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'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.
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.
A Royal Wedding That Affirms Truly Noble Values
Prince Harry of Wales, sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, will marry the American actress Meghan Markle on Saturday, with all of the ceremony and global hoopla that the British royalty inevitably attracts. Harry is the son of Charles, the Prince of Wales, and the late Princess Diana. What's notable about Prince Harry, however, is not so much the royal blood that he inherited, but the royal values that he has chosen to express.
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.
Risking Lives In Endless Wars Is a Moral Violation and Strategic Failure
We just celebrated Veterans Day, paying tribute to the young men and women who have served our country. Across the country, families gathered at the gravesites of those who gave their lives. Veterans drank toasts to their fellow soldiers. In football and basketball stadiums, crowds offered a moment of silence for the fallen. The rituals are heartfelt, but far from complete. Too often ignored is the far greater number of lives that are lost not on the battlefield but at home, not from the enemy's guns but from our veterans' own hands.
A Continuing Terror, The Murder of Ahmaud Arbery
Today there is a national outcry about the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The public condemnation has forced a belated response. Those accused of his murder have finally been arrested. His murder has become a global embarrassment for whites. For blacks, however, it is another humiliation, a continuing terror. It is the normal silence, however, that condemns thousands of African Americans to unjust deaths and millions to shattered lives. When the camera turns away, the savage injustice that embarrasses us becomes simply business as usual.
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.
Trump Is Lousy General for Trade War He's Started
President Trump has triggered what could be "the largest trade war in economic history," the Chinese Commerce Ministry warns. Trump is threatening tariffs on $500 billion in Chinese goods, virtually all of our imports from China. He's also hit Mexico, Canada and our European allies with punitive tariffs.
It's Time for President Biden to Deliver
Listen up Democrats in Washington - from the White House to the Senate to the Congress: it is time to deliver. Biden's popularity among African Americans is slipping. Blacks provided the president with 22 percent of his votes in 2020, putting him into the White House. African American turnout, particularly in Georgia, was crucial to the Senate victories that brought Democrats a 50-50 split. In his campaign, Biden named systemic racism as one of the fundamental crises facing the 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.
John McCain, Patriot
Sen. John McCain is a patriot. Now, as he battles against a brutal affliction, he has earned recognition as a man of honor. He has served his country, often at great sacrifice. And even now, he is using his stature to warn this country against a wayward course.
Jesse Jackson: First Concern in College Sports Should Be the Lives, Health of Athletes
Covid-19 isn't "disappearing," as President Donald Trump suggests; it is surging, setting new records in daily cases. The states that rushed to "reopen" the economy now are reversing course. Yet the NCAA still assumes that the college football season will begin at the end of August, and that mandatory practices will begin this month.
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.
Biden Should Revive the U.S. Commission On Civil Rights
A new president takes office with the sense of possibility that comes with a new dawn. This is particularly true for Joe Biden, taking office after the divisive turmoil of Donald Trump's years in office. Biden inherits truly fearsome troubles -- among them the spiking pandemic, the collapsing economy, corrosive inequality, catastrophic climate change and entrenched structural racism. He stood up for Black Lives Matter and has promised a new day for civil rights, with particular emphasis on police reform.
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.
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.
Democrats Must Ace The Agenda Test
In last week’s Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris passed the character test.
Sessions Stands for Outmoded, Unjust Law-and-Order Policies
Attorney General Jeff Sessions gets it wrong. On core issue after core issue -- civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, police reform and particularly mass incarceration -- he is a destructive force.
Trump’s State of the Stink Address
As he delivers his first State of the Union address tonight, President Donald Trump is looking for approval. He'll brag on the economy, with a likely focus on his Twitter claim that "because of my policies," black unemployment is at its "lowest rate ever recorded."
