Opinions

In 1963, when the newly sworn-in Lyndon Baines Johnson was advised against using his limited political capital on the controversial issue of civil and voting rights for Black Americans, he responded: “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?” America is... Read More

For all their pitched battles, climate activists and climate deniers seem to agree on a fundamental premise: the incompatibility of climate action and economic growth. “Growth now comes with enormous levels of risk. Indeed, it risks ending the game of... Read More

Religious conservatives are clearly confused and agitated. After all, they gave it their best effort, endlessly admonishing about “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” They were insistent that love is only love when it occurs between a man and... Read More

The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has become more complicated, despite the breakneck speed of vaccine development. The country is facing the dual challenges of combating the spread of new variants of the virus while coordinating a nationwide vaccination effort.... Read More

Can you spot the moderate? Ok, not Joe Manchin. That’s too easy. Spot the other one. You found her! Rep. Sharice Davids, the first congressional Democrat from Kansas in a decade was recently re-elected to her second term. A former... Read More

On the day President Joe Biden was sworn into office, he ordered a freeze on the blizzard of last-minute rules that the Trump Administration tried to ram through in its final days. They were a grab bag of favors to... Read More

The gatekeepers of the establishment status quo don’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore. Except that Trump’s voters — more than 74 million of them — aren’t going anywhere. These are people who chose Trump despite all of the... Read More

While most of official Washington has been consumed with the Senate impeachment trial, another part of Washington is preparing the most far-ranging changes in American social policy in a generation. Congress is moving ahead with President Joe Biden’s American Rescue... Read More

All eyes are on the vaccine rollout. We’ve all observed the challenges our government has faced supplying and distributing vaccines, as well as some of the early learnings. It would be easy to point fingers or poke holes in the... Read More

‘You think we’re bad for America?’ Sean Hannity of Fox “News” asked that question of Ted Koppel four years ago as the latter was interviewing him on “CBS Sunday Morning.” Yes, answered Koppel, “because you’re very good at what you... Read More

This is not a feel-good story. Of course, it’s easy to see why it has been positioned as one. Certainly, it contains all the elements: vulnerable people, heart-rending need, someone going above and beyond. But this is not a feel-good... Read More

When I was a boy about 11, I committed a crime that changed my life. I stole a book. I was a book thief. I found it in another kid’s desk and began reading, hiding it behind some boring textbook,... Read More

An open letter to African-American people: February marks the 95th observation of what started as Negro History Week and later became Black History Month. I wanted to use the occasion to talk about what being Black means, about how it... Read More

Donald Trump destabilized the Republican Party, and it’s still stumbling around like it’s punch-drunk. The GOP needs to get its act together fast or risk handing the Democrats free rein to change the face of America. President Joe Biden wasted... Read More

So last week, Sen. Josh Hawley complained that he was being “silenced.” He lodged this complaint on Fox “News” and in The New York Post. As social media observers promptly pointed out, that’s a level of media exposure that effectively... Read More

What is it going to take? For years, that question has weighed upon the rest of us – and even some of its own members – as we watched the Republican Party slide ever deeper into a morass of political... Read More

In her 1980 hit “9 to 5,” Dolly Parton laments that the traditional workplace is “enough to drive you crazy if you let it.” Four decades later, people seem to be taking this to heart, as one-in-five workers today are... Read More

The biracial daughter of immigrant parents stood before a bilingual Latina Supreme Court justice and swore allegiance to the nation. If that’s not what you saw at the inauguration, then your perspective is likely shaped from experiences different from mine.... Read More

As Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take office today, their charge is simple: return normalcy and stability to Washington. After four years of a Trump-led cult that sapped our country of its dignity at home and respect abroad, it’s time... Read More

And so we reach the end of an unpresidented era. The reference is, of course, to one of Donald Trump’s many Twitter misspellings, this one found in his 2016 description of the seizure of a US. navy drone. He meant... Read More

We now know at least three things about the Trump administration that raise unanswered questions as the president leaves office. First, that he had cutouts — associates and loyalists — stumbling around the world, wheeling and dealing and using Trump’s... Read More

In the pre-COVID-19 days, there were those large, intergenerational Sunday dinners when nothing was off the table for discussion in America. Even now, if we were sitting down together, we’d talk of President Donald Trump lying to his supporters about... Read More

A lot of my friends on both sides of the aisle are eloquently touching on the meaning of Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol, so I’m going to try and cover things I’m not seeing in the news but that should... Read More

So what now? A few things, actually. But before we get to them, we must recognize last week’s insurrectionist rampage at the Capitol for what it was. It is being seen, and not wrongly, as the angry response of delusional... Read More

I’ve been in or around politics for over a half-century now, and I never imagined how low and loony the Republican Party would become. Twelve Republican senators say they will object to President-elect Joe Biden’s victory on Wednesday when Congress... Read More

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need,” said Marcus Tullius Cicero. Old Marcus could have been talking about coping with these pandemic lockdowns, but he wasn’t. Happily, I have a home library, but no... Read More

Now that Donald Trump's baseless lies about voter fraud have been summarily dismissed by the courts, perhaps some attention can be paid to the true threat to free and fair elections: not voter fraud but systemic and massive voter suppression.... Read More

Most of the 74.2 million Americans who voted to reelect Donald Trump — 46.8 percent of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election — don’t hold Trump accountable for what he’s done to America. Their acceptance of Trump’s behavior... Read More

Very soon Betsy DeVos will slip away from her stint in government and escape back into the philanthropic networks that spawned her. President-elect Joe Biden is making good on his promise as a candidate, vowing to replace DeVos with someone... Read More

My mother is 90 years old, one of the elderly isolated in nursing homes, unable to hug and kiss her children, alone because of the pandemic. And this will be our first Christmas apart. She lived with us for 25... Read More