'Shale is crucial to the US economy'

'America can't do without fracking'

Daniel Yergin at The Wall Street Journal

Fracking "has become essential to the nation's energy supply and can't be eliminated," says Daniel Yergin. People "continue to underestimate how transformative shale oil has been for the U.S. economy and the American way of life." If America "were to start importing again, the price of oil would doubtless rise, as we would be forced to compete for supplies." A "ban on fracking would be both misguided and destructive for the U.S. and its allies."

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'Trump's threats to the press are serious and literal'

Ramesh Ponnuru at The Washington Post

Donald Trump's "longstanding hostility to freedom of the press receives attention only episodically, after outbursts," says Ramesh Ponnuru. There "can be tricky cases," but saying "that the government should shut down broadcasters" is an "attack on the core of the First Amendment and the purpose it serves." Trump "has told us repeatedly that he thinks the press should have considerably less leeway to report without governmental supervision. We ought to take him seriously."

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'The parable of the chainsaw'

Emily C. Hughes at Slate

"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" has endured "because of how vividly it captured the hysterical unreality of living in a turbulent age, and how it picked at the scabs crusting over the face of the American dream," says Emily C. Hughes. The film's "greatest accomplishment is that pervasive feeling of wrongness, of danger, a vertiginous sense that there's no safe haven left," and to "live in America right now is to feel squeezed from all sides."

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'How Supreme Court decisions could shape the presidential election'

Hassan Ali Kanu at The American Prospect

Recent Supreme Court rulings show the "tremendous power the Court has, and often exerts, over elections and Democratic processes, and how it could again have a significant effect on or even decide the 2024 presidential election," says Hassan Ali Kanu. Recent "voting rights petitions to the Court have the potential to further erode voting rights in the country beyond 2024." Justices could "intervene in the election process" even "when their interventions appear calculated to restrict basic democratic rights."

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