After the Parkland, Fla., shooting much of the conversation, especially from those on the right, has centered around the shooter’s mental illness as the root cause of the problem.
But when the shooter is Muslim or a person of color, “the immediate reaction from those on the right is to try to find a solution...around immigration,” says Francis Maxwell, host of “The Breakdown” on The Young Turks.
Take for example the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016. The Muslim shooter used an AR-15, the same gun used in Parkland, but there was no serious discussion about gun control back then.
Fingers quickly pointed at loose immigration policies despite the fact that statistically, “you’re more likely to be killed in a domestic act of terror by a white American on homegrown soil,” says Maxwell.
This difference in treatment is also clearly demonstrated in conversations about the movements that rise from these tragic incidents.
Today, #NeverAgain has turned into an admirable national movement against the NRA but when #BlackLivesMatter asked for the same things, “their message wasn’t given the platform.”
“We need to look at ourselves in this country and think why...is one vilified and looked at as a movement that’s disruptive and disrespectful and the other looked at as empowering?”
Lawmakers probing the cause of last month’s deadly Maui wildfire did not get many answers during Thursday's congressional hearing on the role the electrical grid played in the disaster.
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that federal disaster assistance is available for Louisiana, which is working to slow a mass inflow of salt water creeping up the Mississippi River and threatening drinking water supplies in the southern part of the state.
A new law in California will raise the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour next year, an acknowledgment from the state's Democratic leaders that most of the often overlooked workforce are the primary earners for their low-income households.
From Sunday, workers at the main United States base in Antarctica will no longer be able to walk into a bar and order a beer, after the U.S. federal agency that oversees the research program decided to stop serving alcohol.
House Republicans launched a formal impeachment hearing Thursday against President Joe Biden, promising to “provide accountability” as they probe the family finances and business dealings of his son Hunter and make their case to the public, colleagues and a skeptical Senate.
The FBI and other government agencies should be required to get court approval before reviewing the communications of U.S. citizens collected through a secretive foreign surveillance program, a sharply divided privacy oversight board recommended on Thursday.
The federal government is just days away from a shutdown that will disrupt many services, squeeze workers and roil politics as Republicans in the House, fueled by hard-right demands, force a confrontation over federal spending.
The Biden administration is finalizing a new rule that would cut federal funding for colleges that leave graduates with low pay and high debt after graduating.
The Biden administration is finalizing a new rule that would cut federal funding for colleges that leave graduates with low pay and high debt after graduating.
