IMPORTANT READS

POLITICS--The youth-led Sunrise Movement staged a series of protests on Capitol Hill and across the country to demand lawmakers take urgent action on the climate crisis and back the Green New Deal. (Photo: Sunrise Movement/Twitter)

VIEW FROM HERE-According to a recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spend an average of 16.8 minutes a day (or 0.28 of an hour) reading on their own volition for purposes other than work or school.

IMMIGRATION 2019 STYLE-Let us now contemplate the morality tale of the Good Samaritan. Not the one in the New Testament, but the one out in the high desert region around Marfa, Texas, just 60 miles from the Mexican border. 

MUELLER REPORT FALLOUT--Robert Mueller may not want to testify to Congress about the findings of his two-year long probe into the President Donald Trump administration's relationship with Russia and the president's subsequent treatment of that investigation, but, as progressive commentators and advocacy groups pointed out Wednesday, that's not really for him to decide.

RAW STORY REPORT--President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist believes a thorough investigation will reveal his family business is a “semi-criminal enterprise” — and ultimately end his presidency. (Photo above: Steve Bannon and Donald Trump (Composite / RawStory)

VIEW FROM HERE-In 2016 a poll was conducted to find out which American the country wanted to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. When it was all said and done, the person who had the most votes was the great abolitionist Harriet Tubman. 

VIEW FROM HERE-I.M. Pei, one of the world's most iconic and prolific architects, has died at the age of 102. Best known for his remarkable transformation of the Louvre in Paris and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, Pei also left his fingerprint of genius on the Flower City.

GUEST COMMENTARY--A springtime wedding in Northern Yemen’s Al-Raqah village took place in April 2018, a moment of reprieve from the turmoil and devastation of that war-torn country, a moment to celebrate life, love, and the birth of a new family.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE IN YOUR HANDS--We’re living in the most perilous time for abortion rights and reproductive freedom since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

PERSPECTIVE--“Over these last few years, given the wars it has waged and the international treaties it has arbitrarily reneged on, the U.S. government perfectly fits its own definition of a rogue state.” — Arundhati Roy

WORLD WATCH--On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the end of Kosovo war, the country is facing a dramatic large-scale brain drain.

VIEW FROM HERE--Obviously, President Trump perceives himself as a leader who can thrive on chaos. But what has been overlooked is why he chooses to "lead" this way. There are plenty of other ways to get things done as a manager of a company and/or nation. Why does Trump prefer chaos over order? 

MY TURN--I don’t know what happened to this country. We all knew that there was racism and bigotry in almost every area, but on the day of the announcement of the 2016 election, it seems that all hell broke loose.

POLITICS--The formula for creating an American hero goes like this. Take a dude, preferably white. Make him an underdog. Position him as a champion of the upwardly aspiring. Hey presto! There’s a knight in shining armor, coming to save the promised land. 

HEALTH-CARE POLITICS--On Thursday, the Trump administration published a new set of rules, laying out its plan to interpret broadly laws that protect health-care workers' and organizations' right to opt out on moral grounds of "assisting" in certain procedures, such as abortion, sterilization, and assisted suicide.

VIEW FROM HERE--Speaking at an event sponsored by CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), Congresswoman Ilhan Absullahi Omar, a Somali-American member of the U.S. House of Representatives serving for Minnesota's 5th congressional district, said, “Muslims for a really long time in this country have been told that there is a privilege, that there is a privilege that we are given and it might be taken away...

WORLD WATCH--Accusing Iran of being a rogue country bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, supporting extremist groups and terrorism, persistently threatening Israel, and destabilizing the region in its relentless effort to become the dominant power may well all be justified.

MY TURN-We have to ask ourselves, exactly “when” did supporting a political candidate transition into the kind of cult behavior that we have seen with those that support Sanders and Trump? What was the formula that catapulted an individual to a pedestal that was so unrealistic, it borders on worship?

MORE TO WAR THAN GUNS AND BOMBS— I went to the market …Where all the families shop …
I pulled out my Ka-bar … And started to chop … Your left right left right left right kill …Your left right left right you know I will--Military cadence 

WORLD WATCH--The result of the recent municipal elections in Turkey represents a major shift in public sentiment toward President Erdogan, which will have major political ramifications that will bring him down in disgrace.

HUMAN RIGHTS--Merely banning abortion isn't enough for some on the rabid right — a few are even threatening women with the death penalty.