Bits & Pieces
Articles with unfiltered opinions
Artificial Intelligence & the 2024 Election
There is little doubt that AI will transform our lives. The beneficial applications promise to be myriad. “AI allows us to see patterns in data that humans cannot grasp,” Stephen Cave, director for the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, explains. “And that will have benefits for all sorts of fields: from drug...
The Importance of Free Speech on Campus
“Freedom of speech is not for the idea you love but for the idea you hate most.” —Larry Flynt When my husband was gunned down in Georgia and paralyzed, he made a decision to spend the rest of his life expanding the parameters of free speech. As he said, “Everyone’s entitled to their own...
End Schoolyard Politics
We are not paying our representatives to act like bullies in a schoolyard. In November alone, Kevin McCarthy allegedly elbowed one of the representatives who backed his ouster in the kidney. And Senator Markwayne Mullin nearly started a fistfight with Teamsters labor union leader Sean O’Brien, telling him “We can finish it here” and...
GOP Fails Congress…and America
Here’s an idea: The next time the GOP paralyzes government and the country, their representatives do not get paid. When Republican House representatives take three whole weeks to elect a speaker, they should forfeit three weeks of the $174,000-plus annual salary Americans, their bosses, pay them. This past October alone, that would have saved...
Fight for Workers’ Rights!
Labor unions have existed since the very beginning of America. Quite simply, the associations served to protect members’ rights. Workers learned that if they banded together, they could negotiate from a position of strength for better wages and improved conditions. Throughout American history, labor unions have exerted a positive influence. They helped to create...
Save Our Planet!
It has been a year of unmitigated disasters: Fires raged across Canada and ravaged Maui. The average high temperature in Phoenix for the month of July was 114.7 degrees. And as I write, Hurricane Idalia is devastating Florida and surging into the Southeastern states. In 2022 there were 18 weather/climate disaster events with losses...
SCOTUS Needs Ethics Oversight!
Public approval of the Supreme Court has plummeted, with pollsters at Quinnipiac University reporting that this year Americans gave SCOTUS its lowest marks in the poll’s history. A recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll echoed these findings, with 62% of respondents citing little to no confidence in SCOTUS. We are losing faith in the Highest Court in...
Equal Rights for All!
The ACLU is currently tracking 491 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S. Twice the number of such bills have been introduced so far this year as were introduced in all of 2022—and ten times as many as just five years ago, in 2018. Included are bills to ban access to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth,...
Abolish the Death Penalty!
Recently I listened to Andy Wilson and Maurice Hastings describe the 31 and 38 years, respectively, they spent in prison for murders they did not commit. Had they been given the death penalty, rather than life in prison, these innocent men would likely be dead. I was attending a Death Penalty Focus fundraiser, and...
End Debt Ceiling Politics
As of press time, Congress has raised or revised the debt limit 78 times since 1960. Two-thirds of those times have been under Republican Presidents. When we were spending less, Congress would need to give its approval every time we borrowed money. But then World War I hit, and we were borrowing more and...
Demand Gun Reform!
A GOP supermajority in Tennessee recently ousted two young Black lawmakers, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, for “violating the House’s decorum.” Their “crime”? Protesting from the House floor and calling for gun law reforms following a deadly school shooting in Nashville. According to the Gun Violence Archive, more than 11,500 people died from gun...
The Truth Matters!
We have the right to expect the truth when we listen to the news. It’s the news, dammit, meaning that we should expect to hear an accurate, factual reporting of events. Sadly, the truth has often been scarce to nonexistent in Fox broadcasts and has frequently been replaced with bald-faced lies. We have long...
2024 Is On!
Make no mistake: The 2024 election campaign is on! You have only to listen to the 2023 State of the Union (SOTU) address—and Sanders’ abysmal response —to know that the battle to become America’s next President is well underway. Much will be made in the coming year about Biden’s age. He will be 81...
The House Takes a Hard Right
The House is changing, and not for the better! In a scene not seen since before the Civil War, it took Kevin McCarthy four days and 15 rounds of ballots to become Speaker of the House. And with each and every round the power-hungry McCarthy negotiated with the far right faction of his party...
Sex Workers, Unite!
Support for unions in America is at its highest level since 1965. The labor movement has been revitalized, from employees at Starbucks and Amazon to sex workers. Strippers and sex workers are more organized than ever, and they are unionizing! From Star Garden in California to the United Sex Workers in the U.K. and...
