10 of our top 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. Trump's huge vote total breaks my heart. I recognize this America and I wish I did not.

By Michael J. Stern

"Yes, former Vice President Joe Biden might squeak out a victory. But even if he does, we’ve been slapped with the heartbreaking reality that nearly half our country voted to reelect President Donald Trump after spending four years watching him spew unbridled bigotry, engage in blatant corruption, and tell so many lies you’d need a magnifying glass to read The Washington Post's running list of false and misleading claims."

2. Election results: Patience. Neither Trump nor Biden will determine who wins. Counting votes will.

By The Editorial Board

"Americans by nature are not a patient people, particularly in a nail-biting presidential election where more of them have voted (nearly 160 million) than any time in history, and at the highest rate (67%) in well over a century."

3. Cardinal Timothy Dolan: Supreme Court can root out Philadelphia's anti-Catholic bigotry

By Timothy Dolan

"Most of the Church’s ministry was established in the face of crises and epidemics, much like what we are experiencing today. And yet our charitable work seemingly never escapes the ageless adage that 'no good deed goes unpunished.' Since this nation’s very beginnings, the Church has gone to meet the needy, only to be met with opposition from those who disagree with its beliefs." 

4. Why did so many Latinos vote for Donald Trump?

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

"According to some exit polls, President Trump captured as much as 36% of the Latino vote Tuesday night. That’s 3 points higher than the 33% I predicted he’d get. I knew Trump would do well with Latino conservatives because, well, most Latinos are conservative. We’re Democrats, by 2 to 1. But we’re conservative Democrats."

5. As a Black female law professor, I'm nurturing a system that doesn't protect people like me

By Tiffany Jeffers

"For almost eight years, I was a prosecutor in Baltimore. I worked with police, victims and witnesses to enforce a system of laws I believed protected people from violence. Or, provided justice and closure to victims and their families. Naively, I included myself, a Black woman, in the group of persons I believed the law protected."

6. Trump's four years have given us a reprieve from the tyranny of the cultural left

By Charlotte Allen

"Biden, who was Barack Obama’s vice president, has already promised that re-instituting transgender schoolchildren’s access to the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender 'identity' will be one of his first official acts once he is sworn in. Democratic politicians and pundits are already calling for Congress to pack — er, 'expand' — the Supreme Court so as to dilute and ultimately undo whatever protections for traditional values Trump’s judicial appointees ...  manage to uphold."

7. In midst of coronavirus pandemic, rural America desperately needs more doctors like me

By Dr. Raghuveer Kura

"In our state, staffing shortages have caused eight acute hospitals in rural Missouri to close in the past five years, according to a 2019 report from the Missouri Hospital Association. Now, 44 counties have no hospital. Our state has received millions in federal funds to address the crisis, but little has changed. ... Too many Missourians are living without a nearby hospital bed available to them."

8. Lincoln Project: We're fighting for a better America. A Biden era would be a good start.

By Reed Galen, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson and Stuart Stevens

"Last December, we launched The Lincoln Project with a clear mission: Defeat Donald Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box. Today tens of millions of Americans are making their voices heard. We believe they will repudiate this president and his core beliefs."

9. Election 2020: A vote for Trump is a vote for economic progress for African Americans

By Patrice Onwuka

"With just days until the election, some Black voters may still be grappling with whether to cast their vote for former Vice President Joe Biden or President Donald Trump. Biden said, 'If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you 'ain’t Black,' because apparently, he owns the Black vote. But Blacks are not a monolith, and they are not indebted to Joe Biden nor to the Democratic Party."

10. Churchill granddaughter: I'm an artist, but it's time for me to speak out on politics

By Edwina Sandys

"I seldom speak of my grandfather publicly — I prefer to be known as the artist I have been most of my life — and while I certainly wouldn’t dream of putting words into his mouth, I believe I now must speak out. President Donald Trump’s inaction and lies about the COVID-19 crisis have persisted as hundreds of thousands of American lives are being lost. When under attack for playing down the dangers of the virus, his defense has been to compare himself as a leader to Winston Churchill."