IMPORTANT READS

SETTLING OLD SCORES - A British judge on Wednesday officially approved the U.S. government's request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces espionage charges for publishing classified material that exposed war crimes by American forces.

TAX DAY - Today, as millions of Californians rush to file their tax returns and apply for tax credits, state lawmakers are returning to Sacramento from an 11-day spring recess — and preparing to resume negotiations over the best way to put money back in residents’ pockets.

MASS VIOLENCE - In just the past few years, we have witnessed mass violence directed at innocent people in many places:

WANT TO BET-Sitting at the poker table is filled with so much fraught, especially for newbies. Having a strategy is what is most desirable for any rookie’s success.

MILITARY TAX - Most of us want our tax dollars to be wisely used — especially around tax time.

GUEST COMMENTARY - I think we can now say the obvious: The Republican Party has gone bull-goose bonkers.

SCOTUS - As I have written before, the U.S. Supreme Court is facing a crisis of legitimacy driven by a growing public perception that the court is a political institution dominated by conservative activists masquerading as impartial guardians of the Constitution. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - It should come as no surprise that Facebook, alongside many big tech companies, opposes anti-monopoly regulatory efforts, expanding antitrust rules, and strengthening privacy and user rights.

OUR DEMOCRACY - Washington Post opinion columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. votes at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland.

RENT CONTROL - As corporate landlords keep setting sky-high prices in the rental housing market, tenants are getting slammed by unfair rents, more evictions, and more homelessness.

CLASS OF DISCONTENTS - Twenty-first-century America may be dominated by oligarchic elites, but arguably the biggest threat to our economic and political system might be located further down the food chain.

SCOTUS - If she is confirmed by the Senate next week, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson would arguably become the most accomplished Justice on the Supreme Court, and the first to have served as a public defender.

POLITICS & SOCIAL MEDIA - The new revelation Wednesday that Facebook hired one of the largest Republican consulting firms in the United States to carry out a public attack campaign against rival platform TikTok was seen as further evidence of the social media behemoth's growing alliance with the GOP political apparatus.

URBAN WATCH - As the centers of media and political discourse, large cities, notably New York, have a unique ability to promote themselves, asserting that dense, core urban areas own the future.

DOJ WATCH - I know you've heard this before—that accountability is coming for Donald Trump and his cronies for triggering the Jan. 6th insurrection—

NEW TAX CODE - Economic experts and progressives opposed to the outrageous levels of inequality in the United States celebrated Saturday evening

WEALTH DISTRIBUTION - During four years of Donald Trump’s high-anxiety presidency, Republicans could at least point to one goal accomplished amid the noise and two impeachments: the 2017 tax reform law.

NUCLEAR WAR - I’ve been darkly amused by the large number of people I’ve seen and heard dismissing the possibility of nuclear World War III emerging from the Ukraine War:

POLITICS 2022 - The depression-era comedian Will Rogers once famously said he did not belong to an organized political party because he was a Democrat.

ECONOMY - Inflation! Inflation! Everyone’s talking about it, but ignoring one of its biggest causes: corporate concentration.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS - For more than six months, people in Texas have been unable to access abortion in the state beyond the earliest weeks of pregnancy.