We begin today’s roundup with a powerful op-ed by Army veteran Joe Quinn, who writes in The New York Times about losing his brother on September 11th, his fight for justice and the war in Afghanistan:
Staring at that picture of Atta, I would have visions of what my brother’s final moments were like. I would envision my asthmatic brother slowly succumbing to smoke inhalation on the flat, gray corporate rug of his Cantor Fitzgerald office — trapped, climbing upward and afraid for the entire 102 minutes before the tower’s collapse. Glaring at Atta’s photo, I’d imagine my brother’s body buckling, falling, crumpling, burning, melting, and in that moment of imagination, my entire being wanted revenge against the people who did this.
So I joined the Army.
I joined the war. I deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan. [...] I learned that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For the past 17 years in Afghanistan, we’ve tried everything: a light footprint, a big footprint, conventional war, counterinsurgency, counter-corruption, surges, drawdowns.
But that wasn’t the thing I realized.
I also learned that those who made the ultimate sacrifice are the very best of America.
While the conversation this week has been about Bob Woodward’s book, Eugene Robinson dedicates his columns to the policies with real-world impact that are hurting Americans:
● Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department has abandoned traditional civil rights enforcement. No longer is the focus on protecting and expanding the rights of minorities such as African Americans, women, Latinos and the LGBT community. Instead, the government is now more concerned about alleged “reverse discrimination,” and what it describes as threats to “religious freedom.” In particular, onerous voting laws that disproportionately affect minority groups are just fine with the Trump administration.
● White supremacist views have made their way into the mainstream of political discourse. “How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?” former president Barack Obama asked last week. No answer from the White House thus far.
● Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson wants to impose stiff work requirements on public-housing tenants and raise their rents. He is also moving to gut Obama-era rules designed to identify and remedy patterns of housing segregation, criticizing federal efforts to integrate neighborhoods as “failed socialist experiments.”