Mike Pence targeted, a need for diapers and the other top subscriber columns this week
It's that time of the week when subscribers get their own Paste BN Opinion newsletter. These are the columns, from this week, that got your attention, so we're bringing them back today.
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'There’s a diaper need, and I don’t know what to do': A family in need is often just one job loss away
By Connie Schultz
A decade ago, Cathy Battle’s husband, the Rev. Philip Battle, came home after his meeting with mothers and grandmothers at New Light Baptist Church in Pittsburgh.
All these years later, Cathy can still recount word for word their conversation. Life-changing moments tend to be like that.
The pastor had asked women a simple question: What could be done for you that no one else is doing?
In unison, they gave the same answer: diapers. (READ MORE)
Either believe Jan. 6 committee testimony or welcome President Oprah and Vice President AOC
By Rex Huppke
The Jan. 6 committee’s latest hearing assured me that former President Donald Trump, his political allies and supporters will have no problem whatsoever when, following the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris declares Oprah Winfrey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be America’s new president and vice president.
I mean, fair’s fair, right? If the legal theory Trump embraced after (bigly) losing the 2020 election – the theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had legal authority to overturn the election and name Trump the winner – there’s no way he would turn around and claim that theory is fabricated nonsense. That would be wildly hypocritical, and I’ve never known Trump to be hypocritical. (READ MORE)
I saw Trump as a big bully. Then rioters called for my boss, Mike Pence, to be hanged.
By Olivia Troye
The wave of anger and grief that overwhelmed me on Jan. 6, 2021, came rushing back as I absorbed the carnage played anew during two hearings of the House committee investigating the attack on our Capitol, with video after video showing police officers struggling to defend our American institutions.
But I also felt something else during the hearings: an invigorated faith in our shared American values of accountability and justice.
The committee's chair and vice chair, a Democrat and a Republican, a Black man and a white woman, described the events that led up to the day our democracy came under attack. Together they highlighted the path forward to repair and strengthen our nation. And I saw hope for our future, for our nation to reject lies and political violence, for both justice and renewal. (READ MORE)
'Bracing for a long season of debate': What faith leaders say as US waits for abortion ruling
By a collection of faith leaders
The looming decision in the Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has sparked debate across the nation. It also is being closely watched in communities of faith where, as in America, there are differing views on abortion.
Paste BN Opinion reached out to multiple faith leaders for their perspectives on what they hope for in the upcoming Supreme Court decision and how their beliefs inform their views on Roe v. Wade. (READ MORE)
Republicans want to investigate Biden or even impeach him. Is that what 2022 voters want?
By Jill Lawrence
Fortune is smiling on Republicans these days. Inflation and gas prices are high, the baby formula supply is low, violent crime is rising, and you can participate in a failed coup to keep a defeated president in power and still have a good chance of winning control of Congress.
In the fantasy world of the GOP, the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, is a nothingburger that needs to be forgotten ASAP; Democrats are responsible for all of America’s problems; and they are derelict in not fixing them. Yet, sadly for Americans coping with all of this and for their own electoral prospects, Democrats cannot control supply-chain disruptions that affect the whole world – from the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns in China to the Russian war on Ukraine.
And guess what? Republicans wouldn’t be able to, either. (READ MORE)