Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) helicopters will undoubtedly be circling my neighborhood looking for roofers and landscapers this “Veterans Day,” just as they have been for weeks. In the U.S., you’re an easy mark when you have brown skin and your job demands that you labor out in the open. My town, located just outside of Chicago, has been crawling with ICE agents or soldiers (the…
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If you had told me in September 2001, when I was a new teacher in Washington, D.C. — the smoke from the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon still visible from my classroom window — that one day a Muslim socialist would be elected mayor of New York City, I might have thought you cruel for raising my hopes. I remember the tanks rolling down the street by my house, the flags unfurled from every porch…
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Zohran Mamdani’s historic mayoral victory on November 4 created a political earthquake both inside and outside New York City. With bold policies aimed at challenging the status quo in the U.S., a once obscure, long-shot democratic socialist candidate has become a celebrated new star of the Democratic Party — a party whose leaders continue to remain reluctant to endorse him. As the dust from…
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Aging in a Trumpian world brings fear and destruction as strand by strand of the safety net is plucked away until it’s shredded. And Donald Trump doesn’t care. Seniors make up an ever larger American demographic that’s being made ever more unsafe in the richest country in the world. Social Security, healthcare, even access to food, not to speak of general well-being are all under threat.
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On September 3, Illinois prison officials moved — by emergency rule — to replace most physical mail with scanned copies, though a key legislative panel has already pushed back. At the same time, New York is installing mail scanners in prisons, raising alarms about privacy and attorney-client privilege. Texas has already shifted to “digital mail,” where letters are scanned and delivered on tablets…
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There’s a popular and recurring chant that echoed throughout the recent No Kings protests several weeks ago: “This is what democracy looks like.” But on Capitol Hill over the past four weeks, during a protracted government shutdown, Republicans have been displaying the opposite. The quiet, moribund center of American government looks anything but like a democracy.
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