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UAW Auto Workers Will Get a Fair Deal Only If They Fight for It
Five days ago, 12,700 United Auto Workers Union (UAW) workers walked out in the first strike wave against the Big Three automakers – GM, Ford, and Stellantis (the company that took over Chrysler). Every worker in America – union and non-union, young and old, female and male, Black, brown and white – has a stake in this strike. At issue is not simply whether autoworkers can gain a living wage, but whether this country can begin to rebuild a middle class and curb the extreme inequality that undermines our economy and our democracy.
History Cannot Be Unlived
Last Saturday, three African Americans were murdered by a 21-year-old white gunman at the Dollar General Store in Jacksonville, Florida, who then shot himself. The murderer was motivated, Jacksonville Sheriff T K Waters reported, by an “ideology of hate.” The shooting took place 15 months after 10 African Americans were murdered in another racially motivated shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo. Racial violence against Blacks has scarred America since the first slaves were forcibly shipped to America.
Freedom and equal justice under the law requires constant struggle
Last week, on Juneteenth, the nation enjoyed the new national holiday celebrating the freedom of the slaves at the end of the Civil War. This week marks the 10-year anniversary of Shelby v. Holder and the impending decision of the Supreme Court on affirmative action in college admissions. The juxtaposition is a stark reminder that the struggle for equal justice for all is ongoing. Each step forward is met with furious reaction; each reconstruction with concerted efforts to roll back the progress. And today, we are once more in the midst of that reaction.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Passing of the British Empire
Queen Elizabeth II's death at 96 has occasioned an outpouring of tributes and grieving across the world. Heads of state, including Joe Biden, mourn her passing. Common citizens have built mountains of flowers at her gate. The British football league even postponed its games for a weekend in her honor.
Eastern Kentucky Deserves Better Leaders
The extreme weather that is savaging various parts of America hit Eastern Kentucky last week when unprecedented flash floods wiped out homes and devastated communities, taking at least 37 lives, with hundreds still missing." The region was hit by 8 to 10 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period, what experts called a one in a thousand-year rain event. Those who escaped now struggle to survive in high heat and humidity, with roads and bridges washed out, and food and clean water hard to find. And the region is under another flood watch as this is written.
Bill Russell was a champion and a hero
When Bill Russell passed away this weekend at the age of 88, America lost not only a champion but a hero, a star who lit the way for others to follow.
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.
Trump's Big Lie Is a Threat to American Democracy
On Thursday evening, the House Select Committee investigating the sacking of the Capitol on January 6 will hold the first of its primetime, public hearings. The committee has done an exhaustive investigation, interviewing a thousand witnesses, looking at tens of thousands of documents. The hearings will reveal new information about what was in fact a multi-layered effort to overturn the results of a presidential election, driven by the White House and involving Republican legislators, operatives, state officials, and donors. The hearings will ask every American to understand how vulnerable our democracy is, and how close we came to losing it.
Guns and the democrat's replacement theory
It happened again. This time it was a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, of 19 second-, third- and fourth -grade students, along with two teachers, killed by a teenager who had just turned 18 and bought himself a gift of two high-powered military weapons designed to kill people in war and 375 rounds of ammunition for $3,500, which he used to shoot down his mostly young victims like rabid dogs.
Voter Suppression Alive and Well in Arkansas
The Solid South used to be Democratic. Today, the Solid South is Republican. What happened? President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Accommodations Act on July 2, 1964. As a result, South Carolina's Dixiecrat segregationist senator, Strom Thurmond, switched parties in September and vowed to lead fellow Dixiecrats to the Republican Party.
What's Needed Now Is a Push for Peace
“When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers,” an old African proverb teaches. Sadly, we now witness its truth in the horrors visited upon Ukraine by Russia’s invasion. The elephants – Russia and the U.S. with its NATO allies – fought over Ukraine, and now Ukrainians are paying a horrible price. As in any modern war, civilians suffer the worst casualties. Nearly 400,000 Ukrainians have already been forced from their country, refugees fleeing the violence. While sanctions may hit the Russian elites in their pocketbooks, it is young, often befuddled Russian soldiers whose lives are at risk in the face of the inspired and fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Best Outcome Would Be for Children to Be Back in School and Safe
The shutdown of Chicago public schools - the third largest school district in the country with 350,000 students - is headed into its second week. Everyone involved - the mayor, the school district officials, the teachers, the parents - agree that remote learning is bad for students and for parents, particularly those from lower income families. Everyone agrees that the best outcome would be for children to be back in school and safe. And there is where the problem arises.
It Is Time for Congress to Act to Defend Free Elections
Jan. 6, 2022 marks one year since the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, incited by a president voted out of office by the vast majority of the American people. What is now clear is that Donald Trump and his tong of zealous aides and complicitous right-wing legislators were deadly serious about overturning the results of that vote and keeping Trump in office. They failed but have since launched a systematic campaign in states across the country to make it possible to succeed the next time.
Should We Hold Parents Responsible for the Terrorist Acts of Their Children?
When Ethan Crumbley, a troubled 15-year-old, shot and killed four students at Oxford High School, in Oxford, Michigan, he was charged with terrorism and murder. In a virtually unprecedented step, the prosecutor, Karen McDonald, also indicted Crumbley's parents for involuntary manslaughter, arguing that they should have known their son was a danger to his school and should have revealed that he had access to a handgun that was an early Christmas gift from his parents, and stored in an unlocked locker in their bedroom.
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