Commentary
Suspect in the Club Q shooting faces hate crimes charges — what exactly are they?
This commentary originally appeared on The Conversation. The 22-year-old suspected shooter at a gay night club in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who allegedly killed five and injured dozens faces five counts of murder and hate crimes charges. Hate crimes are known as “bias-motivated” crimes in Colorado. The charges against the shooter are still preliminary, although Colorado […]
After COP27, all signs point to world blowing past the 1.5 degrees global warming limit
This commentary originally appeared on The Conversation. The world could still, theoretically, meet its goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, a level many scientists consider a dangerous threshold. Realistically, that’s unlikely to happen. Part of the problem was evident at COP27, the United Nations climate conference in Egypt. While nations’ climate negotiators […]
Red flag laws and the Colorado LGBTQ club shooting
This commentary originally appeared on The Conversation. The killing of five patrons in a Colorado LGBTQ bar on Nov. 19, 2022, is the latest mass shooting to garner headlines in the U.S. Police have said they have yet to determine a motive. But one thing that has emerged is that the suspect had a history […]
J.D. Vance: Ohio’s new servile, self-seeking sycophant of a U.S. Senator
This commentary originally appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal. After two years of relentless lies from Donald Trump about the 2020 Election — lies that precipitated a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn a free and fair American election — Ohio’s newly elected U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance says it’s not the […]
Walker’s backers likely prefer DeSantis over Trump on Senate campaign trail
This commentary originally appeared in Georgia Recorder. Donald Trump personally hand-selected Herschel Walker to be his candidate for U.S. senator, hoping that Walker would serve as the instrument through which Trump could reassert political dominance over Georgia and erase the embarrassment of his 2020 loss. So Trump wooed Walker, he flattered Walker, he publicly pressured […]
Democracy haters aren’t going away. They’re digging in.
The midterm elections this month brought widespread failure to election deniers on the ballot. The most toxic of these dishonest Republicans all went down in stinging losses. Losers included: Governor candidate Kari Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem in Arizona. Secretary of state candidate Jim Marchant in Nevada. Governor candidate Tudor Dixon and […]
Republicans served up ‘red wave’ Kool-Aid. Pundits drank it up.
This commentary originally appeared in the Michigan Advance. The election was four weeks out. Every sign pointed to Republican Michigan gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon careening toward an epic loss. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was, by all indications, running a smart campaign that connected with voters on kitchen-table issues, which does, as she often pointed out, include […]
A social media expert explains how Mastodon works and why it won’t be a new Twitter
This commentary originally appeared in The Conversation. In the wake of Elon Musk’s noisy takeover of Twitter, people have been looking for alternatives to the increasingly toxic microblogging social media platform. Many of those fleeing or hedging their bets have turned to Mastodon, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of new users since Twitter’s acquisition. […]
Pennsylvania voters sent the GOP a message on Tuesday. They need to listen.
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Though their reasons and motivations may have differed, when they came out to the polls on Tuesday, Pennsylvania voters were sending a clear message about the people they want representing them in Washington and in Harrisburg. They wanted someone who heard the voices of the state’s Black […]
Lies lost in Colorado elections
With a couple months to go before this week’s election, Colorado Republican governor candidate Heidi Ganahl started insisting that school children were identifying as cats, and she accused school administrators of accommodating the disruptive behavior. None of it was true. The claim was part of a national phenomenon of right-wing politicians and influencers using anti-LGBTQ […]
Before you vote for a senator, here are some facts about what they actually do
This commentary originally appeared in The Conversation. Fetterman or Oz? Walker or Warnock? Bolduc or Hassan? Kelly or Masters? Hard-fought races for the U.S. Senate are dominating the news before the 2022 midterm elections, with energetic and close contests in Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Hampshire and Arizona, among others. Some have included record amounts of spending; […]
The optics of American hate
This commentary originally appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch. The road to hell isn’t paved anymore with good intentions. The asphalt is hatred. Chances are you have experienced it recently. A person may have confronted you because of race or ethnicity. One study shows that 22% of Americans have encountered that or had their property […]