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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.
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.
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."
Georgia Voters Will Decide
On January 5, Georgia voters will decide the runoff for their two U.S. Senate seats. Their votes will determine whether Republicans retain control of the Senate or whether Democrats gain a 50-50 tie, with Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote. The race is a microcosm of America's struggle to find a way forward and of Georgia and the South's struggle to build a new South.
Democrats must respond to young voters
"Dance with the one that brung you," goes the old saw. Democrats would be wise to absorb its wisdom. In the last election, pundits expected a "red wave," with inflation high, Biden unpopular, and the history of midterm elections. Instead, Democrats were handed the best midterm results of any party since the 2002 midterm when Republicans were boosted by the post-9/11 sentiments.
Gang of Five Justices Ignore Law, Will of Elected Representatives
We are witnessing an astounding attack on democracy by the five male right-wing majority of the Supreme Court -- "black robed rulers," Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan called them, "overruling citizens' choices" in a series of 5-4 decisions.
The Health Care Debate Is Long Overdue
Affordable health care for all is now at the center of the presidential debate. Two of the top three contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination -- Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders -- support Medicare for All. The third -- Joe Biden -- and those hoping to take his place as the leading centrist in the race -- Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar -- have attacked the plan to contrast their candidacies from Sanders and Warren. Donald Trump, who wants to eliminate the Affordable Care Act itself, and has already added some 10 million people to the ranks of the uninsured, scorns it as "socialism," just as earlier Republicans libeled Social Security and Medicare itself when they were under consideration.
We Don't Need the President's Thugs in Chicago
"Hitler had his Brown shirts and Mussolini had his Black shirts, now Donald Trump has his camouflage shirts." Thus began a statement signed by 15 distinguished interdenominational religious leaders in Chicago that I joined, including ministers, priests, and rabbis.
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.
