Jim Crow laws stripped blacks of basic rights. Despite landmark civil rights laws, many public schools were still segregated, blacks still faced barriers to voting, and violence by white racists continued. Such open racism is mostly gone in America, but covert racism is alive and well.
An early attempt at education choice was charter schools. These were meant to attract the best and brightest students and provide them a level of education they often could not find in their local school districts. The problem is that, of the thousands of charter schools, many are outright failures.
The hardest-hit taxpayers in our disgraceful tax system are those folks who pack Trump's rallies, especially in hard-hit Rust Belt states like Ohio and Michigan.
I would be delighted not to see another celebrity, regardless of their political beliefs, come to Washington to make yet another appeal for some cause about which they know little.
Hillary Clinton is in political trouble and perhaps even legal trouble over her use of private e-mail accounts and bypassing government-issued accounts containing substantial amounts of information that belongs to the federal government. But ultimately, I don't think this latest controversy will hurt her presidential ambitions.
Life is a series of chapters, and one leads to another to another to another, and God knows what it is.
Domestic wiretaps, government television cameras blanketing our streets, spy drones by the thousands flying over our heads. It makes you wonder if the very foundation of this great country, which is liberty, is eroding right before our eyes.
It is Trump who plays with the tax code to pay no taxes; it is Trump whose Trump-brand products are made overseas by cheap labor; it is Trump who hires undocumented workers from Poland to work on his projects, then refuses to pay them minimum wages.
Some credit is due to Trump for seizing the anti establishment mood of the country, but most of his success can be attributed to pure luck.
I think a flat tax has merit. Anything would be better than the current tax code.
Congress votes for things the military doesn't want, and planes and other weaponry that cost a lot but don't work.
Disney World is exactly the wrong description of how the Secret Service should operate in public. Their jobs are not about pleasing adults and children, but rather protecting the president and the first family.
The fact of the matter, it's that Trump is getting money from blue-collar workers who send him checks for $250. Why? Who is Donald Trump? It's not who he is, it's who he isn't. Not what he is for, what he is against - that is, everything Washington is doing.
I have long believed there is a lot of waste in the defense budget.
As a survivor, you learn how to talk fast, cut deals, lie when you have to - perfect training to be a politician, you know?
Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis had enormous talent, and Elvis was the major contributor to an entirely new genre of music. Sometimes their exploits were distasteful to people, but they left behind an enormous body of work that endures.
Trump has predicated his whole campaign on the unfairness of the playing field. Big corporations, rich donors, big media, and trade deals that punish the little guy.
As a life-long liberal who has engaged in protests against the government and for civil rights, I am saddened at efforts by some of my fellow liberals to silence commencement speakers with whom they might disagree on some issues.
The media role in highlighting racial incidents only serves to exacerbate tension. We rarely write about racial harmony.
We've come a long way from the days of Jim Crow, and yes, we elected a black president, but racism lives.
