Archive
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times
Charles Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps his most famous tome, with the now iconic line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The book is set in London and Paris during the late 1700s, the lead up to the French Revolution. While...
Gun Control Shouldn’t Be This Hard
Before the gun lobby or its sycophants in Congress bring out their usual talking points for why we can't ever have common sense gun reform, I'd like to shoot one of them down. No pun intended. We just saw what happens when a bad guy with a gun is met by a good guy...
No Corporate Welfare for Amazon
Isn't it funny that right-wing politicians across the country piously rant against giving a few bucks worth of jobless benefits to the needy — then turn around and shove billions of our tax dollars into corporate welfare for the greedy? You're right. It's not funny....
A Well-Regulated Militia
In OtherWords: November 1, 2017
This week, Republicans are slated to roll out a tax plan that experts estimate will drastically slash taxes on the wealthiest, raise them for some middle class families, and set up a harsh rollback of social services — and blow a $1.5 trillion hole in the deficit....
What Real Tax Reform Could Look Like
No matter our politics, most Americans have a beef with taxes. And it's no wonder. Working class Americans pay a much greater share of their income than the wealthiest Americans, who get away with exploiting tax loopholes and paying less than their fair share to...
Tax Cuts for the Rich Are Threatening America’s Sacred Places
Right now in Washington, D.C., Congress is making decisions that will affect my future and that of my people — the Gwich’in Nation of Alaska and Canada. A critical part of our ancestral homelands, the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — one of the...
Mass Incarceration is a Women’s Issue, Too
Over the last few years, our broken criminal justice system has become a national issue as horrific stories of victims of mass incarceration have made their way into the mainstream media. The dominant narrative around this issue is usually that it disproportionately...
The Pain Behind Opioid Abuse
Donald Trump recently declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency. At first I thought, is this the first time I approve of something Trump has done? Alas, no. And here's why: Nine years ago, I lost my brother to a heroin overdose. My brother and I...
Who’s Really in Charge of the Afghanistan War?
In June, our Tweety Bird president tweeted this message to members of the U.S. Army: “Proud to be your commander-in-chief.” Actually, Trump is only the delegator-in-chief — he's passed to subordinates a president's most solemn duty of guiding our nation's war...
