Guest Column – By Robert Reich – Despair is worse after a brief period of hope. I don’t know about you, but I was elated earlier this spring when it seemed as if Trump and COVID were gone, and Biden seemed surprisingly able to get the nation rapidly back on track. Now much is sliding…
Guest Columns
The Fake Heroism of Space Billionaires
Guest Column – By Robert Reich – Within hours, Jeff Bezos will blast off into space, a week after Richard Branson went up. Another small step for billionaires. Once upon a time, long long ago, people with names like John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Buzz Aldrin, and Sally Ride blasted into space. None was selected on…
Guest Column: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland On the History of Separating Children From Parents
Guest Column – Deb Haaland – As I read stories about an unmarked grave in Canada where the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found last month, I was sick to my stomach. But the deaths of Indigenous children at the hands of government were not limited to that side of the border. Many Americans…
Republicans Tried to Overturn the Election: We Must Not Forget
Guest Column – By Robert Reich – America prefers to look forward rather than back. We’re a land of second acts. We move on. This can be a strength. We don’t get bogged down in outmoded traditions, old grudges, obsolete ways of thinking. We constantly reinvent. We love innovation and disruption. The downside is a…
Amazon Union Drive Fails: Republicans Rejoice and Oppose Biden’s Infrastructure Plan
Guest Column – By James Rhodes – I am motivated by the most recent comments by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explaining why he, nor his party, could support the national Biden infrastructure proposal: “…because the most unworthy would receive the vast majority of benefits…” As it turns out, the “most unworthy” are basically defined…
Robert Reich: What if We Actually Taxed the Rich?
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer Reintroduces ‘For the People Act’
Guest Column – By House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer – Originally written for Roll Call – In 2018, House Democrats won the majority on a promise that we would refocus the chamber on delivering “For the People.” The centerpiece of that effort was HR 1, the For the People Act, comprehensive legislation to root…
Two Independent Thinking News Writers Pass On in Knoxville
Editor’s Note: This news comes with no personal regrets, since I didn’t know either of the deceased. But I knew Jack Neely some when writing for Metro Pulse myself, one of the most interesting alternative weeklies in the country in print and online in the late 20th century. It’s a sad day when anyone dies,…
God Save the United States of America from Racist Ignorance
Guest Column – By James Rhodes – It is evident that some news readers are confused and baffled by the actions of many Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate, as their policy positions do not line-up with long standing Republican principles. I resided in Alabama when being a Republican was not only rare, but…
One Reason Trump Doesn’t Want to Concede: Profit
By Robert Reich – Joe Biden has decisively won the presidency. There is no way for Trump to overturn the results of the election, and his campaign’s post-election lawsuits have gotten dismissed left and right. That hasn’t stopped him from launching an “Official Election Defense Fund” and bombarding his supporters with fundraising appeals to supposedly…
Order of the Day: November 3, 2020
Six Crucial Races That Could Flip the U.S. Senate
By Robert Reich – This November, we have an opportunity to harness your energy and momentum into political power and not just defeat Trump, but also flip the Senate. Here are six key races you should be paying attention to. 1. The first is North Carolina Republican senator Thom Tillis, notable for his “olympic gold”…
For Ruth Bader Ginsburg it was all About Principle; for Mitch McConnell it’s all About Power
By Robert Reich – People in public life tend to fall into one of two broad categories – those who are motivated by principle, and those motivated by power. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday night at the age of 87, exemplified the first. When he nominated her in 1993, Bill Clinton called her…
As the West Goes Up in Flames, Trump Couldn’t Care Less
By Robert Reich – The air outside my window is yellow today. It was orange yesterday. The Air Quality Index is over 200. The Environmental Protection Agency defines this as a “health alert” in which “everyone may experience more serious health effects if they are exposed for 24 hours.” Unfortunately, the index has been over…
Feeling the Consequences of Trump’s Rotten Presidency First Hand in the Wildfires of California
Betsy DeVos Has No Plan for Safely Reopening Schools
By Robert Reich – Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos is heading the administration’s effort to force schools to reopen in the fall for in-person instruction. What’s her plan to reopen safely? She doesn’t have one. Rather than seeking additional federal funds, she’s using this pandemic to further her ploy to privatize education — threatening to…
Mitch McConnell’s Republicans Are Destroying America
By Robert Reich – Senate Republicans’ shameful priorities are on full display as the nation continues to grapple with an unprecedented health and economic crisis. Mitch McConnell and the GOP refuse to take up the HEROES Act, passed by the House in early May to help Americans survive the pandemic and fortify the upcoming election.…
The Real Choice: Social Control or Social Investment
By Robert Reich – Some societies center on social control, others on social investment. Social-control societies put substantial resources into police, prisons, surveillance, immigration enforcement, and the military. Their purpose is to utilize fear, punishment, and violence to divide people and keep the status quo in place — perpetuating the systemic oppression of Black and…
While Trump Rushes to Reopen America, Covid-19 is Closing in on Him
By Robert Reich – Donald Trump said last Thursdayâs jobs report, which showed an uptick in June, proves the economy is âroaring backâ. Rubbish. The Labor Department gathered the data during the week of June 12, when America was reporting 25,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day. By the time the report was issued last…
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer: Voting Should Not Become Coronavirus Pandemic’s Next Victim
By Steny H. Hoyer – U.S. House Majority Leader – Problems encountered by voters in recent primary elections continue to present a warning to all Americans ahead of our general election in November. Many voters — particularly minority voters — have waited hours at their polling locations or were turned away outright. Thousands who requested…