Rights and Democracy
Crocodile Tears
Get an IUD While You Can
As soon as the presidential election results were announced, alarm bells went off for anyone who cares about reproductive rights. Lawmakers around the country have been moving for years to restrict abortion rights. But for millions of women who've taken proactive...
Self-Defense for Whom?
In every state in the country, the right to self-defense is considered a mitigating factor in criminal prosecutions. If you use violence to defend yourself in an extreme situation, most Americans believe, the law should treat you gently. But not everyone gets to enjoy...
What Trump Could Learn from Alexander Hamilton
By now you've probably heard that Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed by fellow theater-goers at a performance of the musical Hamilton, an unlikely hip-hop sensation that tells the story of Alexander Hamilton and other founding fathers. Then, at the end of the...
Tyrants of the World, Unite!
This Doesn’t Sound Like Our Voice
We’re already starting to see how America's gamble on Donald Trump will pay off: with gifts to the corporations and billionaires he swore he’d put us above. One of Trump's first priorities is to repeal one of the only federal laws standing between us and Wall Street....
Sorry, I Can’t Give Trump a Chance
As Donald Trump plans his transition into the White House, some have called for "unity." Let's "come together," they say. Let's "give him a chance." I say no. When a man abuses his wife, you don't tell her to give him a chance. You don't tell her to try to talk things...
This Election Wasn’t About Trump
When a political puck named Dick Tuck lost a California senate election in 1966, he famously conceded: "The people have spoken. The bastards." So now that the people have spoken up for Donald Trump, were they saying that they embrace his xenophobic, nativist,...
America’s Dark Underbelly Is Now Its Face
An election that might have marked the ascension of America’s first woman president has instead proven historic for an altogether different reason. Namely, that Americans voted for the unabashedly anti-democratic alternative offered by her rival. And they did it...
Who Won in 2016? Big Money.
In one of Agatha Christie's murder mysteries, the key clue that solved the whodunit wasn’t something that happened, but something that didn't — specifically, a dog that didn’t bark. That plot fits one of the great mysteries of this year's Trump-Clinton race for...
