Recent Respect Commentaries

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What is Religious Freedom?
In another move that can only be described by many as bizarre, North Carolina’s governor decided to sue the federal government over a recent state law limiting bathroom access for transgender people. North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory stated that he would sue the Department of Justice in response to a letter he received from Attorney General Loretta Lynch that...
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May 18, 2016
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He’s Going!
In April, I wrote a commentary encouraging President Obama to visit Hiroshima. As reported in The New York Times three days ago (May 10), “President Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima, Japan…” since the United States dropped an atomic bomb, ending World War II. In a blog post, White House Deputy National Security Advisor for...
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May 13, 2016
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No Excuse, Follow-up
On Monday, I contacted Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey’s office and explained about Dennis Haines’s battle with the V.A. system. A Vietnam veteran and recipient of both a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, Haines had been approved to receive drug treatment for the Hepatitis C he had contracted through tainted blood while in a military hospital. While the treatment and payment...
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May 4, 2016
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Dear Mr. President, Visit Hiroshima
Last Monday (Apr. 15), the editorial board of The Washington Post took notice of President Obama’s upcoming trip to Japan and called for him to visit Hiroshima where, almost 71 years ago, an atomic bomb was dropped by U.S. forces to end the war with Japan. “The bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945,” The Post board writes, “and of...
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April 22, 2016
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Does Civility Matter?
According to supporters, part of the rise of Donald Trump is due to his compulsion to “tell it like it is.” While a large part of his rhetoric is insulting, Trump rationalizes that he does so to wake us all up to the fact that “America isn’t great” anymore. Whether you agree with that last statement or not is a...
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April 6, 2016
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American Diogenes
Lately, a few readers have asked why I spend so much time writing about Donald Trump. It can be summed up in one word. Actually, Jon Stewart told us when he signed off for the final time on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show; a show that began seventeen years earlier as a comedy riff on the news of the day,...
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April 1, 2016
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Ryan’s Grope
Paul Ryan missed his moment, a seminal moment, a “come-to-Jesus” moment. It could’ve been a Reagan moment: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” As the leader of the House and his party, Ryan should’ve called Trump out, by name, as a misogynist, bully, bigot, demagogue, inciter of violence. Instead, the man whose name was raised as a possible presidential candidate...
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March 25, 2016
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How Many Others? – Update
Last month, I wrote about Elaine Harmon who was one of many women who served in the Women Air Force Service Pilots, (WASP) during World War II. Thirty-eight of them died in service to their country. Despite Harmon’s wishes to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, along with other service veterans and their spouses, Arlington maintains that a technicality in...
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March 18, 2016
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Smarter than a Fifth Grader?
With the shameful shenanigans demonstrated by all the name-calling, four-letter words, and rally violence by certain presidential candidates, you can only imagine what grade-schoolers think. That’s just what CBS News correspondent Chip Reid wanted to know. Reid sat down with five 5th graders, Max, Ella, Brynn, Ananya and Will, to ask them what they think about the 2016 presidential race...
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March 16, 2016
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Snake Pit
The Fortune Cookie is a desperately funny Billy Wilder film about an equally desperate con man by the name of “whiplash” Willy, a lawyer (brilliantly played by Walter Matthau), and his schnook brother-in-law, (the equally brilliant Jack Lemmon). Lemmon is a TV cameraman who is accidentally sidelined by a football player while covering a game. After Gingrich learns from his...
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March 14, 2016

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