Rights and Democracy
Deporting Mom and Dad
The Ugly Business of Lethal Injection
The pretense of lethal injection as a peaceful and painless way to execute prisoners is unraveling, and this may change the face of the death penalty in the United States.
Playing Chicken in the Capitol
The problem with the game of chicken — two people racing toward each other, each daring the other to turn aside — is that the crazy one always wins. The one who doesn’t care about head-on collisions has a stunted imagination and can’t conceive of the consequences a crash would produce.
Murdoch Gets Caught Red-Handed
Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born media tycoon, finally got his you-know-what caught in the wringer.
End the Annual Fluff Outbreaks
The news media didn’t even wait until summer had officially started this year to begin serving summer fare: fluffy and titillating stories, good for mindless beach readers and lazy reporters in vacation mode, but lacking the public-interest value we need from journalism.
Deadly Fluff
Too Many Rulings are Supremely Courteous to Corporations
Americans realize that our rights and liberties depend on having a system of justice that we can trust. We know we should be able to show up in court to contest anything from a parking ticket to felony and make our case — whether we’re rich or poor.
Injustice Department
It isn’t so much that I’m against balancing the budget. It’s that I think firing public employees is a lousy way to create jobs. I’ll say this for that strategy though: it beats throwing grandma from the train, which is the other big budget-cutting plan Republicans have in store for us.
Budgeting for Ignorance
Will Rogers said that when Congress is in session, the public gets the same panicky feeling as “when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
Marching to Save Our Schools
I will return to Washington, DC on July 30 to participate in the Save Our Schools march and rally because I don’t want to lose something that defined my childhood: a great public school education.
