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“America will never be a socialist country,” President Trump said as he launched his bid for re-election last week.That declaration was an effort to frighten Americans and undermine growing support for expanding Medicare and Social Security—two popular programs that have long been derided as “socialist.” Mr. Trump’s declaration hypocritically ignores that he and his Republican colleagues are the nation’s leading purveyors of an insidious form of corporate socialism, which uses government power and taxpayer resources to enrich Mr. Trump and his billionaire friends. (Sen. Bernie Sanders, 6/26)

Elizabeth Warren came into Wednesday night’s debate as the candidate to watch most closely, the only one of the 10 onstage who had double-digit support in polls, with an apparent momentum that none of those rivals could claim. Her performance over two hours in Miami probably strengthened that position. During the first hour, Warren was crisper than most of her peers. She was clearer. I didn’t always like what she said — or how she said it. But she said it well, leaving no doubt about the direction in which she’d pull the country and giving voters a fair amount of detail, within the crushing constraints of time, about the map that she’d use to travel there. (Frank Bruni, 6/27)

On a range of issues, including immigration, climate change, health care, the economy and more, the Democratic candidates were unabashed in their enthusiasm for more government activism, signaling not only differences with President Trump but also with a more cautious approach by Democratic politicians of the past two decades. Whether the Democrats put their best face forward was another question, however. The debate was often marred by squabbling, interruptions, and candidates talking over one another and ignoring time limits. The often fractious tone highlighted the stakes for many of those on the stage who have struggled for attention during the first months of the campaign. (Dan Balz, 6/27)

A moderator joked that Warren has “a plan” for just about everything. That’s good. And viewers heard many of them but they already knew of her liberal-minded campaign promises: Medicare for all, breaking up giant tech companies, addressing climate change. They already know she is a bit of a Bernie Sanders. We know what she stands for. Warren didn’t move the needle much, but no one else did either Wednesday night. (6/26)

The United States needs an immigration policy that combines border security, justice and humanity. No one with a conscience can look at the photo of an asylum seeker and his 23-month-old daughter lying dead on the bank of the Rio Grande and accept the status quo. That single tragedy, reminiscent of the photo of a drowned Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015, has the power to clarify a vast, long-running problem that has already claimed many lives. What it should also do is prompt urgent action from the country’s elected representatives to compromise over their many differences and resolve a stalemate that is no longer tolerable. (6/24)

If you had the power to eliminate several common cancers and prevent your children from developing them, you’d use it, wouldn’t you? We have that power today for cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), but we aren’t fully using our available resources, including vaccination for primary prevention and screening and treatment for precancerous changes in the cervix. HPV causes six different kinds of cancer: cervical, oropharyngeal (throat), anal, penile, vaginal, and vulvar cancers. Shockingly, most of them are on the rise in the United States. Our best prevention tool — the HPV vaccine — hasn’t been fully utilized. (Anna R. Giuliano and Gilbert S. Omenn, 6/27)

In recent years, one promising Alzheimer’s drug after another has failed to produce results in clinical trials. At the same time, the growing number of older adults with cognitive problems is reaching a crisis point. In 2018, there were 5.7 million people in the United States living with Alzheimer's disease. That number is projected to grow to 13.8 million by 2050, threatening to overwhelm the U.S. healthcare system. (Gary Rosenberg, 6/26)

Reporters and editors at mainstream media outlets should be on their best behavior these days, after years of accusations of “fake news.” But there’s a type of misleading reporting that many are finding hard to avoid: the creation of phony health scares, usually mixed up with manners and morals. Last week, the Washington Post fell into the trap with a claim that looking down at smartphones was causing young people’s skulls to sprout “horns.” Other news outlets followed. (Faye Flam, 2/26)

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found “vaping” to be twice as effective as Food and Drug Administration-approved nicotine replacements (patches, gum, lozenges) in helping smokers quit cigarettes. Even more absurd is the fact that regular, combustible cigarettes remain untouched on the shelves of convenience stores. "We’re basically saying that we only care about the risks of kids vaping, but we don’t care about whether they smoke or not," Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University who studies tobacco regulation, told Wired magazine. This is harm maximization: Banning sale of e-cigarettes virtually guarantees that many vapers will go back to their Marlboros. It also puts teen vapers — the very impetus for the ban — at increased risk for smoking. (Sally Satel and Erica Sandberg, 6/26)