Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

It’s open enrollment season. And for the 20 million Americans who buy their own health insurance, prices are through the roof.

Rates are up an average of 30 percent for a typical plan in the 30 states where the federal government manages markets. In states that run their own markets, rates are up an average of 17 percent. That’s according to an analysis from the health policy research group KFF.

Meanwhile, the longest government shutdown continues in Washington. Lawmakers still can’t agree over whether to extend subsidies that would make health insurance more affordable. Without those subsidies, experts estimate that more than 4 million people could lose access to insurance.

How did health insurance get so expensive in the first place? And who stands to benefit from higher costs?

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Ravi and Idrees Kahloon start with the current Supreme Court showdown: can a president raise tariffs alone, or does Congress have to sign off? They unpack why the Court might push back—and what that could mean for future presidents. Then they turn to immigration, where the U.S. may soon have more people leaving than arriving, with big effects on jobs and Social Security. Finally, they dig into education: why test scores are falling even as grades rise, and how places like Mississippi and New Orleans are turning things around by raising standards and focusing on real learning.

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The Inconvenient Success of New Orleans Schools (The 74, 8/25/25)

The Court Must Decide If the Constitution Means What It Says  (The Atlantic, 11/5/25)

America’s Impending Population Collapse (The Atlantic, 10/29/25)America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy (The Atlantic, 10/14/25)

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Leave us a voicemail with your thoughts on the show! 201-305-0084⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• Follow Ravi at @RaviMGupta

• Notes from this episode are also available on Substack: https://thelostdebate.substack.com/

• Read more from Ravi on Substack: https://realravigupta.substack.com 

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• Listen to Where the Schools Went: https://thebranchmedia.org/show/where-the-schools-went/ 
  

• Carol's new book, "Injustice" on the DOJ, Merrick Garland, and the Jack Smith investigations
• JVL's Wednesday Triad on Hispanic voters and 2028 
• Tim's 'Bulwark Take' with Rep. Pat Ryan on sports blackouts
• Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/BULWARK and use promo code BULWARK at checkout.

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.

The Flying Pig Academy is kind of an insider's how to.

This Flying Pig Episode: Politics are a mess, the American electorate is fed up. So what do we do about it? Way too many of us doom scroll through the latest political news from the comfort of our couch in the suburbs. Rightly disturbed that younger generations of Americans don't understand civics, way too many of us aren't practicing civics that would have direct impact on the communities, states and nation where we live. We've become political hobbyists and it's fueling the demand for performance art in our elected leaders.

Mentioned: Eitan Hersh on the dangers of political hobbyism.

Miss the first Flying Pig Academy Episode? Find it here.

The second in the series, after "Location, Location, Location" is an homage to our intellectual hero (and lucky for us, our friend and colleague) Dr. Jonathan Haidt who - literally - wrote the book for Pigs With Big Dreams. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Here are the rest of our Flying Pig episodes:

• Carom Shots: Why Working Upstream From Conflict is So Powerful OR how to become a civility pool shark
• Criss Cross Applesauce OR Complexity Changes Everything
• Core Catalyst Model OR What Old Trees Have to Teach Us About Rebuilding Civic Life

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether President Trump had the authority to impose the highest tariffs that the United States has seen in a century.

Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The Times, explains why it seems that the justices might be prepared to say no to the president.

Guest: Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court and writes Sidebar, a column on legal developments, for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Read five key takeaways from the Supreme Court’s tariff argument.
• The outcome of the case has immense economic and political implications for U.S. businesses, consumers and the president’s trade policy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Paris Marx is joined by Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear to discuss the many ways cars have negatively affected society, how tech companies seek to entrench those problems, and what can really be done to improve mobility in our communities.

Doug Gordon is a TV producer and writer. Sarah Goodyear is a journalist and author. They are the co-hosts of The War on Cars and co-authors of Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Fighting Traffic by Peter D. Norton

• Livable Streets by Donald Appleyard

• Your Six-Year-Old by Louise Bates Ames

• Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam

Virginia Giuffre’s memoir, “Nobody’s Girl,” is again shining a light on justice for the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

The Department of Justice says Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. Over the summer, she was moved to a minimum security prison in Texas after meeting privately with Trump administration officials.

In the book, Giuffre recounts how she was lured into Epstein’s world after meeting Maxwell at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spa at the age of 16. She was then subjected to years of abuse where she was sex trafficked, including to England’s former Prince Andrew, whose title was revoked last week in part due to these allegations.

Giuffre took her own life earlier this year. Even before her memoir was released posthumously, she was one of Epstein’s most outspoken accusers. We sit down with Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law about her story and their call for justice. We also speak with Marijke Chartouni, another Epstein survivor who says she was recruited in 2000 and was sexually assaulted by Epstein.

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