Archive
In OtherWords: February 8, 2017
We've got a good one for you this week. For starters, my colleague Domenica Ghanem offers a lovely personal story about growing up Muslim in a small, mostly Catholic town in New Jersey (which had an actual Red, White, and Blueberry festival every year). But after...
Get to Know Your Muslim Neighbors
For a South Jersey girl, my upbringing was markedly ordinary. I played soccer. I joined student council. I walked to my Sicilian grandmother’s house every day after school. And just like everyone else in my small town of Hammonton, my summer revolved around...
Trump’s Phony Populism on Military Spending
There’s a lot of misdirection going on these days. Anybody whose head hasn't been spinning over the last couple of weeks has probably been in a nice news blackout somewhere. We’ll all need some strategies if we're going to stay sane. One is making sure that in the...
Trump’s Bad Deal on Trade
Candidate Donald Trump promised to renegotiate free trade agreements that hurt American workers. In his first week in office, he made good on that promise by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact negotiated by the Obama administration. Yet...
Trump’s Supreme Court Pick Would Leave All of Us Vulnerable
One of the primary purposes of the U.S. Constitution is to establish justice. It’s right there in the opening words: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice…" It’s our Supreme Court that has the responsibility of safeguarding our...
Authoritarian Bumbling
The real story of the Trump administration to date isn't about any one policy. It's about Trump and a small group of insiders throwing their weight around — and incompetently at that. That should concern everyone who cares about the Constitution and the rule of law —...
It’s 1984 in Trumplandia
Tromp-tromp-tromp — troops are marching to battles. Boom-boom-boom — bombs are blowing up communities. Whoooosh — poisonous gas is being released. Forget Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan — this is Trump’s War. Our bellicose commander in chief is at war in the homeland,...
Constitutional Government. Sad!
In OtherWords: February 2, 2017
The executive orders keep coming, hirings and firings are shuffling up the professional civil service, and Trump's various appointments are barreling toward Washington. If it seems like a lot, Jill Richardson argues this week, maybe that's the point. It's hard for any...
Don’t Play Into Trump’s Hands on the Muslim Ban
I'm a Muslim woman and a social justice advocate. I'm terrified, heartbroken, and outraged by Donald Trump's "Muslim ban." As I watched administrative chaos and rapidly organized protests unfold at airports all over America, I was overwhelmed with messages from...
