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Juneteenth Celebrates the Continuing Struggle for Equality Under the Law
"Great nations don't ignore the most painful moments. ... They embrace them," said President Biden as he signed the Juneteenth National Independent Day Act - passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate - to make Juneteenth - June 19th - a federal holiday.
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.
The Right to Vote Again Under Siege
The fundamental right in a democracy -- the right to vote -- is once more under siege. In state after state, across the country, Republican legislators have introduced literally hundreds of bills designed to suppress voting.
GOP, Not Russia, the Greater Threat to Free Elections
We all have heard about WikiLeaks and Russian interference in the 2016 election. The report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller has once more put that on the front pages. Too often lost in the furor, however, is the far more damaging TrikiLeaks -- the tricks and laws used to suppress the vote by partisans, largely Republicans here at home.
Trump's Big Lie Is a Threat to American Democracy
On Thursday evening, the House Select Committee investigating the sacking of the Capitol on January 6 will hold the first of its primetime, public hearings. The committee has done an exhaustive investigation, interviewing a thousand witnesses, looking at tens of thousands of documents. The hearings will reveal new information about what was in fact a multi-layered effort to overturn the results of a presidential election, driven by the White House and involving Republican legislators, operatives, state officials, and donors. The hearings will ask every American to understand how vulnerable our democracy is, and how close we came to losing it.
Party of Lincoln Wouldn't Recognize Trump's GOP
Last week, President Trump, in a rambling stump speech in Montana, bizarrely compared his oratory to that of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, arguing (incorrectly) that Lincoln was "ridiculed" for the speech.
Republicans Posture As The Party Of Working People
The debate over Joe Biden’s $2 tril- lion American Infrastructure Plan is heating up – and getting more and more unhinged. Republicans are railing against the president for asking for too much. They promise a filibuster against the bill unless there is a bipartisan agree- ment – on their terms.
Will Trump receive a get out of jail free card
The federal indictment of Donald Trump – the first federal indictment of a former president in U.S. history – poses the question. Trump’s enraged reaction – calling it the “greatest witch hunt of all time” and denouncing special counsel Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, as a “deranged lunatic” – makes the question unavoidable. Obviously, Trump deserves a fair trial, his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of his peers. But every candidate for president should be asked if they would pardon Donald Trump if they were president. As Gerald Ford proved when pardoning Richard Nixon, a presidential pardon can be issued before a trial, or even before formal charges are brought, so the question needn’t wait on the trial.
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.
Right-wing SCOTUS justices are not acting alone
The right-wing gang of six justices on the Supreme Court just ruled that affirmative action in university admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violates the Constitution. Do not be fooled. This ruling is not limited to the elite universities that seek to ensure diversity in their student bodies. It is not limited to education. The right-wing majority on the Court is escalating war on the reconstruction that was launched by the civil rights movement.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a tenacious advocate for equality
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- the Notorious RBG -- was a tenacious advocate for equality. The outpouring of grief across the nation is testament to her commitment. She deserves to be honored and celebrated. The assertion of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell that they will rush to nominate a justice intent on dismantling her legacy is both shameless and poisonous. Shameless because it exposes once more that they care only about power, not about the law or legitimacy. Poisonous because it uses the death of a justice famed for consensus-building to deepen the nation's toxic divisions.
Should We Hold Parents Responsible for the Terrorist Acts of Their Children?
When Ethan Crumbley, a troubled 15-year-old, shot and killed four students at Oxford High School, in Oxford, Michigan, he was charged with terrorism and murder. In a virtually unprecedented step, the prosecutor, Karen McDonald, also indicted Crumbley's parents for involuntary manslaughter, arguing that they should have known their son was a danger to his school and should have revealed that he had access to a handgun that was an early Christmas gift from his parents, and stored in an unlocked locker in their bedroom.
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?
Winnie Mandela Bore Scars of Battle, Helped Heal Nation
This week, Winnie Madikizela Mandela will be laid to rest and honored at a state funeral in South Africa. To many, she was loved as the "mother of the nation" even in her final days.
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?
