(Jackie Robinson, the subject of the movie 42, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1949). I am not a person who romanticizes Jim Crow. Separate but equal was never equal, and activists were right to upend that system of apartheid. But everything comes at a price and the price Jackie Robinson paid, at […]

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The defeat of the Senate’s gun bill last week reflects the strength of the NRA and other pro-gun membership organizations. But it also reflects the potency of a less examined political force: the gun industry. Senators who scuttled the most ambitious gun regulation bill in decades weren’t just representing their constituents. They were also protecting […]

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(CNN’s John King reported last week that arrests had been made when none had. AP and Fox News followed suit.) By Friday night, when we all felt as though we were craning our necks around police cordons to get a better view of the action through our motley screens, it seemed as though the television […]

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Connecticut enacted a round of gun-control laws last week that are being called the strictest in the country. The legislation, signed by Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, bans more than 100 kinds of firearm, including the semi-automatic “military-style” rifle used to slaughter 20 innocent schoolchildren in Newtown last year, as well as magazine cartridges holding more […]

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For the first time in more than 40 years, a majority of Americans believes marijuana should be legal. In 1969, pollsters found that only 12 percent were in favor of the idea and 82 percent opposed it. Now 52 percent think the so-called gateway drug should be legal and 45 percent say it should not […]

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