Opinion

Nancy Altman writes that President Donald Trump may be getting ready to kill social security by deferring the payment of payroll taxes. If he continues to do so, social security benefits will come to a screeching halt -- and Congress will be unable to do anything about it.

You've seen them. They check your name and voter registration when you arrive at your polling place, provide you with the correct ballot and hand you an "I Voted" sticker when you're done. They're poll workers: volunteers recruited and trained by county and local election officials to do the tough work of keeping our elections running.

On the eve of the 2016 election, Republicans appeared to dominate the religion-and-politics market in the United States. That year, 80% of White evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump.

A group of husky prisoners from the Philadelphia jail were carrying Benjamin Franklin on a stretcher back to his quarters after attending the last session of the Constitutional Convention in early September of 1787. The grandfather among the founding fathers was afflicted with a serious case of gout, but he had attended every session during that steamy hot summer. A well-dressed Philadelphia matron spied America's elder statesman and asked, "Mr. Franklin, what have you done?" "Given you a republic," Franklin replied, "if you can keep it."

If you'd asked me this past February, here are the things I'd have told you I'd be doing this summer: Launching a fourth book of poetry and going on tour with said book. In June, I was going to be in Seattle, Chicago, New York and LA. In July, I was going to teach for a short stint in Paris. My husband was going to come with me to Europe; we were going to leave our kids with the grandparents -- a blessed week alone together after nearly a decade of raising kids. Then I was going to give a reading in Edinburgh. Finally, in September, after the kids were back in school, I had a residency in Ireland.

Former police chief Cedric L. Alexander writes that police can't afford any perception that they're leaning toward vigilantes or showing support for any party or politician during the performance of their duties. "Any association with them casts the police in a partisan light that sacrifices the trust of the community."

President Donald Trump is right in believing most Americans don't want violence in their streets. But it's America's profound tragedy and grave danger that he, Trump, seems to want more of.

I can't remember what particular conversation triggered it, but I realized a couple of years ago that I needed to get specific with my young children. I needed to dispel their stark and static notions of "law and order" and to tell them their civil rights movement heroes were lawbreakers. In addition to making racial justice an explicit family value in our home, I had a responsibility to actively challenge racism -- in this case, by countering ideas like "criminals are bad because they break the law" and "police are good because they stop bad guys."