Seven years after Shelby County vs. Holder, voter suppression permeates the South

  JoAnne Bland was only 12 when she collapsed in horror on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965. State troopers were brutalizing people all around her – including her sister – with tear gas, clubs, whips, and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire, simply because they sought the right to vote.

  Television footage of the “Bloody Sunday” attack sparked national outrage, galvanized public opinion in favor of Black suffrage, and mobilized Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed racial discrimination in voting.

Coronavirus responses highlight how humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

  Bemoaning uneven individual and state compliance with public health recommendations, top U.S. COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci recently blamed the country’s ineffective pandemic response on an American “anti-science bias.” He called this bias “inconceivable,” because “science is truth.” Fauci compared those discounting the importance of masks and social distancing to “anti-vaxxers” in their “amazing” refusal to listen to science.

  It is Fauci’s profession of amazement that amazes me. As well-versed as he is in the science of the coronavirus, he’s overlooking the well-established science of “anti-science bias,” or science denial.

Devil in the detail of SCOTUS ruling on workplace bias puts LGBTQ rights and religious freedom on collision course

  The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling extending workplace discrimination protection to cover sexual orientation and gender identity was cheered by LGBTQ people and allies. Indeed, the June 15 decision represents a big win in the fight for LGBTQ equality.

  But buried towards the end of a 33-page majority opinion written by conservative stalwart Justice Neil Gorsuch is a sober warning that those celebrating the decision might have initially missed.

The need for education reform didn’t die with the defeat of Amendment One

  When voters defeat a proposed state amendment, it is often thought that the matter is put to rest. That is often the case, but when Alabama’s voters went to the polls in March and shot down a proposal to replace the elected state board of education in favor of one appointed by the governor, they only answered the question of the board’s composition.

  They did not answer the deeper problem of the board’s accomplishment.

Don’t rename those military bases. Close them instead.

  A controversy has erupted over the naming of U.S. military bases here in the United States. The bases are named after Confederate generals and there are people who want to change that. They want the bases to be named for more politically correct military figures.

  I’ve got a better idea: Let’s not rename the bases. Let’s close them instead.

Can people spread the coronavirus if they don’t have symptoms?

  Screening for symptoms of COVID-19 and self-quarantine are good at preventing sick people from spreading the coronavirus. But more and more evidence is suggesting that people without symptoms are spreading the virus too. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases physician and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, explains what is known about asymptomatic spread and why she thinks it may be a big part of what is driving the pandemic.

What does it mean to be asymptomatic?

  SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – can produce a range of clinical manifestations.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - How has the coronavirus affected Alabama politics?

  As we end the first half of 2020, there is no doubt that the coronavirus is the story of the year. The coronavirus saga of 2020 and its devastation of the nation’s and state’s economic well-being may be the story of the decade.

  How has the coronavirus affected Alabama politics? The answer is negligibly, if at all. The Republican Primary Runoff to determine the nominee for the junior U.S. Senate seat was postponed by the epidemic. It is set for July 14, which is right around the corner. The race between Tommy Tuberville and Jeff Sessions should be close and interesting.

The ‘first scientist’s’ 800-year-old tonic for what ails us: The truth

  It seems that science has been taking a beating lately. From decades of denial by the tobacco industry that smoking causes cancer to more recent attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic to score political points, a presumption seems to have taken root that it is okay to seek and speak the truth only when it suits personal interest.

A military perspective on climate change could bridge the gap between believers and doubters

  As experts warn that the world is running out of time to head off severe climate change, discussions of what the U.S. should do about it are split into opposing camps. The scientific-environmental perspective says global warming will cause the planet severe harm without action to slow fossil fuel burning. Those who reject mainstream climate science insist either that warming is not occurring or that it’s not clear human actions are driving it.

Stripping voting rights from felons is about politics, not punishment

  In 2018, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment ending the disenfranchisement of ex-convicts. Though it excluded people convicted of murder or sexual offenses, Amendment 4 restored voting rights to felons “after they complete all the terms of their sentence including parole or probation.”

  Civil rights groups and prisoner rights groups celebrated the election result. In contrast, Republicans worried that allowing felons to vote would tilt Florida toward Democrats.