Defense secretary must rebuild trust after unexpected absence
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week took responsibility for not notifying the White House when he was hospitalized at the beginning of January, an important first step in rebuilding trust with President Joe Biden, Congress and the American people.
Trump carving into traditional Democratic constituency is warning for Biden
Donald Trump is carving into a surprising traditional Democratic constituency – Black voters – that could spell troubling news for Joe Biden in 2024.
The Constitution wins: The bogus impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas collapses
And with a tie House vote of 215-215 on the phony articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that “The resolution is not adopted,” ending a farce and avoiding a serious constitutional error.
How to solve our soaring homelessness problem
Homelessness set two records in 2023. The increase in homelessness between 2022 and 2023 was the largest ever recorded since the government began collecting data in 2007. That brought the number of Americans living in homeless shelters and on the streets to an all-time high.
Letters to the editor, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024
Homelessness needs to he addressed
Biden bows to Putin, environmentalists
President Joe Biden just sent an early Valentine’s Day gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin and radical environmentalists.
Letters to the editor, Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024
Unusual strategy for the homeless
Cruel and unusual punishment in Alabama
Perhaps our era will be remembered as the Age of Credulity.
Black History Month: A shared American story
Amid the backdrop of an imminent presidential election, geopolitical discord and tensions within our democratic republic, I take a moment to reflect upon Black History Month’s enduring significance in our modern era. A period of remembrance and reflection, Black History Month is not a mere historical footnote but a living, breathing testament to the Black American story — a narrative as vital now as it was when Carter G. Woodson first inaugurated Negro History Week nearly a century ago.
Literacy, news form the base of the hierarchy of democracy needs
When you’re stuck in the wilderness, Bear Grylls wouldn’t suggest you prioritize searching for Wi-Fi. Instead, survival experts would likely tell you to focus on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In other words, you should be trying to address physiological needs before you start thinking about self-actualization. There’s also a hierarchy of democratic needs, but it’s been forgotten by modern advocates for a more participatory and responsive democracy.
What if Jon Stewart comes back and everybody just shrugs?
I can picture Jon Stewart’s response to the commentary attending his impending return to The Daily Show for the election season: *shrug.
Letters to the editor, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024
Hilo wall event was ‘an amazing success’
If you’d prefer ‘Tidy Mouse’ tidied up elsewhere, here’s how to help him back outside
Like many people, I’ve watched the video of “Welsh Tidy Mouse” organizing his friend’s shed over and over. He reminds me of someone I knew. My mouse companion, Valentine, was rescued on a cold February night from a Craigslist poster who didn’t want him and quickly revealed his industrious nature. I converted a toddler playpen into chez Valentin by adding a running wheel, a water bottle, a food bowl and soft paper bedding along with plenty of blankets, paper towel rolls and small cardboard boxes for him to burrow and hide in, plus chew toys and treats. I thought it was superb. Valentine thought otherwise.
Stealing is still stealing: Trump tax return thief learns that the law does matter
Maybe Charles Littlejohn thought he was doing right when the contractor working for the Internal Revenue Service stole copies of Donald Trump’s personal tax returns to hand them to a newspaper.
Three major health care battles taking shape in 2024
Modern medicine, for most of its history, has operated within a collegial environment — an industry of civility where physicians, pharmaceutical companies and hospitals stayed in their lanes and out of each other’s business.
Caught in the crosshairs of a cost-of-living crisis
President Joe Biden recently took to a stage in North Carolina to tout his economic agenda, which includes bringing high-speed internet to rural America. But that’s hardly what Americans struggling with a cost-of-living crisis need to hear.
Letters to the Editor for February 3
Make chem attacks Class A felonies
Want a good book? Try one your 9th grader isn’t allowed to read
Ihave discovered many wonderful books, mostly in the young adult category, by reading news stories about what’s being banned in public schools these days: “Gender Queer,” the riveting, upsetting graphic novel about the nonbinary author’s journey of self-discovery; “Dear Martin,” in which a Black teenager who is wrongfully arrested while trying to help his drunk ex-girlfriend get home writes an imaginary letter to Martin Luther King Jr.; and “Paradise Lost,” John Milton’s 17th century epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.
Cries of poverty multiple as feds turn off the money spigot
Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan once observed the long-term consequences of runaway spending creates “the most predictable crisis we’ve ever had in this country.” State and local governments being wholly unprepared for the end of coronavirus funding may be the second.
Society needs to take a breather
Patience is a virtue. It’s a simple refrain I learned well in Mrs. Campbell’s class — rather than read the instructions on a pop quiz, I rushed to start answering the questions. Turns out I missed three bonus points for simply writing my name on the back of the page rather than the front. Speed, though, has become the dominant social, political and economic norm.
