The paywall prevented a read of the article but the headline was there as the proof in the pudding. To hell with the click. If anyone decided to subscribe after reading that, they deserve the WaPo.
The way ads work, you get paid by traffic. And content providers, WaPo included, use traffic as a measure of what's working so that they can do more of it. It is in short a bad idea to send traffic to articles or headlines you don't approve of.
WaPo is a gargantuan embarrassment. This once stalwart newspaper who was a champion for democracy, the truth, and a flagship of fearless reporting, now seems they want to be the Washington version of the Murdoch owned New York Post. When they sold out to MAGA and Trump, they've become nothing more than toothless scribes who parrot Trump's party line.
I was a long time subscriber, at least 8 to 10 years, but it's become too much to bear. When my subscription runs out next month, I'll be ignoring the blue "Resubscribe" button on the top of their web page as I walk away. I may not have any power to stop Trump from careening our nation into a fascist state, but I'll not pay WaPo in their apparent effort to hasten it along.
I "guessed" right, (A)because I know this is a current issue. As a mental health professional for over 45 years, I don't disagree with the actual statement "Involuntary commitment got a bad rap." I worked in the deinstitutional process. Institutions were hellholes where habilitation was absent. (There was also a dearth of understanding of mental health treatment, only a few medications compared to today, and -- possibly most importantly--chronic, severe, cruel underfunding. ) Certainly invountary commitment was overused and abused. People with other types of disabilities were subjected to it. People placed in institutions were deprived of rights. There was no due process (sound familiar?). The problem as I saw it was not that there was a process whereby a person who was a danger to themselves or others could be involuntarily placed in a setting where they would receive care and treatment, than that the settings were nothing of the sort. This actual editorial goes on to explain many of the things various states are doing to try to mitigate the situations of people with mental illness. It also contains some BS, as saying that states decided that it was too expensive to maintain institutions and that therefore they'd just as soon have the people living on the streets. That may have been in the minds of some legislators, I don't know. But deinstitutionalization was accomplished because of zealous reformers who wanted to make sure that people with mental illness were provided effective and compassionate care in decent environments. It is true that these reformers used "it will be cheaper in the community" to sell their ideas of a more civilized way of handling the problem. But as someone who was in that soup all along, having people living on the streets was never planned for or expected. One of Trump's horrific plans inside the return of involuntary commitment, is to do away with "housing first" programs. That's as demonic as most of the current regime's other plans. Many people with mental illness can survive and be safe if they have a safe place to go to; and a particularly effective method involves safe housing and medications support. I could go on but I won't. I will just point out that, as with so many other things that are wrong with our current society, part of what is causing this problem is that the community providers who contract with states to support people, are increasingly for-profit mega companies with their eye on the bottom line, skimming the profit off the top of the solutions that were already "cheaper" by virtue of under-funding.
Very insightful. I was a teenager in the Central Valley of California when Reagan closed state mental hospitals; my best friend had been in one. Cost cutting, but also the promise of well funded community care—which, if I recall correctly, never happened. Mental health care is very expensive and labor intensive and capitalist America has never really embraced it. Unsurprisingly, in the current environment, I’m encountering eugenicists much more often; I suspect they’ve always been there on the Right, but now have Trump’s execrable “permission” to speak up. No wonder fundamentalist “Christians” are now trying to sell the idea that empathy is a sin.
Here's a selection of editorial headlines from the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune Editorial Board is hopeless. I cancelling my subscription. My comments are in brackets, before and after selected text.
Editorial: What Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s words on disagreement can teach us (August 21)
“It occurs to me that law is a profession that, unlike some others, operates continually through the strain of disagreement,” she said. [I wish we could see what the Supreme Court justices disagree with when they override the decisions of lower courts, but they don’t tell us.]
Here was the part of her remarks that most hit home with us: “We know how to argue, but we also know how to do it without letting it consume relationships.” [If she and the other justices know how to argue, then let them make their arguments so we can examine them. What are they afraid of?]
Our current political climate is particularly dangerous because people have started viewing anyone who disagrees with their politics as evil or less than human. And when you dehumanize people in this fashion, it becomes OK to hate them — or even hurt them.
[But it’s okay to scold an elected public official who is under attack by MAGA for expressing positive feelings about the country her parents immigrated from. Next editorial….]
Editorial: Words matter when you’re elected to represent America, Congresswoman Ramirez (August 6)
When a member of Congress publicly declares allegiance to another country over the United States, it’s bound to raise eyebrows — and for good reason…. {This is based on a translation of Spanish words that were hard to hear. https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/08/06/delia-ramirez-congress-representative-america-guatemala-immigration. Besides, lots of eyebrows are raised these days about the loyalty of a person far more powerful than Ramirez. But there’s no editorial about that.]
We have to hope the clarification provided by Ramirez, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, reflects what she actually thinks. [It sounds to me like they don’t trust her.] When speaking on the world stage, elected officials must choose their words carefully….[so preachy]
Democrats have a valuable opportunity here to reaffirm that patriotism and progressivism [“progressivism” is an evil to conservatives, as communism was once upon a time] are not mutually exclusive — that you can celebrate diversity while championing America [the idea that celebrating diversity harms America is chilling].
