Op-Ed

More than fifteen years after the “kids for cash” scandal shocked the nation, it’s back, stirring not just public incredulity but, for some, soul-slicing memories of hell on Earth.

This is thanks to Joe Biden’s decision to grant clemency to Michel Conahan, one of two juvenile-court judges in Luzerne County. Pennsylvania, convicted of accepting cash from private detention centers – as much as $2.8 million over a period of about six years – in exchange for sending them children (my God, as young as 8-years-old) convicted of petty offenses, such as fighting, shoplifting, underage drinking, to serve prolonged sentences in prison.

You may not have noticed this. The world “celebrated” International Human Rights Day the other day, even as wars across the planet continued, bombs fell, children died. What if “freedom from war” were a human right?

I don’t ask this to be cynical, but rather to expand the reach of what should be a global day of connection and collective inner reflection. International Human Rights Day is Dec. 10. It’s an annual honoring of the day in 1948 when the newly formed United Nations, in the wake of World War II, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which publicly recognizes “the inherent dignity and . . . equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”

The easiest thing we can do is to give up. I know for many of you, what we face now seems insurmountable. So I want to share with you something GOOD that happened this week, before I get to the Bad and the Ugly.

THE GOOD 

In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black Woman elected to the United States Congress, representing Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, New York. I’m sure she felt like giving up many times, too. But in 1972, she did just the opposite — she ran for President of the United States of America, the first Black Woman Presidential candidate for a major political party in this nation’s deeply racist and sexist history. 

Friends,

It was announced recently that it appears the final count may now be in — and Trump has FAILED to win a majority of the popular vote. His final total, as of now, will be under 50% — or 49.83%.

This was no landslide. It was the smallest percentage of a popular vote victory in a Presidential election since Richard Nixon in 1968.

Here’s how little we lost by:

Just 12 votes per precinct across the entire United States!

That’s it. With Harris behind by just 2.4 million votes out of the 152 million who voted, that’s an average of just 12 votes per precinct across the nearly 200,000 precincts in the U.S.

As the Trump administration prepares to confront China's growing influence, it is critical to base strategies on accurate assessments of domestic capabilities. Misleading narratives, such as those propagated by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, risk undermining government efficiency by spreading falsehoods about federal telework practices.

President Biden has never wavered from approving huge arms shipments to Israel during more than 13 months of mass murder and deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Biden’s crucial role earned him the name “Genocide Joe.”

 That nickname might seem shrill, but it’s valid. Although Biden will not be brought to justice for serving as a key accomplice to the horrific crimes against humanity that continue in Gaza, the label sticks -- and candid historians will condemn him as a direct enabler of genocide.

 Biden could also qualify for another nickname, which according to Google was never published before this article: “Omnicide Joe.”

Antisemitism is wrong—there’s no debate about that. By the same token, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are equally dangerous. Conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism is not only misguided but also harmful. Ohio state Senator Terry Johnson’s proposed legislation does just that, threatening to undermine fundamental constitutional rights, stifle political expression, and open the door to discriminatory enforcement.

The recent vilification of student-led protests on college campuses, chief among them what happened on our own, The Ohio State University, was so dangerous that made many of us shiver.  

If you want to play the game of politics, here’s step one: Reduce everything to a linear political viewpoint: “right” or “left.” No matter how deep and large and complex that viewpoint is, politicize it, turn it into something that’s either right or wrong. It’s all about winning or losing.

Did Harris lean too far left? Oh gosh. Neither Liz Cheney nor Taylor Swift could save her.

I’m still immersed in my own recovery process – recovery from the election, of course. And yes, I’m feeling pain because “my side” lost, but my emotions are complicated by the fact that I didn’t really have a side in the election. It wasn’t simply that I was frustrated with the campaigns and claims of both major parties (the only ones that mattered, right?). I’ve apparently reached a point in my life where the entire political game feels problematic; it minimizes our world in a way I can no longer tolerate.