All she asked was that someone pray for her. As relayed on Twitter by the activist Brittany Packnett, the unnamed woman certainly had good reason to seek help, divine or otherwise. She was one of the people held hostage by a gunman last week in an L.A. Trader Joe’s. According to Packnett, her friend was […]
Leonard Pitts Jr.
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Democrats take note: ‘Normal’ isn’t coming back
Smack them with their own bat. That was the gist of, “Hey Democrats, Fighting Fair is for Suckers,” a provocative jeremiad that Politico ran on Independence Day. In it, writer Rob Goodman argued that, after Republicans have killed all the old political norms — denying a Supreme Court nominee a hearing, for example — it’s […]
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Being shocked by Trump's behavior is a waste of time
“Lawmakers in both major parties and former intelligence officials appeared shocked …” — The Chicago Tribune “U.S. lawmakers of both political parties reacted with shock …” — Voice of America “Some of Mr. Trump’s own advisers privately said they were shocked …” — The New York Times “Shocked?” Really? After almost two years of unending […]
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Under unchecked power, no one is safe
They did not have to die. That’s the bitter truth. Katie Sasser and her friend John Hall would likely still be alive if cops and prosecutors in Glynn County, Georgia, had done their jobs. But they were more interested in protecting one of their own. So Sasser and Hall were shot to death in June […]
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Now I know how the Gipper felt
“I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.” — Ronald Reagan Now I know how the Gipper felt. Once upon a time, you see, I thought I was a little bit conservative. Mind you, I could never side with the right on social justice matters like the treatment of LGBT Americans, African-Americans and […]
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Some professions are more than professions
This one feels different. And what does it say about this country when one has seen enough mass shootings to become a connoisseur of them? But yes, what happened last week in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis does feel different. It feels too close for comfort. Part of it is that […]
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The Supreme Court's worst decision ever
At one point in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s ringing dissent from last week’s Supreme Court decision upholding Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from a group of nations, most of them with Muslim-majority populations, she recounts his many insults against followers of Islam. Though most of us can likely recall his bigotry clearly enough without a refresher, […]
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What happens when the social covenant is torn?
We’re not here to talk about civility. Granted, that was the inescapable buzzword last week as the left wing rose in pointedly uncivil protest of the evil being perpetrated by the Republican Party and the moral monstrosity who is our president. GOP officials found themselves turned away from one restaurant, heckled in two others and […]
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Immigrant children are real children
“Illegals” have faces. This is what Republicans are learning to their chagrin amid mounting international outrage over the new policy of separating immigrant children from their families at our southern border. For years, the party has pretended otherwise. It has denied undocumented immigrants their personhood, casting them instead as an abstract threat — rape! gangs! […]
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U.S. has sunk to state-sponsored cruelty
What if God were one of us? Singer Joan Osborne famously asked that question in 1995. In her Grammy-nominated hit, “One Of Us,” she envisions the author of all creation as “a slob like one of us, just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home.” The idea of eternity contained in […]