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Public Education Is Vital to a Democracy
America owes much of its prominence and prosperity to the fact that it has led the world in popular education. Even without a public school system, we had the highest literacy in the world in the 19th century. We were among the first to provide public school to the young through the 12th grade. We were the first to open the doors of colleges and universities – significantly through the GI Bill after World War II – to children from all levels of income.
Republican Chaos Fuels Threat of Government Shutdown
Unless warring factions of Republicans in the House of Representatives can come to their senses, the United States government will shut down next Sunday. Some may not notice – we tend to rely on government only when we are in need. But the impact – and the hurt – will be immediate – and will grow over time. Nearly a million federal employees will be furloughed and sent home without pay until there is a resolution.
Republicans Once More Defending Extremism in Defense of Their Views
The inmates have taken over the asylum in the Republican Party. In the party that once prided itself on being pro-military, one wingnut senator is blocking the confirmation of hundreds of senior military officials, including the secretaries of the Navy, Army and Air Force.
The Sensible, the Mad and the Missing
The 2024 presidential race is taking shape. It looks like a choice between the sensible, the mad and the missing. Joe Biden seems intent on running on his record, a sensible route for the incumbent. His major challenger, the inescapable Donald Trump, is replaying his madcap candidacy – his program a mixture of resentment, racism, bluster and victimization. What’s missing are the big challenges that America can’t avoid and can’t seem to face.
'Have you no sense of decency, sir?'
Texas is suffering from record high temperatures, with heat indexes topping a staggering 120 degrees.
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.
Clarence Page: Against AI, political punditry can still do the write thing
Striking Hollywood writers are nervous about artificial intelligence — also known as AI — and I’m not feeling so good myself.
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.
Who gets the gold and who gets the shaft?
Over the next few weeks, the manufactured crisis over the “debt ceiling” will reach its boiling point. But this is pure melodrama, badly overacted with the outcome already known. The real question is about our priorities – and about who gets the gold and who gets the shaft.
Blessed are the children
Blessed are the children – this is the teaching of every religion. The miracle of birth and the joy of new life are transcendent. In this rich country, however, too many babies and too many mothers are at risk – and far too many are dying. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that new mothers in America are dying at a higher rate than those in any other industrial country. A higher percentage of children die before their first birthday in the U.S. than in any other industrial 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.
Will the Ron DeSantis Bubble Burst?
Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has made himself into the leading rival to Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. He won a sweeping re-election victory as governor in 2022, even as Republicans generally were underperforming. Now, he’s used that position to pick purposeful fights on polarizing social issues, clearly seeking to cater to the fury of the MAGA Republican base. By assailing what he calls “wokeness,” including everything from vaccinations, Dr. Fauci, critical race theory, LGBTQ students, and how American history is taught, he apparently hopes to offer Republicans a new generation culture warrior who can rouse Trump’s base and have a broader appeal to suburban voters.
President Biden’s State of the Union
Joe Biden’s State of the Union will feature good news. He has much to report – record job growth, record low unemployment, inflation down, and new efforts underway to rebuild our infrastructure, move to renewable energy and start to bring jobs back home.
The Lunatics Truly Have Taken Over the Asylum
The zany fight among congressional Republicans over electing their own leader as Speaker of the House dramatized the nuttiness of their extreme right. What's more worrisome for the country, however, is just how off the wall the Republican majority is as a body.
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.
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.
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.
Voters must decide which way to go
Some early voting is already underway in the 2022 elections. By all accounts, turnout is remarkably high; the partisan divide remarkably deep. The days when both parties were broad coalitions of liberals, moderates and conservatives are long gone. The partisan sorting-out began when Republicans responded to the civil rights movement by seeking to capture the white vote in the South. Now, Trump's successful efforts to purge or intimidate politicians who objected to his behavior have deepened the divide.
Federal Reserve Determined to Stop Growth
Jobs are back so workers have a target on their backs. The Labor Department reports the economy produced 263,000 jobs in September. After losing an unimaginable 22 million jobs in the first two months of COVID as the economy shut down under Donald Trump, we've now gained all those jobs back and then some. Wages have even begun to inch upwards.
Some Politicians Confuse Freedom with Irresponsibility
As extreme weather caused floods in Kentucky, collapse of the water system in Jackson Mississippi, and the savage destruction of central Florida - to say nothing of fires and drought and a growing water shortage in the West - we ought to agree on two simple realities: America faces a growing challenge from both catastrophic climate change and a growing infrastructure deficit that is putting lives and communities at risk.
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