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Civil Rights Will Suffer Under Sessions
Donald Trump's first three weeks in office have left Americans reeling from what Republican speechwriter Peggy Noonan called his "cloud of crazy." His cabinet nominees seem intentionally perverse: an education secretary who has no clue about public schools; an energy secretary who wanted to eliminate the department; a treasury secretary from Goldman Sachs who ran a home foreclosure factory.
Sadly, NCAA Players Have to Be the Adults In the Room
How many lives of young men and women should be sacrificed for entertainment - and for billions in profit? That question can't be ducked as the NCAA allows colleges to begin "voluntary" football practices, and other college teams begin to practice.
‘I Do Not Believe You Are a Racist’
At the Miami Democratic Presidential Debate, Kamala Harris questioned Joe Biden about his opposition to integrating the schools through court-ordered busing. Biden responded: “I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education.” After the debate, Biden spoke at the Rainbow Push Convention in Chicago. He said, “I want to be absolutely clear about my record and position on racial justice, including busing. I never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing.”
The Vote Is the Centerpiece of Democracy
August 6 is the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. If the constitutional amendments passed after the Civil War -- the 13, 14 and 15th Amendments -- were the "second founding" of democracy in America, the Voting Rights Act, which after nearly a century of segregation gave legal effect to the 15th Amendment that outlawed discrimination in the right to vote, should be considered the "third founding."
More Than Obama's Legacy at Stake in ACA Repeal
President Obama returns to sweet home Chicago Tuesday night to say farewell to the nation. It will be an evening of joy, tears and pride in a job well done, despite the harsh headwinds of resistance he faced every day for eight years.
Reform and The Moral Center
"Too radical, impractical, too costly, impossible, can't pass the Senate." Those are the terms centrist Democrats use to describe the bold reform ideas put forth by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic presidential primaries. "Venezuela, socialist, communist tripe, crazy" are the jibes preferred by Donald Trump and Republicans. All this begs the same question: What do they plan to do to meet the challenges we face?
Has America Come Any Closer to King's Dream?
Last weekend marked the 53d anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. Over half a century. Has America come any closer to his dream?
The 1619 Project
On Sunday, the New York Times unveiled "The 1619 Project," a journalistic series in the Sunday magazine that seeks to tell the "unvarnished truth" about slavery and its impact on America's history. In 1619, just 12 years after the founding of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, the Jamestown colonists bought the first slaves, 20 to 30 enslaved Africans, from English pirates.
Trump's Stump Speech Is A Con Job
President Donald Trump is back on the stump, promising to campaign "six or seven days a week" until the general election to try to keep Republicans in control of both Houses of Congress.
The Myths and Lies About Poverty
"The poor will always be with us," say the cynics. No doubt, some will always be wealthier than others. We wouldn't want to live in a society that forced all to be equal. But poverty isn't inevitable. The 30 million people in America who lived in poverty even before the pandemic when unemployment was at record lows needn't exist in that state.
Scientific Community Must Reach Out to Ensure African Americans Gain Confidence to Get Vaccinated
On Friday, I received my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. I was honored to be accompanied by Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, the brilliant African-American viral immunologist who is a rock star in the field of immunology science.
Harvey, Noah and The Floods
It is too soon to know the extent of the damage done by Hurricane Harvey. Estimates are that over a million people have been displaced. As I write this, 49 are feared dead -- a number that will continue to climb. The governor of Texas estimated that his state will need "far in excess" of $125 billion in federal funding to help rebuild. Harvey broke the U.S. record for rainfall from a single storm. Houston, the fourth largest city in America, was hit with 50 inches of rain.
Pell Grants Needed for Low-income Students
Nuts. There may be fancier words to describe Donald Trump's latest lunacy -- but just plain "nuts" is most accurate. The president decided, overnight, that he wanted the United States to go "back to the Moon, then Mars." To help pay for it, he called on Congress to cut an additional $1.9 billion out of the funds designated to pay for Pell Grants -- the grants that help students from low-income families pay for college. For those children, for the country, for our future, this is just simply nuts.
Remembering Brown v. Board of Education
Last Sunday marked the 66th anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. the Board of Education. The Brown decision addressed consolidated issues from four different cases involving racial segregation. The issues emanated from Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, and Virginia. The unanimous opinion of the court was written by Earl Warren, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower's newly appointed chief justice. The Court declared that forced segregation of public-school children violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.
No Doubt Global Warming Is a Reality
Record fires in Oregon and California. Floods in Houston and New York. Deadly winter storms in Texas. Droughts across much of the west. Flash floods in England and Germany. Blinding dust storms in China. 100-year cyclones devastate Fiji and Indonesia. Deadly droughts across sub-Saharan Africa. Wildfires in Greece and Italy. The year is not over yet, but in the United States and across the world, the toll in lives and destruction is growing in storms of biblical proportion.
The Growing Racial Wage Gap
President Donald Trump keeps boasting about the low black unemployment rate, although African-Americans still suffer nearly twice the unemployment rate as whites do.
Is Trump Racist? Record Speaks Very Loudly
When new U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was asked on "60 Minutes" whether she thinks President Trump is a racist, she responded with the candor that makes her a compelling force in Washington: "Yeah, yeah, no question."
Time for a New 'Good Neighbor Policy'
“America is back,” President Biden announced repeatedly in meeting with allies in Europe. The question, of course, is back for what? Biden has sensibly insisted that we must “build back better” at home and abroad. Our neighbors to the south in Latin America offer a clear opportunity to show that is true. Now more than ever, it is time for a new Good Neighbor policy toward Latin America.
'Have you no sense of decency, sir?'
Texas is suffering from record high temperatures, with heat indexes topping a staggering 120 degrees.
Kavanaugh Showed Us Exactly Who He Is
Brett Kavanaugh is now a justice of the Supreme Court. He is there only because he is what he showed himself to be in the Senate hearings: a vicious, partisan operative utterly committed to a right-wing judicial activism that will inevitably lead to a constitutional crisis.
