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America Leads the World in Violence
Gun violence spiked across the country in 2020, the most violent years in decades. 19,000 were killed in shootings, the highest death toll in 20 years (and that does not include gun suicides). Mass shootings -- defined as four or more shot in an incident -- also rose drastically to over 600.
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.
Do Trump's Actions Meet the Test of Treason?
Will Donald Trump be held accountable for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and what was a multi-layered conspiracy to overturn the results of the presidential election?
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.
Time for a Citizens' Commission On Defending the Right to Vote
Donald Trump's commission on "election integrity" is meeting sensible resistance. The commission issued letters calling on states to provide it with extensive personal information on all voters, including names, addresses, birthdates, party affiliation, the last 4 digits Social Security numbers, military status and criminal records. This data collection would be targeted by every cyber thief in the world. At least 20 states have already indicated that they would not comply completely, including California, New York, Texas and more.
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.
Sessions Opens the Door Again to Privatized Prisons
Next week, March 7, will mark the 52nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the historic march and shocking police riot in Selma, Ala., that helped build public support for passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Kaepernick May Finally See Justice in Collusion Grievance
Colin Kaepernick may yet get his day in court. Kaepernick is the talented former NFL quarterback who in 2016 began a protest against police brutality and institutionalized racial discrimination by kneeling during the playing of the national anthem. Other players joined the protests.
Trump's Flailing Indicates a Man In Serious Trouble
Since the striking victories of Democrats up and down the ballot in 2018, President Trump has been flailing more and more wildly.
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.
Injustice of Emmett Till's murder resonates to this day
"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine," goes the saying. For the brutal killing of Emmett Till in 1955, just how fine those wheels will grind remains to be seen even to this day.
Putin's War Crimes Must Be Exposed
The mass graves of civilians murdered and mutilated in Bucha, Ukraine, are stark evidence of the horrors of war - and of war crimes. Putin's invasion of Ukraine - itself a violation of international law - raises a profound challenge to the world. How can a dictator armed with nuclear weapons be held accountable for the crimes of war?
Democracy Is In Retreat
For all the talk about the national debt and the fiscal deficit, what truly threatens America is a dangerous and growing democracy deficit. This country presents itself as the champion of democracy against authoritarianism across the world, but at home, democracy is in retreat in areas vital to our lives. Consider.
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.
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.
'America is not a racist country'
“America is not a racist country.” This is quickly becoming a Republican mantra. Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, used it in his rebuttal to President Biden’s address to the Congress. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican weather vane, echoed him, as did Republicans across the country. Scott went on to accuse Democrats of dividing the country by using race as a “political weapon.”
Democracy not a partisan issue
While the United States champions democracy across the world, our own democracy is under siege. Nothing is more fundamental to democracy than the right to vote – yet there is no explicit guarantee of the right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. ranks near the bottom of industrial democracies in voter turnout. This isn’t accidental – many states purposefully create barriers that make it difficult to register to vote or to cast a ballot. The sensible answer to this is to create — and enforce — the right to vote for every citizen.
It's Time for Patriots to Stand Up
America's democracy is under assault -- systematic, unrelenting and unhinged. The assault is waged by one party -- the Republican Party. It is largely driven by the lies and racism of Donald Trump, who simply will not accept that he lost the last election. To deny that unacceptable reality, Trump has spread -- and Republican officials across the country have echoed -utterly fraudulent claims of fraud to justify measures to make voting more difficult.
Assault weapons are weapons of war
In the United States, 20 million assault rifles are in private hands, and nearly 400 million guns of all sorts. In the first 190 days of this year, Americans have suffered 320 mass shootings, more than one a day. Highland Park, Illinois, Uvalde, Texas, Chattanooga, Tennessee – the list is endless. Sixty-two people were shot and 10 killed in Chicago on the same holiday weekend that the Highland Park massacre took place, without garnering nearly as much attention.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Ginni Thomas
Last week, two events involving the U.S. Supreme Court occurred. First, four days of hearings surrounding the nomination and possible elevation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the nation's highest court.
