VOICES

COMMENTARY-Reports of generals testifying before Congress that Biden withdrew the military from Afghanistan faster than they had recommended seems to smell a lot like after-the-fact CYA and self-serving in the extreme. 

IMMIGRATION WATCH - Susie Lujano, 28, envisions herself living in Houston forever with her soon-to-be husband and the child they’re expecting.

FINANCIAL MELTDOWN - Mitch McConnell just had Republicans in the Senate declare a filibuster against a simple piece of legislation that would raise the debt ceiling to keep the federal government running, telling Democrats if they want to avoid a massive and destructive government shutdown they're going to have to raise the debt ceiling using reconciliation.

THE COUP ATTEMPT -  “There is an unfolding assault taking place in America today,” President Biden said in Philadelphia on July 13. “An attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are — who we are as Americans.” 

IMMIGRATION WATCH - On the cover of Richard Slotkin’s classic study Gunfighter Nation’s 1998 edition is a painting depicting cowboys fighting Native Americans.

COVIDIOT WATCH - Despite the apparent existence of a free, handy, plentiful vaccine that can keep you alive, right-wing anti-vaxx buffoonery is still at lethal work, and it's not a pretty sight.

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA - It’s hard to think of a better bargain in our high-cost state than the failed recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom.

VOICES-To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to express my concerns regarding the news of the State of California Bar appointing George Cardona as Chief Trial Counsel. 

COMMENTARY-If you are a man living in the Lone Star State today, there are a number of challenges you could face on your way to an abortion. . .

ANTI WAR HAUL - As the US after 20 years finally began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the story dominated TV news.

PEACE VOICE - President Biden is continuing the disengagement policy toward China that began under Donald Trump, with strong bipartisan support. 

PEACE VOICE - Suddenly there’s major concern across the country — from the mainstream media to every last rock-ribbed Republican — for the rights of Afghan women and girls to be able to work, to go to school.

HUMAN RIGHTS - Journalism needs a new rule. Are you reporting about a human rights violation in another country? If the United States commits the same offense, you should be required to refer to that fact in your article or broadcast.

LGBTQ NATION - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), saying that the federal agency’s guidance on LGBTQ rights is “extreme federal overreach” that violates Texas’s “sovereign right” to determine workplace policies, specifically when it comes to LGBTQ job discrimination protections in the workplace.

COMMENTARY-I’m going to lay down my sword and shield. . . So why can’t today’s politicians take that to heart? 

EASTSIDER - Almost everyone witnessed the news media attacks on Joe Biden as he sought to end the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

COMMENTARY - The costs and consequences of America’s twenty-first-century wars have by now been well-documented — a staggering $8 trillion in expenditures and more than 380,000 civilian deaths, as calculated by Brown University’s Costs of War project.

COMMENTARY - FDR understood that we must fight for what we believe in and not worry about angering powerful special interests. 

IMMIGRATION WATCH - For up to 15,000 heartsick Haitians languishing in fear, thirst, hunger and 100-degree temperatures under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas,

COMMENTARY - I remember finding out I was about to become a mother. I felt the fear taking hold of me. My brain stopped. I remember crying but had no tears. I remember trying to run, but I couldn’t move.

WORDS ON WAR - A recent New York Times op-ed was perhaps the strangest, most awkward and tentative defense of the military-industrial complex — excuse me, the experiment in democracy called America — I’ve ever encountered, and begs to be addressed.