editorialopinion

Commentary: My family and I cheered at the Highland Park parade. Then gun violence shattered the joy

To my knowledge, I have never heard a semi-automatic rifle until Monday. Such a neat, orderly sound amid the terrified screams of children and families running for their lives. My family and I were in that holiday crowd in Highland Park, desperately sprinting toward safety we were not sure existed anymore. Somewhere nearby, there must have been the group of little kids who had been sitting on our left, and the elderly couple sitting behind us who waved as their grandchildren called out to them from a float. The faces of the young and old who had smiled and waved alongside us for the beginning ...

Chicago Tribune

Editorial: Highland Park mass shooting a horrific stain on the Fourth of July

A year from now, the good people of Highland Park will be wondering whether to hold a parade. There will be a school of thought believing the town must get back to something approaching Independence Day normalcy, if only for the sake of its children; others will worry that a parade will trigger the trauma of 2022, when a hidden assailant fired his assault-style rifle in the direction of grandparents and kids, community stalwarts and hardworking parents. He killed six and sent 30 more to hospitals that were expecting nothing more of the day than a few minor injuries from fireworks. There will b...

Chicago Tribune

John M. Crisp: Did Trump try to grab the steering wheel? Does it matter?

One of the most curious episodes to emerge from the House Jan. 6 committee hearings was described by Cassidy Hutchinson this way: After former President Donald Trump was told by the head of his Secret Service detail, Robert Engel, that the assets to take him to join the unruly crowd at the Capitol were not available, Hutchinson says, “the president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel, Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said ‘Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel, we’re going back to the West Wing, we’re not going to the Capitol.’ Mr. Trump then us...

Tribune News Service

Editorial: Missouri legislation previewed how far post-Roe radicals may be ready to go

One of the more shameful moments in congressional history was the passage in 1850 of the Fugitive Slave Act. It required that even slavery-free Northern states must abet that evil institution by returning enslaved people who’d escaped from the South and believed they had attained freedom. With the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, America may again see attempts by states that restrict the freedom of some of their citizens to extend those restrictions into other states. Missouri lawmakers, for example, seriously considered a measure this year that would have presumed to punish out-of-sta...

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Editorial: The filibuster is further endangering abortion rights. It's time to scrap it

The irony is thick: A Republican president took office despite getting fewer votes than his opponent, then installed three conservative Supreme Court justices — and now that court majority has ignored America’s majority, not to mention its own precedent, to impose its ideological will on society. The fall of Roe v. Wade is the result of a series of minoritarian quirks in the nation’s political structure and the GOP’s single-minded exploitation of those quirks. With Republicans posed to retake Congress thanks to factors unrelated to actual merit, anti-choice extremism could ultimately be forced...

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Commentary: I’m a young resident physician who has learned how hard it is to navigate human suffering

I am a resident physician, a brand-new doctor. I am just beginning my residency training. The process of becoming a doctor is long and tedious and involves a tremendous amount of work and dogged commitment. We complete undergraduate education, four years of medical school, and three to five years of residency. The hardest part, though, is not academics or occupational stamina — but rather developing a personal and professional identity as you bear witness to the suffering of your fellow man. We as people collect experiences through our lives that shape us and our narrative. A number of these s...

Chicago Tribune

Commentary: Why it is critical to talk to your kids about abortion rights

With the reversal of Roe v. Wade, one group that may feel unsure about how and whether to discuss the decline of women’s rights is parents. It’s tempting to assume that adult issues such as abortion are inappropriate or irrelevant from a child’s perspective. But as a developmental psychology professor and a (currently pregnant) parent, I would argue that it is critical to talk with your school-age children about abortion rights. Children are often ready to process more information and at younger ages than you might think. Making them active participants in understanding inequities in society i...

Chicago Tribune

Commentary: Our 2 failing parties need to be shaken up by independents

For 16 years, I had the privilege of representing the people of Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District until I was narrowly defeated in the 2020 Democratic primary. I lost that race because I dared to not always follow in lockstep with my party in an era in which extreme partisanship and polarization rule. In a number of primary elections last week, both parties continued to reject candidates willing to ever deviate from the party line, including Illinois’ 15th District in which Rep. Rodney Davis lost the Republican primary. This trend is causing more extremity, more intransigence and more gridl...

Chicago Tribune

Greg Cote: Deshaun Watson saga nears end as NFL weighs penalty, but no one wins here. Everybody loses.

MIAMI — Nobody wins when this is over. No ties. Everybody loses. When the NFL finally resolves this miserable, embarrassing Deshaun Watson saga, there will be no satisfaction to be found, not anywhere. The mess will have ended, but not really. Watson could be suspended indefinitely, for at least a full season, over accusations by 25 women of sexual improprieties during massage sessions. Or he might also be suspended for just several games, part of a season, in what would be outrageous leniency but lessen the chance of an appeal and this mess going on. No matter what, nobody will win in this. T...

Miami Herald

Editorial: Scott Perry, Jeffrey Clark, and the lingering threat of Jan. 6 enablers

The six House Select Committee hearings on the attack on the Capitol have exposed the seditious lengths Donald Trump and his associates went to try to overturn the 2020 election, from promoting election fraud lies, pressuring state election officials to throw out votes, leaning on Vice President Mike Pence to illegally upend the vote tally, and trying to coerce the Justice Department to falsely claim there was voter fraud. But Tuesday's hearing was perhaps the most explosive yet. It showed that Trump knew the Jan. 6 mob was armed, but he wanted security precautions lifted anyway; then he egged...

The Philadelphia Inquirer