11 of our top columns this week: ICYMI

In today's fast-paced news environment, it can be hard to keep up. For your weekend reading, we've started in-case-you-missed-it compilations of some of the week's top USA TODAY Opinion pieces. As always, thanks for reading, and for your feedback.

— USA TODAY Opinion editors

1. Enough with America's 'thank you for your service' culture. It's betrayal, not patriotism.

By Dennis Laich and Erik Edstrom

"Our country’s military is continually misused, and no amount of pyrotechnics, flag-waving, priority airline boarding, discount nachos, bumper stickers or military flyovers can fix that. For two decades, the U.S. government has knowingly sent its service members to self-perpetuating and self-defeating wars. That’s not patriotism — that’s betrayal."

2. For these tipped workers, $15 minimum wage is a matter of COVID-19 survival

By Saru Jayaraman, Chantel St. Laurent, Alyson Martinez-Diaz, John Michael Alvarez, Haley Holland and Dominique Brown

"Tipped workers are being hit with new threats that make the already difficult task of eking out a living more precarious — they have to enforce mask-wearing policies that anger the same customers they rely on for tips (adding to the decrease in earnings), and reports of harassment are up."

3. MAGA co-conspirators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley play jurors at Trump's trial, but won't find themselves guilty

By Christian Schneider

"The impeachment of a U.S. president isn’t strictly a legal procedure — it is primarily a political one. But when the Senate trial of former President Donald Trump begins this week, his co-conspirators will actually be sitting in judgment of his actions. And the fix is in — for some senators, to find Trump guilty will be to convict themselves."

4. GoFundMe CEO: Hello Congress, Americans need help and we can't do your job for you

By Tim Cadogan

"It will surprise no one, then, that in the past year, we’ve seen an unprecedented surge in fundraisers of all kinds, as the economy tanked, millions lost their jobs and nearly 1 in 4 families faced food insecurity. From March 1 to Aug. 31 alone, people started more than 150,000 fundraisers for COVID-related assistance on our site, and the requests for help have yet to abate. Last month, even after Congress passed a second relief bill in December, the number of new fundraisers on GoFundMe was higher than in May during the first wave of the pandemic."

5. Country music response to Wallen racism shows Republicans how they failed on Greene

By Kurt Bardella

"At the same time House Republicans were trying to figure out what to do about QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the country music community was grappling with how to hold one of their biggest stars accountable for using the N-word. In the span of 24 hours, the country music genre became a mirror for the societal tensions our country has been trying to navigate."

6. 9-year-old girl's brutal treatment at hands of police shows dangerous lapse in policy

By Lisa H. Thurau and Johanna Wald

"A mom called police saying her 9-year-old daughter was suicidal and threatening her in Rochester, New York. The first officer to respond to the incident, which happened last week, called dispatch for backup, and six cars rushed to the scene. Officers gave the girl little time to calm down, while dragging her in the snow, cuffing her and shoving her in a patrol car. When she refused to put her feet into the vehicle, and continually cried out for her father, officers pepper-sprayed her into submission."

7. What do impeachment and the Philadelphia Eagles have in common? They're 'tanking'

By Jonathan Turley

"When it comes to football, tanking allegations arise when the inexplicable speeds along the inevitable. That point was reached this season when Pederson decided not to tie the game against Washington in the third quarter with a field goal and instead put Nate Sudfeld in the game over Jalen Hurts. The House may have reached that point when the managers seemed to be trying harder to make a better case for losing than winning. That was driven home by the selection of such managers as Rep. Eric Swalwell in the wake of his scandal with Chinese spy. Sending in Swalwell, who has also been accused of reckless political rhetoric, made the Sudfeld substitution look like sheer genius."

8. Remote learning failed my third-grader miserably. I pulled her out of public school.

By Liesl Hickey

"I have three kids in three different schools. My sixth grade son has attended an independent school the last couple of years. He's currently on a hybrid schedule: half the days at home, half at school. My high-school senior attends our in-boundary District of Columbia public school, and for him the pandemic has meant pure online instruction since March 2020, minimal social interaction, moderate dejection and none of the traditional milestones that kids his age usually look forward to. Most days he describes his mood as “zoomed out” and says he’s just counting down the days until the end of high school."

9. Trump legacy: Personal responsibility is for suckers and GOP means 'Grievances On Parade'

By Jill Lawrence

"It seems like every day is Festivus in today’s Republican Party. It may be a joke holiday invented on the 'Seinfeld' show, but the 'Airing of the Grievances' is all too real and now happens every day instead of once a year. Who needs a special occasion to whine, complain and lash out at everyone who has been a disappointment to you?"

10. Impeachment trial: The Senate is unlikely to convict Trump. Can we count on the courts?

By Michael J. Stern

"But if 2020’s lesson in criminal justice was the deadly disparity between the system’s treatment of Black and white Americans, 2021 is going to be all about the disparity between the powerful and everyone else. And nothing will illustrate that bitter pill better than the events about to unfold around Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol."

11. In Donald Trump v. democracy, don’t rush the Senate trial of incitement of insurrection

By The Editorial Board

"As the prosecution of former President Donald Trump begins this week, it is difficult to conjure up a more damnable set of actions worthy of trial before the U.S. Senate. Trump stands accused of attempting to subvert the will of the American people by inciting rioters to disrupt the electoral vote count by Congress on Jan. 6, precisely the kind of treachery that animated the impeachment solution the Founding Fathers crafted into the Constitution."

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Impeachment, GoFundMe, minimum wage, and COVID: Top columns