[The Tribune fails to make the connection between the Congresswoman’s work to oppose Trump’s policies and its viewpoint that the National Guard is not welcome in Chicago. Next editorial…]
Editorial: The last thing Chicago needs is Washington-style dystopia (August 22)
…this “crime emergency” is little more than a pretext for Trump to display his vision of a muscular executive branch intervening in the affairs of urban America. Not coincidentally, these are parts of the country that generally didn’t vote for him and continue to oppose his priorities. [And are represented by leaders like Delia Ramirez who is getting attacked by MAGA because of her outspokenness on immigration and the terrible policies of the Dept of Homeland Security.]
Chicago is struggling to govern itself overall, it’s true, and we’ve been consistent critics of many progressive policies that we believe are holding the city back.
But the city is making headway on crime and the key players all have changed for the better. Our federal government is supposed to act as a support for local government. [And local newspapers should act as a support for Chicago’s representatives in Congress, not jump on MAGA’s race-baiting bandwagon, which fuels the hatred that the Tribune says leads to violence.]
There is still a place for involuntary commitment, but the need is rather rare as most of the mentally ill are not violent. But we lack proper facilities even in those relatively small numbers. I suspect, sadly, that it’s going to be many years before the situation is dealt with adequately—and it’s never been dealt with particularly well at scale in this country, as far as I know.
Just finished Mercedes de Guardiola’s history of eugenics in Vermont (“Vermont for the Vermonters) — involuntary “segregation” of people deemed ‘defectives’ was the primary strategy. It extended to anyone deemed “undesirable “ . A very slippery slope in the 1910s and 20s that has real parallels to current arguments
Any one of them would make perfect sense in WaPo world. Also, I'd prefer a link to a screenshot, or just put a screenshot in the replies. I don't want to click on any actual WaPo links.
Why are you giving them traffic by linking to the real article in the answer?
The paywall prevented a read of the article but the headline was there as the proof in the pudding. To hell with the click. If anyone decided to subscribe after reading that, they deserve the WaPo.
The way ads work, you get paid by traffic. And content providers, WaPo included, use traffic as a measure of what's working so that they can do more of it. It is in short a bad idea to send traffic to articles or headlines you don't approve of.
A fun idea. I hope someone gives the answer in the comments because I don't want to open a WaPo account to see the answer.
I gave up my WaPo account ages ago. But they should probably paywall their titles, b/c they're such an embarasment these days.
I cancelled WaPo a few years ago, but you can see the headline if you click the link.
WaPo is a gargantuan embarrassment. This once stalwart newspaper who was a champion for democracy, the truth, and a flagship of fearless reporting, now seems they want to be the Washington version of the Murdoch owned New York Post. When they sold out to MAGA and Trump, they've become nothing more than toothless scribes who parrot Trump's party line.
I was a long time subscriber, at least 8 to 10 years, but it's become too much to bear. When my subscription runs out next month, I'll be ignoring the blue "Resubscribe" button on the top of their web page as I walk away. I may not have any power to stop Trump from careening our nation into a fascist state, but I'll not pay WaPo in their apparent effort to hasten it along.
love this headline shaming idea!
OMG. I guessed right, but WTF?
BTW, love this new "feature."
I "guessed" right, (A)because I know this is a current issue. As a mental health professional for over 45 years, I don't disagree with the actual statement "Involuntary commitment got a bad rap." I worked in the deinstitutional process. Institutions were hellholes where habilitation was absent. (There was also a dearth of understanding of mental health treatment, only a few medications compared to today, and -- possibly most importantly--chronic, severe, cruel underfunding. ) Certainly invountary commitment was overused and abused. People with other types of disabilities were subjected to it. People placed in institutions were deprived of rights. There was no due process (sound familiar?). The problem as I saw it was not that there was a process whereby a person who was a danger to themselves or others could be involuntarily placed in a setting where they would receive care and treatment, than that the settings were nothing of the sort. This actual editorial goes on to explain many of the things various states are doing to try to mitigate the situations of people with mental illness. It also contains some BS, as saying that states decided that it was too expensive to maintain institutions and that therefore they'd just as soon have the people living on the streets. That may have been in the minds of some legislators, I don't know. But deinstitutionalization was accomplished because of zealous reformers who wanted to make sure that people with mental illness were provided effective and compassionate care in decent environments. It is true that these reformers used "it will be cheaper in the community" to sell their ideas of a more civilized way of handling the problem. But as someone who was in that soup all along, having people living on the streets was never planned for or expected. One of Trump's horrific plans inside the return of involuntary commitment, is to do away with "housing first" programs. That's as demonic as most of the current regime's other plans. Many people with mental illness can survive and be safe if they have a safe place to go to; and a particularly effective method involves safe housing and medications support. I could go on but I won't. I will just point out that, as with so many other things that are wrong with our current society, part of what is causing this problem is that the community providers who contract with states to support people, are increasingly for-profit mega companies with their eye on the bottom line, skimming the profit off the top of the solutions that were already "cheaper" by virtue of under-funding.
