News & Commentary

This piece originally ran at Al Jazeera English.  The day after US President Donald Trump signed his now notorious Muslim ban, he spoke with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merk

One of the most popular components of the Affordable Care Act is the requirement that health insurance companies cover birth control without a co-pay.  Over 55 million women have benefitted from the coverage.  Nevertheless, over the last several years there has been an onslaught of court challenges to the birth control benefit by employers with religious objections to including the coverage in their employees’ health plans.  Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, has played a key role in these cases.  In each one he sided

There has been much talk lately about the dangers of normalizing President Trump’s extreme policy ideas and behavior. As a third presidential administration takes over Guantánamo, the idea that men will be imprisoned forever without charge or trial is also at risk of becoming “normal.” That is something that we cannot let happen because it is completely at odds with the American values of justice, fairness, and the rule of law. President Obama transferred 198 detainees out of Guantánamo and President Bush transferred out ma

Now that President Trump has nominated federal judge Neil Gorsuch to be considered for the Supreme Court, one question on everyone’s mind is, “What’s his position on Roe v. Wade?”  That is a shorthand way of asking, “Does he believe that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion.” That is a critically important question, but often it’s not the most important one regarding abortion rights.Here’s why.  Right now there are five justices on the Supreme Court who agree that the Constit

Following press reports that the White House was considering issuing an executive order that would roll back and undermine nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people, the administration made clear that President Trump would not repeal a landmark executive order signed by President Obama in 2014 that prohibits businesses that contract with the federal government from discriminating against LGBT people. But this is only part of the story. President Trump has surrounded himself with

With the sweep of his pen, President Donald Trump caused the U.S. immigration system to go into total disarray and sowed global chaos and confusion on Friday afternoon. The executive order he signed at 4:42 p.m. suspended all Syrian refugees from entering the country indefinitely, prohibited any other refugees from coming into the country for 120 days, and banned foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from visiting the country for 90 days. Refugees and people were caught completely off-guard by the order. They reacted with fear, disbelief, a