Pitts: No need to stand in tribute to inventor of TV remote
We are gathered here today to memorialize a man who revolutionized our lives.
Pitts: Mandatory minimum sentencing laws insult to justice
So the people got sick of it, all those criminals being coddled by all those bleeding heart liberal judges with all their soft-headed concern for rights and rehabilitation. And a wave swept this country in the Reagan years, a wave ridden by pundits and politicians seeking power, a wave that said, no mercy, no more. From now on, judges would be severely limited in the sentences they could hand down for certain crimes, required to impose certain punishments whether or not they thought those punishments fit the circumstances at hand. From now on, there was a new mantra in American justice. From now on, we would be "tough on crime."
Pitts: Few options await prisoners who pay ‘debt to society’
I promised Russell I would ask you something.
Pitts: 20 years after L.A. riots, there’s still ‘no justice, no peace’
Twenty years ago today, my hometown burned.
Pitts: Myth all women aspire to be Snow White won’t die
‘Someday, my prince will come.”
Pitts: Obama has weak argument, no answers on drug war
If President Obama had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin. So the president famously said.
Pitts: Modest statement on Muslims truly groundbreaking
Barack Obama himself has never had the guts to say it.
Pitts: N.Y. schools try to shield kids from dinosaurs, dancing
No, seriously, you have been warned. This is your last chance. Turn back now.
Pitts: Springsteen delivers compelling State of Union tidings
It begins with big drums, a guitar seesawing beneath like a deck rolling in high seas. It ends with a fuzz of static and feedback, a hiss of promises broken and a mortgage on the future.
Pitts: Outrage shamefully lacking over killing of U.S. citizen
Spin it any way you want. Justify it, rationalize it, chalk it up to the exigencies of war. And at the end, the fact remains:
Pitts: Conservatism’s woes run much deeper than Rush
If you think Rush Limbaugh is fatally wounded, think again.
Pitts: Social conservatives serve up fear with Thin Mints
Bob Morris is scared of Girl Scouts.
Pitts: Obama’s embrace of super PAC necessary hypocrisy
‘One of the worries we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are gonna be out there, there is gonna be just a lot of money floating around and I guarantee a bunch of it’s gonna be negative.”
Pitts: Don Cornelius, ‘Soul Train’ have a place in history
This was for us.
Pitts: Reagan wouldn’t recognize — or like — today’s GOP
A picture, the saying goes, is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, we have only about 550 with which to appraise a picture that has raised eyebrows across the country: In it, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is seen wagging her finger in President Obama’s face during his visit to her state recently.
Pitts: Gingrich carries on long GOP tradition of racism
I got my first job when I was 12. The deacons at my church paid me $2 a week to keep it swept and mopped.
Pitts: Voter ID laws would marginalize blacks and the poor
So here’s how it is:
Pitts: Santorum rejects young at own peril
We gather here today to parse the meaning of “boo.”
Pitts: Paul doubles down on faulty premise
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Pitts: Mississippi not fooled by moral clarity
Moral clarity is one of the most seductive traits of social conservatism.
Pitts: Everyone deserves safe neighborhood
This is not about your neighborhood.
Pitts: What do we do in times like these?
A thin fragment of moon stood watch that Christmas Eve as the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain came out onto the South Portico of the White House. They were there to light the national Christmas tree — and to speak a holiday greeting to an uncertain world.
Pitts: Ban on taping cops would be a crime
A menacing crowd of protesters had encircled police and they had no choice but to defend themselves with pepper spray. Or at least that is the story campus cops at UC Davis initially told.
Pitts: Intelligence good presidential quality
You likely remember the 3 a.m. phone call.
Pitts: Penn State dropped ball in abuse case
So they did the right thing. Belatedly.
Pitts: Cain, conservatives play the race card
Do you think it gives Clarence Thomas a warm, fuzzy feeling to know he is one of Ann Coulter’s blacks? That is how Coulter put it on Fox “News” while defending Herman Cain against sexual harassment charges that threatened to engulf his campaign last week. “Liberals,” she said, detest black conservatives, but the truth is, “our blacks are so much better than their blacks.”
Pitts: Yes, real Americans, the jobs are back
‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” — Matthew 9:37
Pitts: Herman Cain’s lark now hard labor
The Hermanator is now the hunted. Herman Cain, the long-shot Republican presidential-candidate-turned-front-runner, has done just about everything wrong since news broke that his former employer paid two women to settle sexual harassment complaints against him.
Pitts: Bitter taints sweet as Iraq War nears end
Eight years ago on a night in March, they interrupted our regularly scheduled programs for a breaking news bulletin. We sat before our televisions and watched rockets arc into the skies over Baghdad. Many of us had doubts about the stated and implied causes of the war that began that night: the need to secure Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of WMD and to retaliate for his part in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But, as I noted in a column, “We need for George Bush to be right and those of us who are doubtful to be wrong. We need this for the sake of over 200,000 American servicemen and women who stand ready for war in deserts far from home.” We all know how that turned out. There were no weapons of mass destruction.
Pitts: Occupy movement, make your point
‘"You say you want a revolution?" — the Beatles By one measure at least, the movement that began with Occupy Wall Street is already bigger than the Tea Party ever was.
Pitts: Courtship of Christie fickle exercise
So Chris Christie said no. This should not have been a surprise. The New Jersey governor has said “no” repeatedly when urged by Republican movers, shakers and donors to consider running for president. Last week’s last and final “no” theoretically puts the question to bed for good.
Pitts: GOP students’ metaphor half-baked
I have no beef with the student Republicans. Oh, I disagree with them about affirmative action, and probably a dozen other things as well. But I am not troubled — amused, but not troubled — by the way they’ve expressed their view. Unfortunately, others have been less sanguine.
Leonard Pitts: How far will ‘anti-’ forces really go?
This country is in a world of hurt if the likes of Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry wins the next election. It might be in greater trouble if Barack Obama does. I can take no credit — or blame — for that analysis. It originated with one of my colleagues, a veteran political reporter, and he shared it one day not long ago as we were chatting in the office. It troubles me for one simple reason: it makes sense.
Pitts: Death penalty has a poor foundation
2000: Frank Lee Smith is posthumously exonerated— he had died 11 months earlier — 14 years after being convicted of raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl. The eyewitnesses were wrong. 2001: Charles Fain is exonerated and set free 18 years after being sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a young girl. The scientific testimony was wrong.
Leonard Pitts: Far too late for justice in teen shooting
On Aug. 26th, the case went to the jury and the waiting began. That’s what you do in a civilized country. You take the crime to court and look for justice.
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