Browsing: Opinions

– Vice President Kamala Harris has the vision, the intellect and the heart to lead a conversation about how to preserve American democracy. As a country, we are still struggling to make this “A more perfect union.” We are an incredibly unique and beautifully diverse nation, blessed in so many ways. However, our history of cultural cleavage and racial unrest still plagues us. At times, the ideological divide seems to be an unbridgeable chasm. There are those who would use political power to exploit our differences and undermine the very democratic institutions that have held us together as a nation.

        As the Democrats build a new electoral team in 2024 the Harris and Walz team kicks off a cross country tour in five battleground states. Minnesota Governor Walz is an unknown commodity and in the next 90 days America will get to know what the two candidates stand for, and if they can unify the country.  

Winning Ain’t Easy

   Now, two weeks later, the stakes for all sides are much higher. A Hezbollah rocket attack killed 12 children in a village in the Golan Heights, and Israel’s response—an air assault on Beirut that killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander—raised the stakes. At virtually the same time, Israel also carried out the assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, a key figure in the Hamas leadership.

        As the November election approaches, the nation again nears a crossroads on healthcare, with candidates diverging on a basic question of equity: who is to bear the risks and costs of care? For Donald Trump, his congressional allies, and conservative policy analysts, the answer is clear: cut government spending and shift the risks and costs back onto individuals, employers, and states. For Kamala Harris, the priorities move in a strikingly different direction: expand access to healthcare, strengthening the federal government’s role in guaranteeing health care for all Americans, no matter what their socio-economic status may be.

Kamala and The Gantt Report

     “Today was another sign that our collective power can create a historic shift in the Democratic Party: away from militarism and impunity for Israel’s war crimes, and toward peace, justice and equality for all people—including the Palestinian people. Too many lives have already been lost, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza now face not just bombing but starvation and disease. While we welcome Vice President Harris’ choice, we will continue to push on the Harris-Walz campaign to commit to real and substantive policy change to reflect the will of the American people and to save countless lives.”

     Project 2025, the far-right’s ambitious policy planning guide published as Mandate for Leadership, is designed to dismantle the “Deep State” and install a president and proven loyalists who will carry out Donald Trump’s authoritarian agenda. Now the Project supposedly is no more—but not really. Trump’s campaign, concerned about the bad press Project 2025 was getting, ordered that it be disconnected. But make no mistake about it: While Trump may disagree with some of the project’s recommendations, it’s designed with him and only him in mind. 

    But what about the kinds of crimes which are not subject to law because they are the ultimate enforcers of the law, crimes woven seamlessly into the established ways we conduct our affairs and a crucial responsibility for government officials?

     A pair of front-line nuclear weapon abolitionists are incarcerated in a German prison camp this week, marking the anniversaries of the atomic fire-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States government.