Solving gun violence requires a different lens
Since the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, gun safety advocates, national news outlets and public officials from city councils to the White House have repeated the claim that gun violence has overtaken car accidents to become the leading cause of death for school-aged children in the United States. But according to CDC data, this is only true for Black children. Even then, gun violence is more prevalent among at-risk teenagers in certain historically segregated neighborhoods.
Stop underfunding Hawaii’s critical nonprofits
Hawaii is a special place, and it’s the people who make it a compassionate community. We show aloha for our family, friends, neighbors and even complete strangers. All of us at one time or another, have benefited from the care of others.
I stopped drinking and built the life I always wanted. Why was I still so anxious?
After a wildly successful drinking career, I finally retired 11 years ago. I’d love to say that it was a considered decision after mature reflections and conversations with loved ones. But no. After yet another solo drinking spree, I woke up fully clothed on the cold hard tiles of my bathroom floor. Mornings like this had led to weeks of sobriety before. But this day, it felt different, and as I vowed never to self-medicate again, I knew I was done for good.
Trump’s bombast on NATO invites Russian aggression
Given that Donald Trump talks trash about a range of issues, it’s tempting to discount the rant in which he suggested that as president he would encourage Russia to attack NATO allies who were “delinquent” in their financial obligations.
Biden shouldn’t give up on border security
The glimmer of hope that Congress might pass a bipartisan border-security bill has been extinguished, at least for now. In killing immigration reforms that their party has long supported — and that are now far less likely to become law — Republicans have demonstrated their lack of interest in governing and their unfortunate fealty to Donald Trump, who would prefer to weaponize the issue on the campaign trail. Despite the failure of this compromise, the bipartisan group that spearheaded the bill shouldn’t give up. Nor can the White House wait for Congress to act. The problems at the border are too pressing — and, for President Joe Biden, too politically damaging to ignore.
Saving the news media means moving beyond the benevolence of billionaires
For the journalism industry, 2024 is off to a brutal start.
The high court seems ready to knock over Trump’s Colorado ballot ban
The U.S. Supreme Court expressed proper doubt toward Colorado’s attempt to exclude Donald Trump from its presidential ballot under the 14th Amendment. Trump is indeed an anti-democratic demagogue who sought to overturn the 2020 election, before and on Jan. 6.
Atlantic Ocean is headed for a tipping point
Superstorms, abrupt climate shifts and New York City frozen in ice. That’s how the blockbuster Hollywood movie “The Day After Tomorrow” depicted an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation and the catastrophic consequences.
Biden’s ‘diminished faculties’ a great concern
If Democrats believe Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, why do they insist on sending a weakened 81-year-old Joe Biden into battle against him? That question became a bit more urgent last week.
Will Crumbley verdict trap good parents too?
Oakland County, Michigan, Prosecutor Karen McDonald wanted to send the message that gun owners need to secure their firearms, and in Jennifer Crumbley she found the messenger.
Island Intelligencer: A year of Hawaiian spyin‘
Hau‘oli Makahiki Hou!
Defense secretary must rebuild trust after unexpected absence
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week took responsibility for not notifying the White House when he was hospitalized at the beginning of January, an important first step in rebuilding trust with President Joe Biden, Congress and the American people.
Increased capacity means the rich pay fair share
In an analysis released this week, the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department admitted that they had been wrong with an earlier estimate of $390 billion in additional tax revenues coming in during the next decade as a result of the $80 billion IRS funding boost in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022.
Two key antiabortion studies have been retracted as junk science. Will the Supreme Court care?
If the effort to ban medication abortion now before the Supreme Court demonstrates anything, it’s that the damage caused in our society by junk science can be disastrous indeed.
SoCal’s smog-cutting plan is failing and regulators would rather point fingers than fix it
Government officials whose job it is to clean the nation’s worst smog from Southern California’s air should be embarrassed. Instead of working together to cut lung-damaging ozone pollution, they are wasting time pointing fingers at one another.
Trump came for their party but took over their souls
I thought I was beyond shockable, but this week has been profoundly shocking for me. I spent the bulk of my adult life on the right-wing side of things, generally rooting for the Republican Party, because I thought that party best served America. People like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump chased me out of the Republican orbit (gradually and then all at once), but I have still held out the hope that my many friends on the right are kind of like an occupied country. They have to mouth the Trumpian prejudices to survive in this era, but somewhere deep inside, the party of Reagan still lives in their souls.
We Americans neglect our children
Individually, we adore and pamper our children. We shuttle them from soccer practice to music lessons and then organize their play dates with meticulous fanaticism.
How two US presidents helped Iran
Through the misuse of terrorist buddies, that old, old civilization that is today called Iran is out to make itself something new, the leader of the world, and is taking an early step through the attempted destruction of Israel. This could be a major goal-enhancing accomplishment, but understand that it is hardly the beginning of a destructive Iranian march helped considerably by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The right numbers: Against the odds, the economy is humming
Good news came Friday morning with the release of the latest Department of Labor statistics showing another period of wage and job gains and low unemployment — with 3.7% as of last month, it has stayed under the 4% threshold for two years for the first time in a generation.
Could Taylor Swift be the biggest election influencer of them all?
There is a long history in the United States of presidential candidates receiving important celebrity endorsements that many argue have tipped the tide from one candidate to another.