‘Being a “hot” country does not make you a good country’

‘Trump’s fantasies are killing us’

Carlos Lozada at The New York Times

President Donald Trump has the “fantasy of a popular and successful presidency,” says Carlos Lozada. His “insistence that we are the hottest country in the world is disproved by the reality of ICE.” When “fantasies involve life and death, as in Minneapolis, the stakes only rise, and the cost of abandoning your side seems impossibly high.” We have “gone from being a country where immigrants come to pursue their dreams to one where leaders rule by imposing their fantasies.”

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‘Moving beyond supervision: It’s time to rethink juvenile probation’

Kendra Van de Water and Mona Baishya at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Most “people hear the phrase ‘juvenile probation’ and think of second chances,” but for “hundreds of thousands across the country, juvenile probation is not freedom; it’s a trap,” say Kendra Van de Water and Mona Baishya. For “many youths, probation is not an opportunity to grow, but feels like walking through life with a countdown clock.” It “places youth under a long list of conditions.” The “system claims to be rehabilitative, but the numbers tell a different story.”

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‘Democrat or Republican, Americans want their national forests kept intact’

Mike Dombeck, Dale Bosworth, Tom Tidwell and Vicki Christiansen at The Hill

“Forest management decisions never come without debate, opinions and — more often than not — disagreement,” say Mike Dombeck, Dale Bosworth, Tom Tidwell and Vicki Christiansen. But “regardless of who is in the White House, one thing has always remained true: Americans value their national forests, and they want to see them protected for the benefits they provide us.” Repealing the “Roadless Area Conservation Rule would not be in the long-term interest of the American people.”

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‘Close the gaps in our frayed social safety net’

Shaquille Nelson at The Progressive

In a “country as wealthy as the United States, it is a bitter irony that millions of people still fall through the cracks of a social safety net meant to protect them,” says Shaquille Nelson. Welfare programs “exist, but they are fragmented, riddled with arbitrary rules and built around abrupt cutoffs that punish progress.” Closing the “gaps in our social safety nets allows people to thrive rather than merely survive, ensures that ambition is rewarded, and strengthens society.”

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