Opinion

Greg LaRose, Louisiana Illuminator Recent actions from the far right give proof that they have no interest in tackling the pressing concerns of our country – just the opposite in fact. What’s more important to them is earning meaningless merit badges from a dwindling flock of followers swayed more by …

Commentary Deborah Fisher, Tennessee Lookout If the video footage from the Tyre Nichols beating in Memphis tells us anything, it’s that we need to keep protecting the tools that allow public accountability for corruption. Two bills in the Legislature last year sought to reduce a citizen’s ability to view body …

Ray Landis, Pennsylvania Capital-Star The United States government is lurching toward a financial crisis, brought on by the desire of the Republican majority in the US House to use chaos to change the political dynamics of the country. Attempting to predict exactly how the debt ceiling situation will unfold is …

Dick Polman, Pennsylvania Capital-Star Decades ago, Holocaust scholar Hannah Arendt warned: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, i.e. the reality of experience and the distinction between true and false, i.e., the …

Juan Carlos Ordóñez, Oregon Capital Chronicle If you could prevent millions of children from falling back into poverty, would you? Most of us, I imagine, would answer “yes” without hesitation. But not Congress. For nearly a year, lawmakers in Washington, D.C., have dithered as the policy directly responsible for a …

Jim Jones, Idaho Capital Sun Every year on Nov. 11, Americans gather at Veterans Day observations to honor and thank America’s veterans for their service to the country. It is certainly right and proper that they do so, but is that the extent of what our countrymen must do to …

James E. Garcia, Arizona Mirror Election Day is just around the corner. Let’s take stock. It’s been said, I know, but it has to be said again and again, until it sinks in: The future of our democracy is on the ballot on November 8. On Wednesday, President Biden repeated …

Justin Nix, University of Nebraska-Omaha, Arkansas Advocate In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Republican candidates across the nation are blaming Democrats for an increase in crime. But as a scholar of criminology and criminal justice, I believe it’s important to note that, despite the apparently confident assertions of …

Jonathan Coopersmith, Texas A&M University Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the November 2020 election brought out about 155 million voters. That represented 67% of Americans over 18, and it was the highest voter turnout of any modern election. Americans also set records in the percent and number of people voting early …

Mitchell Zimmerman, Common Dreams  Seven out of ten Republicans—like seven of ten Democrats—believe that American democracy is in danger of collapse. Both sides correctly fear the end of our democracy. But they see the danger very differently. Trump and his GOP supporters prefer overthrowing American constitutional democracy to allowing voters to decide …

Hugh Jackson, Nevada Current Commentary On the eve of the Labor Day weekend in a midterm campaign year, the president of the United States gave a speech at the site where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated, and made an urgent request of the nation’s electorate: …

Vanessa M. Griffith, Colorado Newsline As a public health equity intern and an African-American woman, I wanted to express my agreement with the findings expressed in Sara Wilson’s Newsline article “High Costs, Systemic Racism Plagues Health Care, Colorado Survey Finds.” Black and Indigenous Americans and people of color in the …

Steven Singer, Common Dreams Behind the story of missing text messages from the U.S. Secret Service and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, is a bigger scandal: Former President Donald Trump placed his loyalists in key executive branch positions for a reason. Many are still there. Trump’s Loyalists …

by Quentin Young, Colorado Newsline Many public officials are guilty of bad behavior. But few can as readily be held responsible for harassment, personal threats and violence as Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. What’s worse, ghastly conduct represents the totality of her public service. Her legislative record is a …

by Mark McCormick, Missouri Independent May 24, 2022 During a 2014 symposium marking the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision, a statement from one of the plaintiffs offered what today feels like prescient insight. Many of the Virginia plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, feared integration and would have …