Opinion

This article was originally published at Salon

Smith College has opened an investigation into a July 31 incident in which a staff employee called campus police on a black student who supposedly “seemed to be out of place.”

This past weekend, President Donald Trump tweeted a confession to the world that his top campaign operatives, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. had knowingly met with emissaries of the Russian government to receive information on his opponent, which he characterized as perfectly legal and routine, while also insisting that he knew nothing about it. In a previous era, this would have been a shocking development that would likely lead to impeachment. Regardless of the legality (and plenty of experts say it was indeed illegal) it was certainly unethical and unpatriotic.

After Donald Trump caused a debacle at the recent NATO summit and started a trade war between the United States and most of its partners, one would imagine he would be highly unpopular.

In both Britain and the United States conservative lawmakers are trying to radically reduce the social safety net for the poor by adding conditions and requirements to programs like Food Stamps and Medicaid. Proposals include adding work requirements and drug testing.

President Donald Trump is a symptom of a much larger problem. New research suggests that Trump's supporters are so motivated by racism and bigotry that they may willing to overturn American democracy so that white Christians like themselves can maintain continued power over our society.

Amid a recent flurry of distressing and disturbing statements from President Donald Trump, one of his more bizarre utterances has gotten lost in the shuffle.

I know that some find it odious to compare Donald Trump to Adolph Hitler, that doing so violates what’s known as Godwin’s Law. That’s the idea first put forward in 1990 by author Mike Godwin that morphed into the notion that in an argument, whoever first compares someone or something to Hitler, loses.

While the pundit class has been fretting over Democrats not having a message in the 2018, surprise! They’ve got one, as a recent New York Times Upshot article noted: Health care! And, more specifically, the threat of losing health care because of pre-existing conditions. As the article notes:

If we ask whether hatred of Hillary Clinton, much of it irrational and fueled by decades’ worth of outlandish conspiracy theory, played a role in the outcome of the 2016 presidential election — I mean, that’s not even a question, right?

On the last day of its term in June, the Supreme Court handed down two decisions on free speech grounds damaging to unions and abortion rights. In one decision, they overturned California’s law requiring so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide clients with information about abortion.

As a key deadline approaches next week on updating statewide voter rolls before the November election, it appears a controversial data-mining operation mostly used by red states to purge legitimate voters is withering, or at least dormant, in 2018.