Newsletters
In OtherWords: March 21, 2018
This week marked the 15th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In OtherWords, Brown University expert Stephanie Savell runs the numbers on the human and economic costs of that decision, and they're simply stunning. Every American, she writes, has basically...
In OtherWords: March 14, 2018
This week, thousands of students are walking out of classrooms all over the country to advocate for stronger gun control measures. In case you missed it, we've covered this issue a lot lately: Mitchell Zimmerman says that putting armed guards in schools is no...
In OtherWords: March 7, 2018
Would armed guards in schools prevent mass shootings? This week in OtherWords, my colleague Karen Dolan surveys the evidence and concludes: unfortunately, no. In fact, she points out, there are thousands upon thousands of armed guards employed by public schools...
In OtherWords: February 28, 2018
The "good guy with a gun" argument got another real world test during the Parkland, Florida school shooting — and it failed. An armed school deputy on the scene failed to engage the shooter, instead hiding outside with others escaping the violence. This week in...
In OtherWords: February 21, 2018
Another week, another mass shooting, another gun control debate. With brave survivors from Florida pushing hard against politicians in thrall to the gun lobby, maybe this time will be different. But one familiar element is the inevitable discussion of mental illness....
In OtherWords: February 14, 2018
The White House released its budget proposal this week, and the numbers are more of the same: huge cuts to popular programs like food stamps, Medicare, and Social Security, and a huge boost for military contractors — all while driving up the deficit. Policies like...
In OtherWords: February 7, 2018
It's the week before Valentine's Day. And as my colleague Josh Hoxie writes, working families aren't getting much love from Washington. This week in OtherWords, he recounts an unbelievable story about House Speaker Paul Ryan boasting that a Pennsylvania secretary will...
In OtherWords: January 31, 2018
President Trump gave his first official State of the Union address last night. Under the bipartisan facades, there were some familiar hardline demands — especially on immigration and the military. This week in OtherWords, I parse the Trump-GOP line on immigration and...
In OtherWords: January 24, 2017
We're fresh off a brief government shutdown, brought on in part by the president's move, months ago, to revoke the DACA program that protects around 700,000 undocumented young people. This week in OtherWords, community college teacher Jill Richardson explains how that...
In OtherWords: January 17, 2018
This week in OtherWords, we're talking s—holes. That's what President Trump recently called El Salvador, Haiti, and much of Africa, according to people who attended a meeting where he complained about immigrants from those places. Our cartoonist, Khalil Bendib,...
