From the Left
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Defending the Indefensible
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where Maurene Comey used to work, wouldn't touch the case. The whole office took itself out.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, whose lawyers have worked with her on joint investigations and prosecutions, wouldn't touch it. Neither would the ...Read more
Shutdown Surrender Is Political Suicide for Democrats
Democrats think they run against Republicans. Republicans think they run against Democrats. When swing voters existed as a significant segment of the electorate, that was at least partly true. In our age of polarization, there are too few swing voters to determine the outcome of most races. Elections are won by the party that most motivates ...Read more
Excuse Donald Trump
The new cognitive test for sitting presidents is not "Can you put the square peg in the square hole?" but "Can you put your tongue in a seventh grader's mouth?"
If newly released emails from famous dead child molester Jeffrey Epstein can be believed, President Donald Trump spent several hours alone with a girl who was abused by Epstein's ...Read more
Jeffrey Epstein Comes Back to Haunt Donald Trump
He had an impressive career as U.S. senator, Senate majority leader, White House chief of staff and ambassador to Japan, but, above all, Tennessee’s Howard Baker is remembered for one question he asked in 1973 as Republican vice-chair of the Senate Select Committee investigating the Watergate break-in: “What did the president know, and when ...Read more
Dems Won Victory in Defeat
In 1940, Winston Churchill ordered the evacuation of 338,000 troops facing annihilation on the beaches of Dunkirk. Churchill called the successful operation "a miracle of deliverance." Historians portray it as a perfect example of victory in defeat.
Democrats raging at eight members of their caucus for ending the government shutdown might ...Read more
I Don't Get It
Why start something that you don't have the guts to follow through with? Why grab defeat from the jaws of victory? Barely a week after the best election night Democrats have had in years, with the president's approval ranking hitting new lows, with voters deserting him on the economy and immigration, what do Democrats do? They cave, or at ...Read more
Adelante, Adelita
Adelita Grijalva was finally sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, after being blocked from her duly elected role by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson for 50 days, denying congressional representation to Grijalva's 800,000-plus constituents in southern Arizona. Johnson, it seemed, was far more interested in serving ...Read more
Cold-Damaged Plants
Q: My landscape looked terrible this summer. It is only a year old, and many of the larger shrubs and evergreens don't have big root systems yet. There isn't a lot of topsoil, and the plants dried out too often over the summer. Even with some fall rain, I worry about them over the winter. After the first week of cold weather, I noticed that ...Read more
Trump: Don't Let Them Eat Cake
So, how was your Remembrance Sunday?
The British Parliament -- and people -- wear red poppy symbols to honor soldiers who fell in the Great War trenches, World War II and ever since.
The U.S. Senate had one Remembrance Sunday, Nov. 9, that I'll never forget. As night fell outside the Capitol, you could feel the shutdown political theater ...Read more
Let's Bust the Food Monopolists Profiteering on Thanksgiving
Oh, happy day! Thanksgiving -- our annual pause for family gatherings to celebrate the rich and tasty diversity of America's harvests.
There is, however, something decidedly distasteful that has steadily been forcing its way onto our dinner tables: raw monopoly power. This concentration of market control in the hands of a few domineering ...Read more
Hatchet Job Haven: The Justice Department Gets Torched
"Everything she writes," Mary McCarthy famously said about playwright Lillian Hellman, "is a lie -- including 'and' and 'the'." Historians wrestling with how Americans permitted their democracy to be so badly debased during the President Donald Trump era will have to first assess why so many millions of us consumed patent falsehoods so eagerly...Read more
From President to Profit
Donald Trump's approval numbers continue to crater. Even Republicans have cooled on the president's performance. But the president shows no sign of noticing, nor is he changing his ways. Even his gaslighting has gone wan. He's failed to make Americans believe that prices are going down when they're clearly not.
What gives? Why isn't he trying...Read more
When Officials Disrupt the Peace in the Name of Preserving It
For decades I have been hearing the old courtroom saying about how a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if given the chance, but I never expected to see it happen.
What the saying conveys is that grand juries, which approve or reject charges to go to trial, only hear from one side, the prosecution, and only have to find probable cause to ...Read more
Musk and Mamdani: The end of harsh capitalism?
Last week, two things happened that may shed some light on where American capitalism is heading.
First, Tesla’s board caved in to Elon Musk’s demand that he get a pay package of $1 trillion (if he meets various goals).
Musk’s trillion-dollar pay package is so grotesque as to make a mockery of the most ardent free-market capitalists. ...Read more
Shutdown Politics
It has been a terrifying week for the one in eight Americans who depend on food stamps -- the SNAP program -- to feed their families. Would they be eating this month?
With two federal lawsuits and two federal judges breathing down the administration's neck, President Donald Trump took to social media this week to threaten to withhold SNAP ...Read more
The Mamdani Latte
"Put a little extra caramel on that latte," I told the young woman at Dunkin' Donuts. "If you know what I mean."
"Sure," she said, drizzling a little more caramel on the mountain of whipped cream that topped my decaf white chocolate latte.
Maybe she didn't know what I meant. Maybe she did. She was a perfectly nice woman with a slight ...Read more
Jubilation!
It feels good, doesn’t it?
Democrats deserve to break out into a full-throated chorus of “Happy Days are Here Again” after their amazing string of victories on November 4.
There’s no way Donald Trump or MAGA fanatics can spin it otherwise. For Democrats, this was a total blowout. A governor’s race in Virginia; a governor’s race in ...Read more
The Test for a Conservative Court
Is the Supreme Court really a conservative court, bound by conservative principles of statutory construction and judicial review, or is it President Donald Trump's Court, ready to do his bidding, no matter how radical it may be? This week's tariff cases, challenging the president's power to unilaterally impose whatever tariffs he chooses, will...Read more
American Democracy Online: Not a Pretty Thing
Warning: this column is a dark path to a gaudy "Great Gatsby" party while children go hungry.
We know the damage cellphones cause to kids and teenagers in learning and mental health epidemics of anxiety and depression. The research results are in.
Private and public schools are banning them. Girls suffer poor self-esteem and body ...Read more
Instead of Consumerism, Let's Try Consumer Sharing
How about some good news for a change? News that has nothing to do with Donald Whatzizname. News you might even use.
It's about "The Library of Things," a real library, but different. Just as our public libraries share a wealth of publications -- this one in Brunswick, Maine, also maintains a wealth of tools, devices, equipment and other "...Read more






















































