As Obamacare continues to face numerous setbacks, Tennessee’s insurance commissioner declared on Tuesday that its exchange was "very near collapse" after she approved several large premium hikes to keep it in business. Read more
Contributing editor Matthew Continetti joined PBS NewsHour Thursday to discuss the alt-right, an online-based movement of racist and bigoted provocateurs who have largely rallied around the candidacy of Donald Trump. Continetti and the Washington Post's David Weigel explained the origins of the alt-right and its hostile relationship toward conservatives in the Republican party. Read more
Stephen Bannon, the new CEO of the Donald Trump presidential campaign who was recently the chairman of Breitbart News, was accused of physically attacking his wife. Read more
Hillary Clinton hasn’t held a press conference since early December, an extended vacation from reporters that has created annoyance and even resentment in the media. Sure, she's granted interviews—she did one by phone with CNN's Anderson Cooper just Wednesday night—but she hasn't made herself available in the accessible, unpredictable forum that a press conference affords, allowing representatives of multiple outlets to ask questions at once. Read more
A Canadian who went abroad for terrorist training maintained contact with terrorists in Iran while planning an attack at home, according to a recently released report from the Canadian government. Read more
There’s an old joke that goes "for sale–French rifle, never fired and only dropped once." It comes from an ugly old stereotype about the French military, one of white flags, hands thrust aloft, tails tucked in retreat. There's nothing wrong with good natured ribbing between military forces (just ask your average Marine rifleman what he thinks of the Air Force). Good humor is a vital element of any healthy military unit. But the idea of French soldiers as a yellow-bellied lot, thirsty for retreat, and allergic to courage has exceeded the bounds of comedy. Read more
As the safe space-trigger warning-microagression movement possesses universities across the country, a number of educators remain hopeful that students still long for a challenging education at an institution that allows them to freely exchange ideas. Read more
A piece of California legislation, unanimously approved by the state assembly and just waiting for the governor’s pen, would relax the definition of rape to include any non-consensual sexual contact. Read more
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton implied there is a difference between her family’s foundation accepting foreign donations during her cabinet tenure and doing the same during her potential presidency, saying the latter would present "unique circumstances" absent during her time as the nation's top diplomat. Read more
The players in this election season are, it seems, not interested in talking about the deficit. Too much of a downer. Still, when the giddy days and nights of campaigning are done and the cold grey dawn of governing breaks, someone is going to have to face the facts. Namely, that spending is increasing at a rate of 5 percent per year, and revenues at 1 percent. Read more
This is not another glowing review of the universally-praised Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance’s first-hand account of the problems facing the white working-class in Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Not because I don't like the memoir—along with apparently everyone else who has read it, I found the memoir engaging and hope that it redirects our national policies. But to recognize just how original Hillbilly Elegy is means knowing how other popular literature often depicts Vance's subject matter. Consider Jonathan Franzen's 2010 novel Freedom, which emphasizes the supposedly violent racism of modern Appalachia. Read more
The dean of students at the University of Chicago, John Ellison, has laid out his university’s commitment to free expression and deliberate debate in his yearly letter to the incoming freshman—sorry, "first year"—class. Read more
CNN released a new poll Wednesday evening showing John McCain leading Kelli Ward in the August 30 Arizona Senate primary by 26 points (55 percent to 29 percent). If the CNN poll is accurate, it would seem that McCain's antagonistic relationship with Donald Trump hasn't hurt him a bit in his home state. McCain's 26-point lead is almost identical to the margin by which he beat congressman J.D. Hayworth in 2010, just two years after he was the Republican party's presidential nominee. Read more
The House of Representatives is currently considering legislation passed by the Senate that would change the law of foreign sovereign immunity in order to allow the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, where 19 of the 20 attackers were citizens, for its supposed culpability. Setting aside for a moment whether Saudi Arabia did have any contact with the terrorists—and it has vehemently denied that it does—the bill raises both policy and practical concerns. Congress should think carefully about the downsides of the legislation before enacting it, but if it does feel compelled to change the law, it should make sure that the real beneficiaries are the families of the victims and not their lawyers. Read more
The two paintings—side-by-side Adam and Eve panels, a diptych in delicious Northern Renaissance detail—went to Hitler's chief underling, the fat philistine and stolen-art hoarder Hermann Göring, in 1940. And now, according to a California District Court decision, they'll stay in a Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum, where they've been for forty years. Read more
In an iconic scene in Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman's character, Mia, overdoses on heroin and is revived by the administration of an adrenaline injection to the heart. Read more
