VOICES

GUN LAWS - On Thursday morning, Democratic lawmakers gathered at the western steps of the state Capitol to commemorate victims of gun violence and orate on the need for tougher gun laws — both in California and nationally. 

GUN VIOLENCE - Every time there is news of a mass shooting in this country, we go through the same cycle.

GUEST COMMENTARY - Many UN agencies were created that have and continue to provide critically important assistance in many fields, saving the lives and wellbeing of millions of people.

GUEST COMMENTARY - I could barely look at the pictures of mothers crying in agony at the loss of their children to the gunman at Uvalde, Texas.

GUN VIOLENCE - In the days since the Uvalde shooting, media outlets have shared heartbreaking images of the small victims as they were cherished in life.

EQUAL RIGHTS - Three years ago, the U.S. women’s soccer team filed a $24 million gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation.

GUEST COMMENTARY - Today's six-member supermajority on the Supreme Court has surrendered all claim to being an impartial moral force for blind justice.

RUSSIA UKRAINE WAR - Peace advocates warned Tuesday that the Biden administration's newly unveiled decision to arm Ukraine with advanced missile systems further heightens the risk of a direct military conflict between the U.S. and Russia,

MY THOUGHTS - One has to be made of stone not to have been affected by the senseless mass shootings of the last three weeks.

LEGAL WOES - The irony was lost on no one last week when we learned that the parents of the mayor of Los Angeles have hired a professional lobbyist to make the case to the U.S. Senate that their son should be confirmed as ambassador to India (Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2022). 

IN MEMORIAM - It was 15 years ago this month that Joseph Anzack Jr., private first class, United States Army, faced impending death on a dark and dusty road during America’s long war in Iraq.

ACCORDING TO LIZ - Memorial Day is a federal holiday for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have died while serving their country established in 1868 a few years after the Civil War ended.

A VIEW FROM HERE - In 1776, America Founded Itself on Two  Revolutionary Theories.

WHITE SUPREMACY - Civil rights activist and philosopher Cornel West called out former President Donald Trump for leading a “hate campaign” against Black and brown people.

ECONOMIC RELIEF - I borrowed money to pay for college. Like 45 million other Americans who did the same, I owe student loan debt.

GUEST COMMENTARY - It's been a week since a mentally ill racist murdered 10 people, most of them Black Americans, in a Buffalo supermarket.

UP TO THE STATES - Last year, David Pepper was so frustrated by the atrophied state of U.S. democracy that he tweeted a riff on a phrase popularized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: “States are the laboratories of democracy.”

ROE V WADE - As the ridiculously right-wing United States Supreme Court stands poised to defy majority public opinion by reversing its 1973 Roe v. Wade (hereafter “Roe”) decision and thereby stripping away women’s half-century constitutional right to an abortion,

GUN VIOLENCE - In the 23 years since Columbine, at least 554 students, educators, and school staff have been victims of school shootings, according to a Washington Post report.

ACCORDING TO LIZ - Some people argue that it is disrespectful to the dead to use such a tragedy to score political points.

The Doctor is IN:  Let me start by proclaiming that I am a physician who supports the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, Law Enforcement, and also science over feelings with respect to public health.