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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.
No Matter the Issue, Republicans Always Say No
Just say no. That seems to sum up the position of Republicans in the Congress these days. For all the talk about bipartisan compromise or about the two parties working together, at the end of the day, the Republican position is simply to say no.
We Americans Must Face Our Addiction to Guns
Fifty-eight dead and counting; 500 sent to hospitals. The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history took place Sunday in Las Vegas, as a lone gunman firing from a window on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel savaged a crowd gathered to watch a country music show. It was, as one observer noted, like shooting fish in a barrel. The automatic rifle fire lasted for minutes. The shooter didn't really have to aim; he only had to pull the trigger.
Democrats Must Ace The Agenda Test
In last week’s Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris passed the character test.
Christmas Is Literally the Mass for Christ, Marking the Birth of Jesus
On Friday, millions of people across the world will celebrate Christmas. Here and abroad, safety -- staying home, social distancing, wearing masks, being sensible -- requires limits on the gatherings and parties. Yet the bells still ring, music is in the air, lights on homes and lampposts shine, blessings are still shared. For too many, this holiday is a difficult time: the cold and hungry, those separated from families, those alone or imprisoned or sick.
Can America Break Its Gun Addiction?
Can America break its gun addiction? After mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, Southaven, Mississippi, Dayton, Ohio and Midland and Odessa, Texas, public demand for sensible gun reform once more soared. And once more, Republican politicians, led by Donald Trump, were intimidated into inaction by the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association. Remarkably, it was America's largest retailer -- Walmart -- that exhibited the courage politicians lacked.
‘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.”
COVID-19 Is A Risk To Humanity
COVID-19 knows no national boundaries. It does not discriminate by race or religion or ideology. The pandemic poses a threat to humanity, not to any one country. Our response must be as encompassing as the threat: we cannot end the threat here without ending it everywhere.
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.
How Trump and Company Are Gutting Protections
Trump's serial scandals -- Stormy Daniels, the Russian investigation, the Paul Manafort verdict, the Cohen guilty plea, the juvenile tweets -- fill the headlines. Beneath the noise, however, Trump's appointees and the Republican Congress are relentlessly pursuing a radical right-wing agenda that is gutting basic protections for workers, consumers and the environment.
Strike Is One More Step Toward Lawless Presidency
"Mission accomplished," announced President Donald Trump after the U.S., France and England unleashed over 100 missiles on Syria in reaction to the regime's alleged use of chemical weapons against its own people.
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.
To Fulfil Dr. King's Vision, We Must Lift Up the Poor
Dr. Martin Luther King's final mission was to build and launch a Poor People's Campaign across lines of race, religion and region. He called for a "revolution of values" to address the "triplets of evil" -- militarism, racism and economic injustice. People should not die from poverty in the richest nation in the world, he argued. It was time to speak out; silence was a betrayal.
New Generation of Protest Holds Great Promise for America
The inspiring rise of a new generation protesting against racial injustice is driving a new era of change in America, like the generation that emerged 60 years ago to build the civil rights movement of that time. July 16, 1960 is marked in my memory: that is the day I joined seven other friends to walk into the whites-only Greenville Library, and be arrested for violating the segregation laws.
True Scandal In Puerto Rican Recovery Effort Is Trump's Dereliction
The scandals around in Puerto Rico's agonies are far greater than the bizarre contract to pay Whitefish Energy, a tiny Montana company from U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's hometown, $300 million to restore electric lines.
To Choose Not to Vote Is to Surrender Self-determination
Today is an election day in many parts of America. There are key gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. A single special election in a suburban Seattle district could win Democrats control of the Washington Senate and thus control of the entire state government. Charlotte, N.C., could elect the first black female mayor ever. A record 43 women are vying for seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. Voters in Maine will decide whether to extend Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Time for Biden to invoke the 14th amendment
So it has come to this. House Republicans are about to force the U.S. government to default on paying its debts – obligations that the Congress voted to make. They bluster that they will blow up the economy, tank the dollar, and destroy America’s good faith and credit unless they get their way – even as they are bitterly divided about what “their way” means. The stakes are unfathomable – and so it is worth being clear about what is happening.
Georgians Will Have a Clear Choice On Jan. 5
Leave it to Donald Trump to run brazen subversion -- refusal to accept the decision of the voters in the presidential election -- as a clown show, marked by wingbat lawyers, delusional tweets, and hailstorms of lies. The noise, however, should not delude us: Trump is leading an American counter-reformation right to the edge of secession, if not beyond. And at the core of this is America's continued struggle with race.
There's More Than Enough Evidence of Trump's Bias
Last week, amid the continuing clamor of Trump's chaos presidency, the question of whether Trump had used the n-word became a media sensation.
Prince of Peace Summons the Better Angels of Our Nature
On Tuesday, hundreds of millions celebrated Christmas across the country and around the world. For many, the holiday is a joyous time: Families gather, music in the air, lights drape trees and lampposts; presents are exchanged; blessings are shared.
