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Blessed are the children
Blessed are the children – this is the teaching of every religion. The miracle of birth and the joy of new life are transcendent. In this rich country, however, too many babies and too many mothers are at risk – and far too many are dying. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that new mothers in America are dying at a higher rate than those in any other industrial country. A higher percentage of children die before their first birthday in the U.S. than in any other industrial country.
Selma's Mirror
The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, is famed as the site of Bloody Sunday, the violent 1965 police riot that sparked a national outrage powerful enough to drive the Voting Rights Act through the Congress. This past weekend, my son Jonathan and I joined with President Biden, political leaders, ministers and veterans of that march to commemorate that terrible day.
Will the Ron DeSantis Bubble Burst?
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has made himself into the leading rival to Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. He won a sweeping re-election victory as governor in 2022, even as Republicans generally were underperforming. Now, he’s used that position to pick purposeful fights on polarizing social issues, clearly seeking to cater to the fury of the MAGA Republican base. By assailing what he calls “wokeness,” including everything from vaccinations, Dr. Fauci, critical race theory, LGBTQ students, and how American history is taught, he apparently hopes to offer Republicans a new generation culture warrior who can rouse Trump’s base and have a broader appeal to suburban voters.
Automatic voter registration a sensible first step
As Americans, we hail our democracy as a beacon to the world. And all agree the right to vote is the fundamental cornerstone of democracy. Yet in our election last fall, fewer than half of all eligible voters cast a ballot – and that is considered a relatively high turnout. We need a nationwide drive to extend and promote the right to vote, the most fundamental of all political rights in a democracy. Let’s start by automatic voter registration – registering every eligible voter automatically on his or her 18th birthday.
President Biden’s State of the Union
Joe Biden’s State of the Union will feature good news. He has much to report – record job growth, record low unemployment, inflation down, and new efforts underway to rebuild our infrastructure, move to renewable energy and start to bring jobs back home.
We cannot accept mass murder
Once more the horror. Three mass shootings in California – 11 killed at a ballroom dance hall in Monterey Park, seven killed at Half Moon Bay, and a week earlier, a 16-year-old mother and four others shot in a California farming community – are tragic and grotesquely routine. The savage beating and murder of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers was criminal, and one more incidence of police brutality that too often is unleashed on African American men.
The Lunatics Truly Have Taken Over the Asylum
The zany fight among congressional Republicans over electing their own leader as Speaker of the House dramatized the nuttiness of their extreme right. What's more worrisome for the country, however, is just how off the wall the Republican majority is as a body.
The true meaning of Christmas
In this last week before Christmas, millions of people across the world are preparing to celebrate. Families will gather; music will be in the air. Christmas has become a holiday, a time for exchanging presents and cards, for seeing friends and family. It is a commercial bonanza, with people straining their budgets to buy gifts, and merchants rolling out bargains to lure people to spend more. For too many, it is a difficult time, particularly for the cold and hungry, those separated from families, those alone or imprisoned or sick.
Democrats must respond to young voters
"Dance with the one that brung you," goes the old saw. Democrats would be wise to absorb its wisdom. In the last election, pundits expected a "red wave," with inflation high, Biden unpopular, and the history of midterm elections. Instead, Democrats were handed the best midterm results of any party since the 2002 midterm when Republicans were boosted by the post-9/11 sentiments.
Racial gerrymandering and the GOP House win
There is a bitter fruit from the 2022 congressional elections: the bare majority Republicans won in the House of Representatives is the direct result of racial gerrymandering. A new Jim Crow is back, empowered - as was the original Jim Crow - by partisan right-wing justices on the Supreme Court. Americans voted for democracy in 2022, even as the Supreme Court voted to undermine it.
Democracy is on the ballot
Tuesday, Nov. 8, is Election Day. Television and social media are plastered wall to wall with political attack ads that offer voters far more heat than light. We hear more about blame than about solutions. The noise distracts from the reality: real issues are at stake in the election.
Voters must decide which way to go
Some early voting is already underway in the 2022 elections. By all accounts, turnout is remarkably high; the partisan divide remarkably deep. The days when both parties were broad coalitions of liberals, moderates and conservatives are long gone. The partisan sorting-out began when Republicans responded to the civil rights movement by seeking to capture the white vote in the South. Now, Trump's successful efforts to purge or intimidate politicians who objected to his behavior have deepened the divide.
Federal Reserve Determined to Stop Growth
Jobs are back so workers have a target on their backs. The Labor Department reports the economy produced 263,000 jobs in September. After losing an unimaginable 22 million jobs in the first two months of COVID as the economy shut down under Donald Trump, we've now gained all those jobs back and then some. Wages have even begun to inch upwards.
Some Politicians Confuse Freedom with Irresponsibility
As extreme weather caused floods in Kentucky, collapse of the water system in Jackson Mississippi, and the savage destruction of central Florida - to say nothing of fires and drought and a growing water shortage in the West - we ought to agree on two simple realities: America faces a growing challenge from both catastrophic climate change and a growing infrastructure deficit that is putting lives and communities at risk.
A Question of Justice
In 1838, in a shameful chapter of American history, U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott forced tens of thousands of Cherokee Indians - one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" that had embraced the customs and language of white settlers - to march 1,200 miles to what was designated "Indian Territory" across the Mississippi (centered in what is now Oklahoma). Their lands were confiscated; their homes looted. Along what became known as the Trail of Tears, whooping cough, typhus, dysentery, and starvation took a deadly toll, with an estimated one-quarter of the Cherokee people perishing along the way.
RIP Frank Watkins
When we think about movements that change the course of history, we naturally think of their leaders. Yet every movement is dependent on unsung heroes - creative, dedicated and passionate people who devote their energy to the cause, beneath the glare of the camera. With the passing of Frank Watkins this week, RainbowPush lost one of the greatest of its heroes - and I lost a piece of my soul. Frank was more than a friend; he was my brother for 52 years in the struggle.
The Passing of the British Empire
Queen Elizabeth II's death at 96 has occasioned an outpouring of tributes and grieving across the world. Heads of state, including Joe Biden, mourn her passing. Common citizens have built mountains of flowers at her gate. The British football league even postponed its games for a weekend in her honor.
Water crisis in Jackson reflects vicious neglect
In sweltering heat, 150,000 residents of Jackson, Mississippi, the state's capital and its largest city, now have no running water, after suffering under a "boil only" order for weeks. The last catastrophe came after extreme rainfall in Jackson swelled the Pearl River and swamped the city's outmoded water treatment plant.
Right to register and vote is not a partisan issue
The right to vote, Dr. Martin Luther King taught in his famous “Give Us the Ballot” address, is one of the “highest mandates of our democratic tradition.” Democracy is founded on the right of citizens to decide via popular, free and fair elections who should represent them. Across the world, the U.S. champions democracy. Yet at home the right to vote is embattled.
