Rights and Democracy
What Are We Paying Mitch McConnell For?
Why should you and I have to keep paying Mitch McConnell's salary? The Kentucky Republican is the Senate majority leader, but he doesn't lead much. In fact, he really doesn't do much of anything. McConnell says “no” to every task at hand. Repair and replace the...
A Voting Rights Victory in Maryland
Thousands of Marylanders will regain the right to cast their ballots this election year, thanks to the state’s lawmakers. The Maryland House and Senate recently voted to override a veto by Governor Larry Hogan to ensure that ex-offenders will automatically get their...
The Elephant in the Race
The audience in the theater takes its seats and slowly settles down. The curtain rises on a conventional living room in a conventional American home, neither squalid nor opulent. Middle class, it whispers. A woman of a certain age sits in a chair in the middle of the...
What’s at Stake in Apple’s Privacy Fight
Civil liberties fans in the United States recently got an unlikely champion: the CEO of Apple. In a high-profile spat with the White House, Tim Cook has emerged as a leading spokesperson against the Obama administration’s efforts to weaken Americans’ constitutional...
‘Indian’ Mascots Are a Slap in the Face
The Washington, D.C. football team is scheduled to play in London later this year. But the controversy over its name has preceded it there. Two members of the British Parliament have asked the NFL to change the R*dskins' team name — or “at the minimum, send a...
Real Feminists Don’t Tell Women How to Vote
I didn’t look up to Wonder Woman or Lara Croft as a child: I had women like Gloria Steinem. I was the type of girl who cut my dolls’ hair short, insisted girls could do anything boys could, and invented stories where brave female protagonists always outsmarted the bad...
Journalists Should Stand Up for Whistleblowers
The Obama administration’s ongoing crusade against government whistleblowers — which culminated last year in the imprisonment of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling — has reignited a debate over the role journalists should play in defending their profession and the...
Public Hoopla over Private Parts
As the recent attention lavished on figures like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner attests, trans visibility continues to rise in the United States. But that doesn’t mean life is suddenly easy for us transwomen. Take something as simple as obeying nature’s call. Trips to...
The Unelectibility Winning Streak
To use a phrase that doesn't come readily to my lips: “Well I’ll be danged.” New Hampshire, that bastion of sensible conservatism and rectitude, gave us not one unelectable candidate, but two — Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Trumpmentum has only edged up since then...
America’s Killer Prisons
I get a lot of letters from people who’ve been incarcerated, or are now behind bars. Legally I can’t respond directly, because I’m an ex-con myself: I was locked up after blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal and immoral torture program. Direct contact with current...
