Paul Starr

From Paul Starr, a sobering note about expanding Medicaid in the holdout states. prospect.org/infrastructure…

The risk that the Supreme Court will overturn the Medicaid expansion provisions in the reconciliation package ought to shape decisions about what to keep and what to drop. It's a tough decision, but here's the case @TheProspect bit.ly/3BeqWBB

Legal cases against a former president are unfolding as he tries to regain the presidency—an unprecedented situation. “We are not done with Trump, and he is not done with us,” @StarrProspect writes. prospect.org/justice/can-ou…

But, in Trump's wake, we need a wider debate about limiting our chief executives. The threshold for impeachment and conviction is too steep. The provisions of Article 2 about presidential powers and their limits are too vague. Our system of checks and balances needs rethinking.

As difficult as amending the Constitution is, the pardon power is one area where Republicans might agree. They were outraged by Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich, just as Democrats are outraged by Trump's pardons now.

@theProspect. Trump has exposed problems that cannot be resolved without constitutional revisions. Let's start with the pardon power--so open-ended that it allows a president to pardon those who committed crimes for his benefit. bit.ly/3i9A6rs

And so, on the day it became clear that Biden beat Trump, the cities erupted in celebration. One America defeated another, but ...the sides are still too evenly matched for either one to give up, the differences too fundamental just to be patched over.

The elite cultural institutions are not on their side. Demographic change is going against them. The cities that are the center of the cultural and demographic shifts have been growing economically, while small-town and rural America have been stagnant or declining...

Everyone said this was a referendum on Trump, and it was. But it was also a referendum on the fundamental questions of morality and justice that are the deeper sources of the American divide. ...@theProspect prospect.org/politics/liber…

Pandemics are stress tests. They show whether a nation’s institutions and its leaders can meet their supreme responsibility to protect their people. With life itself at stake, pandemics reveal whose lives get protected and whose do not.@TheProspect prospect.org/coronavirus/pa…

#COVID is a scourge, but one blessing is that it rarely strikes school-age children. International evidence suggests that children-to-adult infection is also rare. We need to move deliberately ahead with reopening schools and here's how.@TheProspect bit.ly/2XJYp6B

Children are thankfully being spared by #COVID19. But they also need to be spared from the misplaced anxieties of adults. At first, public-health authorities based their policies on schools on earlier experience with flu. Now we know this is different. prospect.org/coronavirus/we…

More than 20 European nations have reopened schools successfully and shown that there is a practical path forward here too.@TheProspect prospect.org/coronavirus/we…

* And we need a collaborative process that would enable all relevant interests to be represented in policy. bit.ly/2XJYp6B

* We need clear alternatives to in-person classes for children and teachers at high risk of severe illness. * We need a commitment of federal funds to the states to prevent massive layoffs of teachers and other staff that will make it impossible to reopen schools safely...

The impact of #COVID19 has been concentrated among the aged, the immunocompromised, and individuals with underlying conditions. The US needs to protect vulnerable groups. But it does not need to keep schools closed to do so.... @TheProspect