Author: Lance Garrison
Eight times a day during his felony trial, a former president of the United States must stand and honor 12 jurors and six alternates as they walk past, eyes straight ahead or down, casting no glances at him. It’s inspiring to watch these ordinary citizens as sovereign soldiers for justice.On Monday this calm processional was disrupted, as jurors were forced to hurry out after a witness for the defense mocked the authority of the court. Moments later, Justice Juan Merchan ordered the courtroom immediately cleared, and reporters fled in a frenzy.The reason for all of this was the testimony of…
Last week, for the first time in history, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 40,000.Unlike many right-wing commentators, I don’t consider the stock market the best indicator of the economy’s health, or even a good indicator. But it is an indicator. And given the state of American politics, with hyperpartisanship and conspiracy theorizing running rampant, I’d argue that this market milestone deserves more attention than it has been getting.Not to put too fine a point on it, but do you have any doubt that Republicans, across the board, would be trumpeting the Dow’s record high from every rooftop if…
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not always seen eye to eye with his country’s presidents. Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani nudged the Islamic Republic too close to the West for the supreme leader’s liking. Mohammad Khatami rattled the conservative elite with subversive talk of how faith and freedom could coexist. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was too insubordinate and too populist, while Hassan Rouhani’s flirtation with the Americans and his disappointing arms-control agreement drove him out of the inner circle.President Ebrahim Raisi, on the other hand, was Mr. Khamenei’s ideal partner. A lackluster manager with dispiriting rhetoric and a vicious streak, he was steadfastly loyal…
Is it possible to use a lie to illuminate the truth? If the lie is told by the serial liar Michael Cohen in the right context, the answer is yes. Credit the prosecution in the Trump felony trial for pulling off this tricky maneuver.On Monday, we finally got closer to a key factor in this case: campaign finance law. To convict Donald Trump of a felony, the jury must find that he falsified business records (or directed that they be falsified) with “the intent to commit another crime.” Trump need not be found guilty of any of those other crimes…
Mary Kay Henry had one big success and one big disappointment in her 14 years as president of the Service Employees International Union, which is one of the biggest and most politically powerful in the United States.Henry, who chose not to run for re-election and stepped down on Monday, spearheaded the successful campaign to raise wages to $15 an hour or more for many of America’s lowest-paid workers, particularly in fast food and home care. “Since 2012, more than 26 million workers have won higher pay to the tune of $150 billion,” nearly half of them workers of color, the…
To the Editor:Re “In Israel, ‘the Darkness Is Everywhere,’” by Megan K. Stack (Opinion guest essay, May 18):I appreciate Ms. Stack’s essay, in which she makes several important observations about current attitudes among Israelis. However, she leaves out the tragic choices that Palestinians have themselves made in Gaza and the West Bank.In particular, after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, Gazans had the opportunity to use huge amounts of international aid to build new residential communities and seaside commercial and tourist destinations.Instead, they diverted essentially all investment into war preparations, including the rocket and tunnel technology that has proved so formidable…
In seeking the arrests of senior leaders of Israel and Hamas, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has given the world a promise of accountability.Regardless of the outcome of the cases, the prosecutor’s request that the court issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar helps cut through the polarizing language of the moment and promotes the idea that the basic rules of international humanitarian law apply to all. Anyone demanding an end to the conflict in Gaza and the release of all hostages from the grasp of Hamas should embrace the decision.The prosecutor, Karim…
I spend a fair amount of time looking at the sky, for the sky is nearly always full of magic. Storm clouds churning, autumn leaves flying, birds performing the never-ending miracle of flight. Often at night, I am looking for the moon. Who could fail to love the moon, magnificent in all its guises, shining coolly in all its reflected glory?What I am never looking for is the Northern Lights. I have spent nearly every day of my life in the American South. By definition, there is no reason to expect a light display down here. Even with an extreme…
The beginning of the end of illegal weed is here.On May 16 the Justice Department formally moved to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to Schedule III. This move will not affect the legality of recreational use and sales on the federal level. It is, however, the biggest step yet toward abolishing the legal fiction that cannabis is as dangerous as heroin. And it puts marijuana — used more than any other illicit drug in the world — on a pathway for fully legal recreational use, which a majority of Americans support.Nothing short of full legalization…
Whether Mr. Gallego can peel off some of the 1.6 million voters who went for Mr. Trump in 2020 may not be as crucial as the appeal to the independent-minded within the flow of recent arrivals. Mr. Gallego has the kind of personal qualities that map well onto the ambitions of both the white and the Latino working class: impoverished background, hard work, defiant attitude, military, first-generation college.“Lying on the floor of our apartment one night, hungry and tired because I worked after school earning money to help my mother pay for things, I told myself this was not who…