‘It’s time for Congress to step up for us’

‘America’s 9/11 veterans deserve promised VA care. Congress must step up for us.’

Juwon Nichols at USA Today

Denied claims by the Department of Veterans Affairs “often weren’t errors,” says Juwon Nichols. They were of a “deeply troubling mindset in which VA employees looked out for themselves first.” The “prevailing mindset was to follow procedure, not advocate for the veteran, leaving him mired in red tape with no clear path to care.” Congress “should pass the CHOICE for Veterans Act, giving veterans faster access to the best care our medical system can provide.”

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‘Colleges love this unfair admissions process. Eliminate it.’

Maya Prakash at The Washington Post

“College admissions in the United States have become divorced from merit,” says Maya Prakash. “I’m not referring to contentious arguments over legacy admissions, affirmative action or athletic recruitment. I’m talking about early decision.” This process “rests on the flawed and unfair assumption that a student’s early commitment makes them a stronger applicant.” Early decision “can be the right choice,” but “decisions should reflect a student’s qualifications, plain and simple — not their willingness to commit early.”

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‘Say her name’

Andrew Day at The American Conservative

The “president should do more to highlight the murder” of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina, “discussing it in blunt terms to seize the political advantage, kick off an honest conversation about violent crime in America, and restore public safety,” says Andrew Day. A “sane criminal justice system would have seized the opportunity to keep” the suspect “off the streets, considering the great lengths to which he had gone over many years to demonstrate the extreme danger he posed to others.”

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‘We need to eliminate the Freshman 15’

Mallary Tenore Tarpley at Time

The “Freshman 15 is a myth,” says Mallary Tenore Tarpley. Studies “show the average weight gain for first-year students is actually around two to three pounds. Far more concerning is the fact that the median age of onset for eating disorders in the United States coincides with the typical age of college enrollment.” We “hardly hear about this, though, because societal conversations tend to focus far more on obesity than on eating disorders.”

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