Very insightful. I was a teenager in the Central Valley of California when Reagan closed state mental hospitals; my best friend had been in one. Cost cutting, but also the promise of well funded community care—which, if I recall correctly, never happened. Mental health care is very expensive and labor intensive and capitalist America has never really embraced it. Unsurprisingly, in the current environment, I’m encountering eugenicists much more often; I suspect they’ve always been there on the Right, but now have Trump’s execrable “permission” to speak up. No wonder fundamentalist “Christians” are now trying to sell the idea that empathy is a sin.
WaPo editorial board (again) 8/20
The Texas Gerrymander Freakout - What's happening in the Lone Star State is not a threat to democracy.
OK, I "took one for the team." I bit. Correct answer was "A".
I didn't think the Post had any employees left. So many people have quit the paper and I no longer subscribe.
Here's a selection of editorial headlines from the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune Editorial Board is hopeless. I cancelling my subscription. My comments are in brackets, before and after selected text.
Editorial: What Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s words on disagreement can teach us (August 21)
“It occurs to me that law is a profession that, unlike some others, operates continually through the strain of disagreement,” she said. [I wish we could see what the Supreme Court justices disagree with when they override the decisions of lower courts, but they don’t tell us.]
Here was the part of her remarks that most hit home with us: “We know how to argue, but we also know how to do it without letting it consume relationships.” [If she and the other justices know how to argue, then let them make their arguments so we can examine them. What are they afraid of?]
Our current political climate is particularly dangerous because people have started viewing anyone who disagrees with their politics as evil or less than human. And when you dehumanize people in this fashion, it becomes OK to hate them — or even hurt them.
[But it’s okay to scold an elected public official who is under attack by MAGA for expressing positive feelings about the country her parents immigrated from. Next editorial….]
Editorial: Words matter when you’re elected to represent America, Congresswoman Ramirez (August 6)
When a member of Congress publicly declares allegiance to another country over the United States, it’s bound to raise eyebrows — and for good reason…. {This is based on a translation of Spanish words that were hard to hear. https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/08/06/delia-ramirez-congress-representative-america-guatemala-immigration. Besides, lots of eyebrows are raised these days about the loyalty of a person far more powerful than Ramirez. But there’s no editorial about that.]
We have to hope the clarification provided by Ramirez, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, reflects what she actually thinks. [It sounds to me like they don’t trust her.] When speaking on the world stage, elected officials must choose their words carefully….[so preachy]
Democrats have a valuable opportunity here to reaffirm that patriotism and progressivism [“progressivism” is an evil to conservatives, as communism was once upon a time] are not mutually exclusive — that you can celebrate diversity while championing America [the idea that celebrating diversity harms America is chilling].
[The Tribune fails to make the connection between the Congresswoman’s work to oppose Trump’s policies and its viewpoint that the National Guard is not welcome in Chicago. Next editorial…]
Editorial: The last thing Chicago needs is Washington-style dystopia (August 22)
…this “crime emergency” is little more than a pretext for Trump to display his vision of a muscular executive branch intervening in the affairs of urban America. Not coincidentally, these are parts of the country that generally didn’t vote for him and continue to oppose his priorities. [And are represented by leaders like Delia Ramirez who is getting attacked by MAGA because of her outspokenness on immigration and the terrible policies of the Dept of Homeland Security.]
Chicago is struggling to govern itself overall, it’s true, and we’ve been consistent critics of many progressive policies that we believe are holding the city back.
But the city is making headway on crime and the key players all have changed for the better. Our federal government is supposed to act as a support for local government. [And local newspapers should act as a support for Chicago’s representatives in Congress, not jump on MAGA’s race-baiting bandwagon, which fuels the hatred that the Tribune says leads to violence.]
With today's MSM, all are entirely plausible
WaPo has had some stinker headlines over the years. I don't even bother looking at the article/opinion when the headline stinks.
As ex-journalist Dan Gillmor (and perhaps others) have said, "Bad headlines are bad journalism."
Do any commentators have suggestions for mentally ill people who are a danger to others?
There is still a place for involuntary commitment, but the need is rather rare as most of the mentally ill are not violent. But we lack proper facilities even in those relatively small numbers. I suspect, sadly, that it’s going to be many years before the situation is dealt with adequately—and it’s never been dealt with particularly well at scale in this country, as far as I know.
I picked the correct one…I wish I hadn’t…
Just finished Mercedes de Guardiola’s history of eugenics in Vermont (“Vermont for the Vermonters) — involuntary “segregation” of people deemed ‘defectives’ was the primary strategy. It extended to anyone deemed “undesirable “ . A very slippery slope in the 1910s and 20s that has real parallels to current arguments
Any one of them would make perfect sense in WaPo world. Also, I'd prefer a link to a screenshot, or just put a screenshot in the replies. I don't want to click on any actual WaPo links.