The current demonstrations are the first widespread mass protests against Chinese Communist Party rule since Tiananmen.

Democrats consider Joe Biden the safe choice in 2024, since he’s the incumbent and surrounded by flawed alternatives, yet he is actually an enormous risk. Nominating him again would be extremely reckless, both for the party and for the country.

We see the consequences of ignored mental illness everywhere. No treatment for thousands living on the streets because their mental condition keeps them from coping safely with life. No treatment for thousands of veterans who came home with trauma invading their daily lives. No treatment for thousands who fall victim to addictive drugs, legal and illegal. No treatment for thousands who can’t get through a day without anxiety or depression.

When the COVID vaccine came along, you never tired of urging Americans to obtain it. Over a million Americans died from COVID, but an estimated 234,000 of those deaths could have been prevented if everyone had gotten their shots.

The Nazis systematically murdered 11 million people — 6 million of them Jews, the rest homosexuals, communists, labor unionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the disabled — for the “crime” of worshiping, thinking or being, different. That’s a September 11 attack every day for 10 years.

What has been missing in the continuing debate about guns is a focus on the declining value our culture places on life, as well as any notion of personal responsibility and accountability for one’s actions. From the continued advocacy by some for no restrictions on abortion, to states that have passed assisted-suicide legislation, the value on human life “endowed by our Creator” has eroded like sand at the seashore.

The ultimate indignity would, of course, be if Republicans denied former President Trump the nomination, at which point he would transform from I’ll-fight-and-die-for-you victim to unadorned loser.

So far, FIFA has chosen profits over action. The question now is whether soccer’s global governing body will continue to ignore the human rights violations in Qatar, as it did in the 1970s in Chile and Argentina, or if it will commit to establishing a fund to compensate migrant workers and ensure that LGBTQ+ people do not face discrimination or harassment.

I’m thankful that we’re a people with the ideals, morals and fortitude to make huge changes in our culture and our nation.