Latest Stories By Jon Greenberg

The movie “Oppenheimer” is less about the bomb and more about the trials — both moral and political — that beset J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was the World War II physicist who spearheaded America’s race to beat the Nazis before they could invent an atomic bomb. But to the extent that this is a war […]

President Joe Biden has accused some Republicans of threatening Social Security’s future, a charge they have denied.  The attack — and the defense — ignore these facts about Social Security: the Social Security trust funds could be depleted as early as 2032, unless Congress acts to prevent that. Without action, starting in 2035, Social Security […]

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to release its final report later this month in a public presentation in Washington, D.C. The committee interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and held nine public hearings investigating aspects of what led up to the Jan. 6 attack, what […]

Count Arizona as another state where Republicans could pick up a Senate seat and flip the chamber. Polls show a statistical tie in the race between Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly and Republican tech investor and political newcomer Blake Masters. Kelly, an astronaut, won in 2020 by 2.4% in a special election to fill the seat […]

Democrats look at the $1.27 trillion a year Social Security program and see their party’s legacy, a key piece of the country’s economic safety net. Republicans see an entitlement program that more than 65 million people count on, but is fast becoming unaffordable. In the final weeks before the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats are ringing […]

In its final hearing before the midterm elections, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol made its case that former President Donald Trump knew he had lost, lied to his followers about it, and tried every possible device to overturn the results of a legitimate election. At the […]

Arizona offers Republicans a chance to pick up a Senate seat and win control of the chamber. Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly leads Republican Blake Masters in the polls, but Masters is within striking range. In an Oct. 6 debate, the two candidates, plus Libertarian Marc Victor, highlighted their differences on abortion and immigration. This […]

The dispute over what it means to be a MAGA Republican has given the GOP an opening to accuse President Joe Biden of “smearing” half the voters in the country — the roughly 47% of those who voted in 2020 for former President Donald Trump. MAGA — Trump’s trademark Make America Great Again 2016 campaign […]

The ongoing crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, is a dramatic reminder of the fragility of Americans’ water supply systems. When recent flooding overloaded the city’s already hobbled water treatment plant, tap water became unsafe to drink for the city’s 180,000 residents, more than 80% of whom are Black. The city no longer has enough water pressure […]

The Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law earlier this month, delivered an unprecedented $369 billion to put the nation on the path to steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Central to the plan is the expansion of renewable power, and President Joe Biden put some ambitious numbers on the table. “By 2030, we’ll have […]

As soon as President Joe Biden announced his plan to forgive student loan debt for millions of Americans, facts and figures streamed across the internet projecting the plan’s impact. The loan relief “will literally change my life,” tweeted one Pell Grant recipient. “More needs to be done before we’ve sufficiently pulled multiple generations out of […]

A bill on climate change, health care and corporate taxation advances some of the key promises President Joe Biden campaigned on in 2020. But the scaled-back bill also offers a reminder of other Biden campaign promises that had to be pushed off until later, if ever. The bill is expected to receive Biden’s signature in […]