Author
The AR-15 is ‘America’s Rifle.’ Ban it.
How many dead children does it take to finally move to restrict access to high-powered weapons of war? Lawmakers in Texas provided us with an answer this week, as a bipartisan panel of state lawmakers voted to advance a bill raising the minimum age to purchase assault weapons, the New York Times reported. “It was […]
Why shocking new data shows we can’t stop fighting hate
If you ever needed a reminder that we can’t turn a blind eye to hate, then new data from the Anti-Defamation League should more than do the trick. As the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported Tuesday, white supremacist propaganda hit an all-time high across the country in 2022, even as antisemitic propaganda more than doubled from the year before. The […]
New poll is a roadmap to Republican grievance in 2022
A new poll provides an eye-opening glimpse into the values and motivations of the modern Republican Party, and the cultural and political forces that will drive the party faithful to the polls on Nov. 8. The latest American Values poll by the Public Religion Research Institute also zooms in on the views of white evangelical Protestants who backed former President […]
Report: Black, Hispanic adults less likely to receive CPR, especially in public
New research by the American Heart Association shows that bystander syndrome is taking a deadly toll on Black and Hispanic Americans, who are “substantially less likely” to receive potentially life-saving CPR in a public setting than their white counterparts.
A different America demands a different kind of Memorial Day
Today is Memorial Day. And as I write this column, the forecast calls for sunny skies and very summery temperatures of 91 degrees. It’s a day perfect for a parade, a barbecue, and gathering with family and friends. But while this holiday Monday might be cause for some of us to celebrate, we should also […]
Our national pathology over guns is no longer insane. It’s inhuman.
Want to know what rage feels like? It’s waking on a Wednesday morning on a school day as the cable news talking heads sift through the latest on the shooting at a Texas elementary school that left 21 people dead, most of them children, and looking at your daughter as she gets ready for her […]
What are book bans really about? Fear
More years ago than I really care to count, the children’s librarian in my little town in rural northwestern Connecticut, apparently tired of my endlessly renewing the same book over and over again, pressed a copy of “The White Mountains” by John Christopher into my eight-year-old hands. Mrs. Bullock was her name. She was the mother of one of my […]
Republicans are the clowns in the debt ceiling circus. The act isn’t funny.
It’s way past political cliché, but that old “Popeye” comic strip where J. Wellington Wimpy promises to pay a short-order cook tomorrow for a hamburger he plans to eat today, is still the best way to describe Republican intransigence this week over a vote to extend the nation’s debt ceiling that’s soared past cartoonish farce. […]
‘A once in a generation investment’: Biden unveils $2T infrastructure package; creating millions of jobs
Biden released broad details of a $2 trillion infrastructure package that would rebuild highways and bridges, along with providing funding programs for housing, broadband and schools and increasing U.S. manufacturing jobs over the next eight years.
Out of ideas, Trump turns to his 2016 playbook – Make America fearful again
Four years ago, and on Thursday, Republicans claimed they had a bold, new vision for America. They don’t. They’re members of a party bereft of ideas that can only do one thing: Peddle division and fear.