'Our children are dying, every day'
During the 2016 presidential primary race, Chris Christie spoke movingly in New Hampshire about the death of a law school classmate who became addicted to drugs after a running injury. The topic...
View ArticleA free press: Part one
Once upon a time in America, there was a leader considered by many historians to be:"spiteful," "greedy," "jealous," "quick-tempered," "dull," "unlettered," and "haughty"That man was William S. Cosby,...
View ArticleA free press: Part two—The politics of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
In 1796, John Adams won the presidential election by three electoral college votes over his nearest competitor, Thomas Jefferson. Failing to envision a two- or even three-party system, the Constitution...
View ArticleA free press: The fourth estate
This spring, Jonathan Peters took a look at the trickle-down impact of President Trump’s aggressive war on the media for the Columbia Journalism Review. So far, Trump’s attacks on the national media...
View Article'Because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.'
On November 17, 1973, four months before the IRS billed him $400,000 in back taxes and for improper deductions, Richard Nixon held a press conference in which he famously stated“I made my mistakes, but...
View ArticleMaine saved a river that Trump wants to destroy
Although the weather on Memorial Day was cloudy, it was at least cool enough to keep most of the flying pests at bay as we gathered under the large party tent that had been set up for the day’s...
View ArticleThe anger of a young black woman
This year I checked “attend Netroots Nation” off of my bucket list after spending a week in Atlanta in August. (Really? Atlanta in August?) Although I didn’t get to see much of the city, the conference...
View ArticleSix out of 10 Americans approve of labor unions. So why is membership dwindling?
For 18 years, Gallup has been asking people this question:Would you personally like to see labor unions in the United States — have more influence than they have today, the same amount as they have...
View ArticleTo dismantle systemic racism and create a more just society
Racism is in the very air we breathe and the water we drink. It has written—and re-written—our history. It is not the exclusive faith of the Nazis, the neo-Nazis, the KKK, or the other white...
View ArticleYou don't want us to talk about climate change? Okay, then how about guns?
The Trump gang does not want us to talk about climate change in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. They don’t want us to politicize climate change: that is a privilege they reserve for...
View ArticleJournalism in the age of Trump
I read my first campaign memoir when The Making of a President by Theodore White was released in paperback in the early 1960s. I was hooked. An adolescent at the time, I found the behind-the-scenes...
View ArticleGod, guns ... and Russia?
In 2016, the National Rifle Association (NRA) spent $30.3 million to elect Donald Trump. In addition, according to a report from OpenSecrets Blog and The Trace, they spent $20 million on six Senate...
View ArticleSexual assault is political, but it's not partisan
Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Donald Trump, and Harvey Weinstein all have one thing in common: they are men who have preyed on vulnerable women. “Vulnerable women” means anyone that is in a...
View ArticleIt is time to claim our human rights
In my mind’s eye, I can see the last legitimate president dealing with Harvey Weinstein and other men of his ilk.In my imagination, I can see him briskly approaching the podium, his stone-faced sober...
View ArticleWho's guarding the guardians?
Robert Matava, a decorated World War II veteran, built up a successful auto repair business after the war while he and his wife raised a family in Unionville, Connecticut. After his wife died, the...
View ArticleGuarding the guardians
Last November Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Special Committee on Aging, joined ranking member Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri to hold a hearing titled “Trust Betrayed: Financial...
View ArticleAngry women change the world
Isabella “Belle” Baumfree was born a slave in upstate New York in 1797. The daughter of slaves, she spoke only Dutch while being raised on an estate in a Dutch settlement. Baumfree was sold, along with...
View ArticlePlease, Secretary Zinke: just steal our money. Not our lands.
Between 1998 and 1999, Ryan Zinke, then a Navy SEAL Team 6 officer, traveled to and from his home in Montana and billed the Department of Defense for his travel expenses. According to a report last...
View ArticleNevertheless, she persisted. In 1863, she won.
Growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, at the height of the Cold War, everything we were taught in our classrooms was designed to combat the dreaded communist peril that surrounded us. This was the era of...
View ArticlePete Seeger: 'Something the human race needs to be reminded of. Don't give up.'
Pete Seeger was always on the right side of history. Or, as The Guardian quoted Lauren Laverne in its obituary on January 28, 2014:As Lauren Laverne, the BBC6 Music DJ, succinctly put it, it was...
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