Tillerson: U.S. Proposes Sit-Down Talks with North Korea

Featured at WCCB Rising

(CNN) — Conflicting signals about the possibility of war between the U.S. and North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday that the U.S. is willing to sit down for talks with North Korea, but only if it relinquishes its pursuit of nuclear weapons. He says the goal of all U.S. foreign policy now is to make good on President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan to “make America great again.”

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham says military option is “inevitable” if Kim Jong Un continues developing missiles that are capable of reaching major U.S. cities.

This all comes after Pyongyang’s firing of two intercontinental ballistic missile tests in July. In response, the U.S. has just tested it’s fourth ICBM.

Political Contributor, Mary C. Curtis offers more perspective into the rising North Korea threat.

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Aug022017 TAGS: , , ,

Opinion: ‘Values’ Are Relative When Rooting for Your Political Team

Featured at Roll Call

In his wary optimism after the U.S. Senate voted to proceed with debate on dismantling President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act and replacing it with, well, something, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he and his supporters were “not out here to spike the football.”

In this case, the cliched sports metaphor fit.

Politics, more than ever, has come to resemble a depressingly repetitive sporting event: Judging an idea’s worth depends on which team supports it. And the opposing team is — always the New England Patriots.

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Jul272017 TAGS: , , , ,

Opinion: For Whom and What Do Faith Leaders Pray?

Featured at Roll Call

Were their prayers answered?

White — most of them, anyway — evangelicals, recently photographed laying hands on President Donald Trump perhaps were praying that the proposed Senate health care bill, the one estimates predicted would result in millions losing care or Medicaid coverage, would fail.

And it did.

Or maybe not. Who knows what a person prays for in his or her heart?

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Jul202017 TAGS: , , ,

Opinion: Demanding Dignity From Leaders Comes With a Complicated History

Featured at Roll Call

The room — 14 feet, 8 inches wide and 13 feet long — has no windows. It had been a restroom at the Monticello home of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia. But now, the small room adjacent to Jefferson’s, the one historians believe once belonged to Sally Hemings, will be restored and given its due, as will the enslaved woman who evidence indicates was the mother of six children of the third president of the United States.

As the current president, Donald Trump, is often lambasted for lowering the dignity and honor of the office, the news coming out of Monticello — where the role of its enslaved people is belatedly a part of the historical presentation to visitors — is a bracing reminder that our leaders have always been flawed. Founding Father Jefferson wrote stirring words of equality while owning fellow human beings.

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Jul132017 TAGS: , , , , , ,

Opinion: Democracy — With Big Brother in the Voting Booth

Featured at Roll Call

Some Americans believe in small government — until they don’t.

Remember the conservative mantra, “government is the problem?” Well, toss out that way of thinking for a group of leaders — some elected, some appointed — who want to create a complicated new arm of government bureaucracy, one that reaches into how and how often a person votes and sucks up a chunk of your Social Security number for good measure. And we’re paying for this?

Some Americans believe in small government — until they don’t. Remember the conservative mantra, “government is the problem?” Well, toss out that way of thinking for a group of leaders — some elected, some appointed — who want to create a complicated new arm of government bureaucracy, one that reaches into how and how often a person votes and sucks up a chunk of your Social Security number for good measure. And we’re paying for this?

Read the rest atRoll Call
Jul062017 TAGS: , , , , ,

A Full Agenda for Trump’s Trip Overseas

Featured at WCCB Rising

CHARLOTTE, NC — President Trump leaves a Tweet-storm in the U.S., but his overseas trip could be complicated. North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile has many countries pondering the next move.

In Hamburg, Trump is set to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit. Will he mention Russia’s support of Assad in Syria, who has used chemical weapons? What about Russia’s annexing of Crimea and tensions with Ukraine?

Trump will also meet with German chancellor Angela Merkel, who has questioned his pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate change accord. What is the next step in that relationship?

WCCB’s political contributor, Mary C. Curtis, weighs in.

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Jul052017 TAGS: , , ,

Opinion: The Politics of Drug Policy

Featured at Roll Call

It’s an intractable issue in the news daily, so the proposed, much-debated and now-delayed Senate Republican health care bill had to do something to answer the opioid addiction crisis in America. Add to that the basic political realization that in many of the states that supported Donald Trump and Republicans, a high percentage of people are hurting — to turn a blind eye would be a problem for America and for the GOP on many levels.

Many fear the Senate bill is not enough to meet a challenge that is intertwined with unemployment, the economy and more. Though, at least — and some would label it the very least — the uncertain yet compassionate reaction contrasts with the harsh strategy the Justice Department has laid out for other low-level drug offenders.

So while establishing a drug policy in America, one that would fight the disease of addiction as well as the crime and violence that arise from the drug business, our lawmakers and leaders would seem to be setting up a strategy of contradiction

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Jun292017 TAGS: , , , ,

Donald Trump — the Affirmative Action President and His Enablers

Featured at Roll Call

House Speaker Paul Ryan offered the excuse “He’s just new to this” for Donald Trump after former FBI chief James Comey’s testimony that the president has done and said things that were inappropriate, even if they don’t turn out to be illegal. It sounded like something you would say in defense of a toddler who dives face-first into the birthday cake because he hasn’t yet learned what a fork is for.

President Trump is that guy — and it’s a guy 99 percent of the time — who doesn’t bother to read the book but tries to bluff his way through the oral report. Sometimes that guy is funny. When he is in a position to weaken long-held European alliances, jeopardize troops on a base in the Middle East or shred America’s safety net as well as ethical guidelines set by the founders in the U.S. Constitution, no one should be laughing. A “gentleman’s C” won’t cut it when so much is at stake.

 

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Jun192017 TAGS: , , ,

Opinion: What Exactly Do Republicans Believe in Besides Trump?

Featured at Roll Call

When my parents were good Republicans — my mother a party activist, in fact — the label meant something entirely different than it does today.

It was the party of Lincoln, imagine that, and the GOP tolerated differences with a tent that was indeed big. You could be pro-civil rights and fiscally conservative, a working-class African-American family in Maryland, then, as now, a mostly blue state, and there was someone such as Republican Sen. Charles Mathias. With his streak of independence and loyalty to principle, he could represent you, your party and even those who didn’t vote for him.

But what does the GOP stand for in 2017? The answer, of course, is President Donald Trump, a man who changes positions and then contradicts himself.

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Jun082017 TAGS: , , ,

Trouble in Paradise for Trump’s Inner Circle

Featured at WCCB Rising

WASHINGTON (AP) – Fired FBI Director James Comey’s highly anticipated congressional testimony is just a day away, and the White House and its allies are scrambling for ways to offset potential damage. President Donald Trump has been tight-lipped, telling reporters, “I wish him luck.” Comey’s testimony Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee could expose new details regarding his discussions with Trump about the federal investigation into Russia’s election meddling.

Meantime, White House sources say Attorney General Jeff Sessions was willing to call it quits if President Trump no longer wanted him to serve in that position. This comes amid alleged tension between The President and Sessions since the Attorney General recused himself from the Russia Probe.

Our political contributor Mary C. Curtis weighs in.

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Jun072017 TAGS: , ,
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