Thirteen mass shootings since last Friday, and while victims’ families grieve, we all continue to hear and read the same words and see the lack of meaningful actions from lawmakers: “thoughts and prayers”; moral outrage commentaries (this being one of them); bipartisan talks; and proposed water-downed bipartisan bills. According to a CBS/YouGov national poll: 81 percent of Americans favor background...

America is paralyzed by mistrust and extremism. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Intelligence Project” has identified 488 anti-government groups around the country that flourish exploiting lies and false conspiracies. “In 2021,” the project reports, “the conspiratorial and permanently dubious view of government was pervasive, as evidence by the movement’s popularity on such issues as COVID-19 regulations, local school curriculum, the...

In honor of Memorial Day, last Friday I began by describing the longest battle American forces faced in the the Hürtgen Forest during World War II. I wrote how my father, Private James Lichtman, survived an 88mm German canon attack, and a minefield as he crawled to an aid station to receive medical attention for his frozen feet. This is...

After learning of yet another mass shooting in a fourth-grade Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Golden State Warriors’ Coach Steve Kerr brushed off questions about the upcoming playoff against the Dallas Mavericks to offer a passionate and compelling voice about gun violence in America. “When are we going to do something,” Kerr shouted at his pre-game press conference. “I’m tired....

The lead story in Sunday’s New York Times sums up how far Donald Trump has usurped many Republican state legislatures, political leadership in Congress and how far the Republican party has fallen off the radar of credibility and responsibility to the country. “At least 357 sitting Republican legislators in closely contested battleground states have used the power of their office...

“Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York.” —Richard III, Act I, sc. 1 In March 1954, Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson spoke to a crowd of supporters about the poison that had infected much of the American public by a demagogic United States Senator. “We are witnessing the bitter harvest from the...

The leak of a US Supreme Court draft decision raised a lot of concerns about the state of confidentiality and trust of the high court. While I’m concerned about the long-term effects of overturning Roe v. Wade, a law that’s been on the books since 1973, I’m seriously concerned about the public’s trust in the Supreme Court. At a conference...

Character is a word that’s rarely used today; rarer still is finding leaders who demonstrate character. But there are a few. Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, against their party’s wishes, chose to participate in an investigation into the causes of the January 6, 2020 insurrection. It takes character and courage to choose principle over politics. Where would we be...

The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award is distinguished by a ship’s lantern. “The lantern elicits immediate recognition and evokes the shared cultural symbols of light and truth,” designer Edwin Schlossberg says. “Light is the beacon of warning, of safety, of hope in the wilderness. A lantern symbolizes the search for an honest man. It lights a dark path,...

In 1877, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a former distinguished Confederate officer, was the hugely popular Democratic Senator from Mississippi. So revered for his commitment to duty and integrity that a Washington reporter said of Lamar, “he would be a conspicuous personality anywhere, with a character and quality of his own.” Lamar was now faced with an impossible choice in the...