those entrusted with government adopt it as a way to turn a personal conviction or cause into a policy or law. Although they know what they are about to do is on rickety legal ground, they go ahead with it anyway. Americans see this time and again in the White House, in Congress and in the actions of federal agencies. It does not matter which political party is in ...

Immigration needs reform

The death toll of migrants who have succumbed to the heat after being trapped in a tractor-trailer has risen to 53. Discovered on June 27 on a remote stretch on San Antonio’s Southwest Side, these migrants deserved a humane and fair immigration system — one that honors the rights of asylum workers, recognizes our workforce needs and reflects the inherent dignity in all people. But what migrants navigate in the United States — whether in the back of a tractor-trailer, trekking across the desert or crossing the Rio Grande — is a broken and politicized immigration system that ...

Risk is up for health care

The decision, when it came, was not a surprise. Even before the dramatic leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion last month, it was widely predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would grab the opportunity presented by the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case to rescind the decision made in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. This, after all, was the purpose of President Trump’s three Supreme Court selections—and the culmination of a decades-long campaign by anti-abortionists to return to states the authority to ban the procedure. But the announcement still came as a shock. The ...