by jpitney | Apr 20, 2024 | California Politics, Debt
Don Lee at LAT: California’s massive budget deficit, coupled with the state’s relatively high level of joblessness, has become a major barrier to reducing the billions of dollars of debt it has incurred to pay unemployment benefits. The surge in unemployment brought...
by jpitney | Apr 19, 2024 | Congress, Foreign Policy, House of Representatives
Andrew Solender at Axios: House Democrats made an extremely rare break with modern political norms on Thursday to rescue House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) foreign aid package. Why it matters: It’s the starkest evidence to date that the GOP’s...
by jpitney | Apr 18, 2024 | Congress, House of Representatives, Public Service
A number of posts have discussed a trend that discourages public service: death threats against public officials. Emily Matesic at WLUK-TV: With just days until he leaves his seat in Congress, U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher could be shedding some light on the reasoning...
by jpitney | Apr 17, 2024 | Civility
Rusty Wright at The Washington Examiner: It’s no secret that we live in a polarized world. Even if you ignore politics (good luck trying that), you’d also have to ignore entertainment news (exes or coworkers squabbling), sports news (rivals or teammates bickering),...
by jpitney | Apr 16, 2024 | Journalism, Journalists
David Folkenflik at NPR: NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had “lost America’s trust” by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset. Berliner’s five-day...
