Politics | Voter.org

Sometimes a Parade Is Just a Parade

June 7, 2025 just, Parade, Sometimes0 comment

President Donald Trump has gotten his way and will oversee a military parade in Washington, D.C., this summer on the Army’s birthday, which also happens to be his own. Plans call for nearly 7,000 troops to march through the streets as 50 helicopters buzz overhead and tanks chew up the pavement. One option has the president presiding from a viewing stand on Constitution Avenue as the Army’s parachute team lands to present him with an American flag. The prospect of all this martial pomp, scheduled for June 14, has elicited…

The GOP’s New Medicaid Denialism

June 3, 2025 GOP's, Medicaid, Denialism0 comment

Congressional Republicans claim to have achieved something truly miraculous. Their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they argue, would cut nearly $ 800 billion from Medicaid spending over 10 years without causing any Americans to lose health care—or, at least, without making anyone who loses health care worse off. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, by imposing Medicaid work requirements, the bill would eventually increase the uninsured population by at least 8.6 million. At first, Republican officials tried to defend this outcome on the grounds that it would affect only lazy…

In Trump Immigration Cases, It’s One Thing in Public, Another in Court

May 30, 2025 Cases, Court, Public, another, thing, Immigration, It's, Trump0 comment

During his testimony on Capitol Hill earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a swipe at Senator Chris Van Hollen, falsely accusing him of having had “a margarita” with Kilmar Abrego Garcia—one of the Maryland Democrat’s constituents, who was mistakenly sent to an El Salvador megaprison more than two months ago and who remains there despite the Supreme Court ordering the Trump administration to facilitate his release. “That guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gangbanger … and the evidence is going to be clear,”…

The Big, Beautiful Republican Shrug

May 26, 2025 Beautiful, Shrug, Republican0 comment

When Democrats reshaped the American health-insurance system in 2010, Republicans accused them of all manner of legislative foul play: Middle-of-the-night votes. Backroom deals. An enormous, partisan bill jammed through Congress before anyone could find out what was in it. “Have you read the bill? Hell no you haven’t!” an indignant then-House Minority Leader John Boehner thundered on the House floor. The GOP’s claims were exaggerated. But as Republicans rushed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” through the House this week, they committed just about every procedural misdeed they had ascribed…

What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism

May 22, 2025 about, Doesn't, Understand, Autism0 comment

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET on May 22, 2025 Expressing concern can sometimes be a delicate endeavor. One can intend to be empathetic, but the target of concern hears only condescension and pity. So it is with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently talked about how much autistic children suffer. These poor kids, he said at an April 16 press conference, would never “pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll…

Return of the Shaman

May 18, 2025 'Return, Shaman0 comment

Manvir Singh’s new Shamanism: The Timeless Religion ranges widely, introducing us to all sorts of shamans and neo-shamans and proto-shamans. We meet the cigarette-loving tribal healers among the Mentawai people of Indonesia, whom Singh, an anthropologist, has studied since 2014. We meet the psychiatry and medicine professor at Johns Hopkins who reckons that his clinical interventions and against-the-odds healings are the stuff of classic shamanic practice. And we meet the money managers and “hedge wizards” who traffic quasi-shamanically with the capricious spirits of the global market. It’s a panoramic survey:…