COVID’s Impact on Children Would Have Been Reduced If U.S. Were More “Child-centric,” Author Says  

“We need a child-centric society. We were revealed to be not a child-centric society.”

That was the way Anya Kamenetz summed up her perspective on how the United States as a whole dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020, and especially its broad negative impacts on children.

If we were a child-centric society, the needs of children all over the country would have been addressed far better, not only in terms of health-related policy, but in terms of the social, emotional, and general developmental needs of parents while dealing with COVID, Kamenetz said.

Kamenetz, a former education reporter for National Public Radio, assesses the impact of the pandemic period on children in a new book, The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where we Go Now. And she talked about the pandemic and children in an “On the Issues” program at Marquette Law School’s Eckstein Hall on Oct. 24.

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Feingold on a Possible US Constitutional Convention: “You’d Better Worry About It”

A national constitutional convention? An overhaul of American government that would bar the federal government from involvement in many issues, such as civil rights and environment? Might seem far-fetched.

“It’s not far-fetched,” Russ Feingold, a former Democratic US senator from Wisconsin, said Tuesday, August 30, 2022, during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program in the Lubar Center at Eckstein Hall. There are groups working hard to make such a convention come to pass and to gut the federal government as we know it, Feingold said.

Feingold, now president of the American Constitution Society, and Peter Prindiville, a non-resident fellow at the Stanford Constitutional Law Center and an attorney in Washington, D.C., have co-authored a book, officially released the day of the program, titled, The Constitution in Jeopardy:  An Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It.

“We’re here to say it’s happening and you’d better worry about it,” Feingold said. “This isn’t January 6. This is legal.”

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Elections Administrator Stands Firm: “I know I Have the Facts Behind Me”

Meagan Wolfe has been under a lot of pressure since the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin. As the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, she has been a prime target of criticism from those who think there were irregularities and misconduct behind Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow win over Republican Donald Trump. There have been calls from some Republicans for Wolfe to be fired, along with attacks on her integrity and competence.

But in an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program on Dec. 3, 2021, Wolfe firmly defended the work of election officials across Wisconsin and showed no sign of backing down from her position that the election was run well and by the rules.

“It’s always difficult when your integrity is questioned, but I know I have the facts behind me,” Wolfe told Gousha, Marquette Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy. “I stand behind the great work that I know I did, that I know my team did, that I know local elections officials did.”

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