Mega-attack: The Republican megabill Trump signed on Friday is a double-barreled attack on the health care of women, especially minorities, the poor and Southerners, writes Carmen James Randolph. By cutting funding for Medicaid and Planned Parenthood at the same time, the new law ensures that these women won't be able to get the vital care they need, meaning more women and their babies may die in childbirth or from cervical cancer. Read more.
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Revoking citizenship: The Justice Department has announced a new goal of aggressively pursuing denaturalization proceedings, and GOP Rep. Andy Ogles is already calling for an investigation into New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. But revoking citizenship from Americans after they have been naturalized is rare for a reason, write legal scholars Cassandra Burke Robertson and Irina D. Manta, especially since the Supreme Court put strict limits on the practice in a 1960s decision. Read more.
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Playing by the rules: The Supreme Court justified decisions that benefited conservatives by creating supposedly neutral rules about how lower-court judges can block a president, how parents can force schools to let them opt out of certain lessons and what limits states can put on the internet, writes law professor David S. Cohen. He argues that now liberals need to use these same rules to push their own policy agenda and force the court to either fold or reveal its own hypocrisy. Read more.
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A hip-hop reckoning: The mixed verdict in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial should be a moment of reckoning for the hip-hop community, writes poet and advocate Donney Rose. The fact that a Manhattan jury acquitted Combs on some charges is not proof that he was unfairly singled out; nor does it suggest some nefarious plot to bring down the prominent mogul. We all have seen the video tape. No matter what happens at sentencing, Combs deserves to be ostracized from this industry for life. That, at least, would be one step toward institutional accountability. Read more.
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"American Requiem": On the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Beyoncé took her red, white and blue festooned "Cowboy Carter" tour to Washington, D.C., and perhaps caused some confusion for those who've associated her with pro-Black feminism and those who've accused her of hating America. But Beyoncé's feelings about the United States aren't quite that simple, writes Darryl Robertson, a justice in education scholar at Columbia University. In a more general sense, Beyoncé belongs to a long line of prominent Black Americans, including artists, who've staked a claim to patriotism while criticizing the country. Read more.
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Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who died Tuesday at age 90, will be remembered by many for the tearful apology he gave to his congregation after he was linked to a prostitute, a spectacular fall from grace for a Christian leader. But professor of religious studies Anthea Butler does not want us to overlook the fire and brimstone that preceded his transgression. Indeed, Swaggart's condemnations of LGBTQ people, Catholics and Jews helped give rise to the religious right's embrace of hard-line politics. "While the memory of his scandal may have faded, his preaching and evangelical crusades had a primary role in helping shape the sharp, divisive religious environment that exists in America today," she writes. Read the column here.
— Ryan Teague Beckwith, newsletter editor |
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