Breaking News 
This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
-
SOURCE: The Guardian
6/1/2023
The Debt Ceiling Law is now a Tool of Partisan Political Power; Abolish It
by Mark Weisbrot
There is no "ticking bomb" of national debt; the use of the debt ceiling to threaten the nation with default to secure spending cuts that damage Democratic presidents is by now a clearly established partisan trick, and the US government should no longer be held hostage to it, says an economic policy researcher.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
6/1/2023
Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94
Communitarianism, an effort to reconcile the principles of individual rights and collective responsibility, was Etzioni's biggest contribution in a wide-ranging career as a public intellectual.
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
6/1/2023
Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions
By an 8-1 vote, with only Ketanji Brown Jackson in dissent, the Court allowed employers to bypass the National Labor Relations Board to seek potentially crippling tort judgments against unions for business losses related to strikes, removing a major incentive for good-faith negotiation by employers.
-
SOURCE: Slate
6/1/2023
New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson
by Richard Hasen and Dahlia Lithwick
A 1952 memo that Rehnquist wrote defending "separate but equal" was raised during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and dismissed as work-for-hire. It is now clear that he supported the narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment that the current court majority hopes to use to undermine civil rights.
-
SOURCE: Ohio Capital Journal
5/31/2023
Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike
Ohio public sector unions say that a bill limiting faculty's power to strike is reminiscent of previous efforts to disempower public workers in the state, and are closing ranks around academic workers.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
6/1/2023
Richard Rothstein: The Problem with Class-Based Affirmative Action
While Black Americans are disproportionately poor, argues a scholar of discriminatory policy, the larger numbers of poor whites make it likely that class-based admissions preferences will fail to address racial disparities, including concentrated poverty in Black communities.
-
SOURCE: NBC News
5/27/2023
Culture War Puts Latino Professors in Difficult Positions
For many academics of color, attacks on "critical race theory" or "wokeness" seek to render understanding of their communities academically illegitimate.
-
SOURCE: The Nation
5/26/2023
When Tina Turner Rocked Out for the McGovern Campaign
As the cash-strapped campaign approached election day, Shirley MacLaine organized a concert featuring women performers to tout McGovern's antiwar position. Turner headlined the largest woman-organized rally in history.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
5/22/2023
Was "Passive Resistance" to the Nazis Enough?
Burkhard Bilger's memoir "Fatherland" examines how his family dealt with the reality that his grandfather had been a Nazi party chief in his Alsace hometown—but not, apparently, a very effective one.
-
SOURCE: PEN America
5/25/2023
DEI Bans are Tools for Seizing Control of Universities
Legislation in Florida and Ohio don't simply ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs; they infringe on the prerogatives of colleges to govern themselves without political influence.
-
SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
5/25/2023
The Path to January 6 Ran Through the Obama-Era Tea Party
The closeness of the Oath Keepers militia group to the Tea Party movement was hardly a guarded secret in the 2010s.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
5/28/2023
When Freud Analyzed Woodrow Wilson
Working with former Wilson aide William Bullitt, the founder of psychoanalysis produced a harsh depiction of the president as neurotic and self-sabotaging. The work's twisted path to publication after Freud's death was marked by doubts about Freud's actual role in the work.
-
SOURCE: Forward
5/25/2023
Pro-Israel Groups Claim Victory, though Biden Panel Avoids Embracing IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL praised the Biden administration's partial embrace of the International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of antisemitism, which critics charge conflates criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.
-
SOURCE: Slate
5/30/2023
Inside a Key Part of the Republican Base: Car Dealers
As legally protected middlemen who do business in every part of the country, auto dealers have been political players for a century.
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
5/25/2023
How Tina Turner Escaped Abuse and Reclaimed her Name
by Gillian Brockell
She escaped Ike Turner's abusive and controlling grasp with 36 cents in her pocket. Escaping the marriage required her to surrender all claim to their shared assets in exchange for the rights to use her stage name and have a second chance at stardom on her own.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
5/25/2023
The Biden Administration Wants to Undo the Damage of Urban Highways. It Won't be Simple
In cities across the nation, highway projects blighted working class communities, especially nonwhite ones. Is it possible for new policies to heal that damage?
-
SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
5/24/2023
AAUP: Fight Tooth and Nail Against Florida's Higher Ed Agenda Because Your State is Next
Historian Henry Reichman, one of the preliminary report's authors, said the committee studying Florida's higher ed system under Ron DeSantis found abuses of academic freedom and institutional regulations to be more widespread than they expected, and warned more political interference is coming.
-
SOURCE: The Guardian
5/24/2023
Texas GOP's Ten Commandments School Bill Fails
The Texas House did not have the votes to pass a bill approved by the state senate that would have required the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.
-
SOURCE: Washington Post
5/23/2023
Former Alabama Governors: We Regret Overseeing Executions
As evidence mounts of the number of wrongful convictions in capital murder cases, one Democrat and one Republican former governor argue that it's time to stop capital punishment and reform the prosecutorial immunity that allows unfair prosecutions to proceed.
-
SOURCE: Science News
5/16/2023
Former East Germans Largely Eschewed Opportunity to Read their Stasi Files—What that Says about Ethics
Few of the former residents of East Germany have chosen to view the files kept on them by the communist secret police; scholars have investigated this as an example of strategic ignorance that can help individuals function and preserve social harmony.
News
- The Debt Ceiling Law is now a Tool of Partisan Political Power; Abolish It
- Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94
- Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions
- New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson
- Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike
- First Round of Obama Administration Oral Histories Focus on Political Fault Lines and Policy Tradeoffs
- The Tulsa Race Massacre was an Attack on Black People; Rebuilding Policies were an Attack on Black Wealth
- British Universities are Researching Ties to Slavery. Conservative Alumni Say "Enough"
- Martha Hodes Reconstructs Her Memory of a 1970 Hijacking
- Jeremi Suri: Texas Higher Ed Conflict "Doesn't Have to Be This Way"
Trending Now
- New transcript of Ayn Rand at West Point in 1974 shows she claimed “savage" Indians had no right to live here just because they were born here
- The Mexican War Suggests Ukraine May End Up Conceding Crimea. World War I Suggests the Price May Be Tragic if it Doesn't
- The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of