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Ban assault weapons. Every last damn one of them. The answer is staring us in the face
Where do we go next? What do we do now? Those are the questions I found myself asking after I spoke to a panel of gun violence reduction activists this week. It was two nights after the murders in Boulder, a week after the rampage in Atlanta, and hours after the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee played out a […]
Congressional Dems bent the universe toward justice this week. We need to keep pushing
Hopes of getting an increase to the piteously low federal minimum wage tucked into the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill were dealt a serious blow this week when the U.S. Senate’s Parliamentarian ruled that it couldn’t be included in the massive legislative package now moving through Congress. The announcement that came Thursday night was widely […]
‘Is this America?’ A Black Capitol police officer’s question is what the Trump trial is all about
Earlier this week, in an emotional moment among emotional moments, the lead U.S. House Impeachment Manager, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., shared the story of a Black U.S. Capitol police officer and the racist abuse he endured when a mob with murder on its mind sacked the seat of government last month. “I sat down […]
Biden’s executive orders aren’t the problem. A broken Congress is
It was tough not to chuckle at a New York Times editorial last week chastising President Joe Biden for the barrage of executive orders that have gone flying out of the Oval Office during his first week behind the Resolute Desk, as if he were the first president ever to do so. “This is no way to make law. A […]
Report: Trump campaign sues to block certification of Pennsylvania election results
From our affiliate media outlet in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star: President Donald Trump’s campaign has sued to stop the certification of election results in Pennsylvania, part of a coordinated legal blitz to push the fight over the 2020 election to the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump’s campaign filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday, the […]
REPORT: Biden takes lead in Pennsylvania, in range of the presidency
Here’s info on the presidential race in Pennsylvania from our affiliate at the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a part of the nonprofit States Newsroom: (*This developing story will be updated) CNN Reports: Biden has a 5,,587-vote edge in the Keystone State, based on the current numbers, according to a source at the Department of State. The race […]
Pennsylvania can count late-arriving ballots, U.S. Supreme Court rules
Elections officials in Pennsylvania can count absentee ballots that are received as late as the Friday after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked by Nov. 3, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday. According to NPR, the nation’s highest court declined without comment a challenge filed by legislative Republicans, who sought to override last month’s […]
Trump is ancient history. Kamala Harris is America as it is now | John L. Micek
If there is a more authentically American story than the one of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, you’d have to make it up. This week, the California Democrat, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, became the first Black woman in American history to be named to a presidential ticket. And across the United States on […]
Trump isn’t serious about delaying the election. He’s deadly serious about destroying its legitimacy
Abe Lincoln didn’t do it. And he was busy trying to hold the Union together. FDR didn’t do it. And he was leading the nation through the most violent days of the second World War. But Donald Trump, self-styled “wartime president,” Florida resident, and long-time absentee voter, waded into territory that two of the nation’s […]
Latest ‘scandal’ a reminder of the Obama we know and the one in Trump’s head | John L. Micek
We’ve known for a long time that former President Barack Obama lives rent-free inside Donald Trump’s brain. From trying to tear down the Affordable Care Act to his bizarre and baseless accusation that the prior administration didn’t leave him the testing apparatus or counsel to prepare for the current COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no problem too […]
In the wooded silence, a time to rethink: How can we shift our politics away from us vs. them; red vs. blue?
SOMEWHERE ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL — We’d been climbing steadily uphill for 25 minutes, a deceptively arduous mile, with the sweat pooling in the small of my back and my breath coming deep and even against the climb, as I planted one foot ahead of the other on the rocky trail. My daughter was behind […]
Policy wins are great. But Election 2020 is an existential fight for the nation’s soul. This is why
You’ve probably never heard of Erica Newland. And if she had her druthers, it’s a safe bet that she would have preferred it stayed that way. But Newland, a former attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, found herself a front-line warrior in the battle to protect the Constitution from the […]