7 of our top opinion columns this week: ICYMI

In today's fast-paced news environment, it can be hard to keep up. For your weekend reading, we've started in-case-you-missed-it compilations of some of the week's top Paste BN Opinion pieces. As always, thanks for reading, and for your feedback.

— Paste BN Opinion editors

1. Grading Bloomberg, Sanders and other Democrats at the Las Vegas debate: Mastio & Lawrence

By David Mastio and Jill Lawrence

"DAVID: The news of the night was Elizabeth Warren. After disappointing showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, she needed to show she was still fighting and still had a reason to stay in the race..."

"JILL: You are right about Warren, the question is how many Democrats want that level of combativeness and believe it's the way to beat President Donald Trump..."

2. Q&A: 'Danger of getting coronavirus now is just minusculely low'

"With China taking extreme measures to prevent further spread of COVID-19 and previously quarantined American cruise ship passengers returning to the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s point man on infectious diseases, spoke with the Paste BN Editorial Board on Monday about the latest coronavirus developments."

3. Sanders was ridiculously naive about the Soviet Union. The Trump ads write themselves

By Tom Nichols

"First, his comments about the USSR show that his judgment is terrible. Second, he will be unable to wave away his comments merely by appending “democratic” to his preferred version of Soviet ideology. And third, the Republicans will weaponize his remarks, and this will likely cost him the election."

4. Washington's 'Rules of Civility' could teach Trump lessons on insults and fake news

By Jill Lawrence

"It only took America 244 years to go from 'Honest Abe' and 'I cannot tell a lie' to 16,241 false or misleading claims and a reality show State of the Union address that wasn't quite real...The Mount Vernon chroniclers say the exercise of writing these rules of civility in a notebook is now seen as a 'formative influence' on Washington’s character. That is fortunate for us in ways that go well beyond civility."

5. Jobs market is struggling, and the formerly incarcerated are being prevented from helping

By John Wetzel and Cam Ward

"According to a new 50-state analysis from the Council of State Governments Justice Center, 40 states, including Pennsylvania and Alabama, bar certain segments of the incarcerated population from accessing continued education based on a variety of factors, such as sentence length, behavior and offense type."

6. Michael Bloomberg is not the candidate who can beat Donald Trump

By Jumaane Williams

"Mayor Bloomberg’s policies created an affordable housing and homelessness crisis in New York City that has extended and exacerbated far beyond his tenure, creating a city that is the most expensive it has ever been."

7. Democrats' Bernie Sanders problem: They are damned if they nominate him and damned if they don't

By Scott Jennings

"But what happens in the other scenario, where Sanders is nominated? A major political party would have put a socialist on a plausible path to the White House, a norm-shattering moment in American politics."