What does President Biden have to do to catch up to Donald Trump? According to Michael Podhorzer, former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., exposing and clarifying Trump’s 2025 agenda will be crucial to Biden’s success or failure: Donald Trump will lose the election to the extent that voters accurately understand what his plans for a … Read more
Californians want their trial judges to be both independent and accountable. The tension between those two competing goals can never be fully resolved but is partially addressed by a judicial election system in which they are automatically reelected every six years without their names even appearing on the ballot. Unless, that is, they are challenged. … Read more
Ever since the 1948 birth of Israel, American presidents have tried to avoid policies that could jeopardize the tiny nation’s existence. Barack Obama, the most openly hostile one to Israel, came the closest with his misbegotten courtship of Iran. The presidents followed the unwritten rule because each accepted an underlying fact: That if superpower America … Read more
As most Californians know from personal experience, their state has an especially high cost of living, particularly for housing. Forbes magazine rates California as having the nation’s third-highest living costs behind Hawaii and Massachusetts, with $53,171 a year in average household spending for housing, health care, taxes, food and transportation. California also has the nation’s fourth-highest level … Read more
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. name is Annie Nichol, and I’m a writer and an advocate for survivor-centered justice and healing in public policy. … Read more
Rep. Michelle Steel of Seal Beach should not remain in Congress. That should be a simple choice for the voters of the 45th Congressional District, which curves from Fountain Valley through a section of south Los Angeles County and north Orange County, including Garden Grove and Westminster. The Republican has not been a positive force … Read more
How can any elected official still support CAIR? The Council on American-Islamic Relations has been problematic for years. The organization’s ties to fundamentalist group the Muslim Brotherhood date back to the 1990s and have been a frequent point of criticism by politicians for nearly three decades. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For … Read more
The Republican presidential primary seems pretty much over, but try telling that to Nikki Haley. The former South Carolina governor — now Donald Trump’s sole primary opponent — decisively lost Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire by more than 10 percentage points. Haley doesn’t seem to think it’s too late to win the nomination, though, … Read more
Despite the early enthusiasm for his policies and political persona in various corners of the conservative media, it was easy to see from the start that Ron DeSantis would not — and clearly does not — have the juice to defeat or supplant Donald Trump in a Republican presidential primary. Part of this was the … Read more
George Gascón was elected Los Angeles County district attorney in 2020, a convulsive year in which Americans’ lives were upended by the pandemic and public confidence in the criminal justice system was shaken by the murder of George Floyd. The latter led to a reckoning over racial inequity in arrests, prosecutions and punishment. Voters wanted … Read more
