Politics

Last week, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District approved new regulations that will ban the use of residential and commercial natural gas-fired water heaters and furnaces in 2027.  read more »

The upcoming ruling by the US Supreme Court on racial preferences is certain to ignite yet another divisive debate about whether or not a person’s ethnic heritage should determine their treatment by the state  read more »

Even in the era of identity politics, one category of identity has largely been ignored: what UK journalist Joe Glenton calls “veteranhood.”19 million former soldiers — most of them working class — share a strong sense of personal identity as vets  read more »

“California migration turned Colorado blue.” That sums up a common belief about how domestic (as well as international) migration plays out politically.  read more »

The Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is widely seen as a sign of a reinvigorated alliance of democracies against authoritarianism.  read more »

As we talk about the future, we also need to confront the past. History, with all its complexities, defines our civilization, creating both cautionary tales and forging a common identity  read more »

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee, like California’s Governor Newsom, is mandating his state toward an all-electric state.  read more »

Racial divisions have become the stalking horse of our politics and social discourse, with racism defined as white on black (often extending to Western vs. non-Western ethnicities). Google Trends reveals how the online topic of racism has steadily risen over the past decade, spiking like a seismic reading of an earthquake in June, 2020 that marked the George Floyd tragedy and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed.  read more »

The overwhelming majority of the money involved in the energy and climate debate in the U.S. today is not on the side of traditional energy producers. Instead, the money, the media, and the momentum are clearly on the side of the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex.  read more »

The current deceleration of globalism can herald either a greater period of nationalism, with its tendency towards authoritarianism and xenophobia, or we could return to a more decentralized political system that comports with both American and Canadian traditions and popular preferences.  read more »