From the Left
/Politics
The Center Stirs: With A Crucial Debt Deal, Score One for The Adults
In his new book "The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two," journalist Steve Drummond tells the little-known story of how a little-known Senate committee headed by a little-known senator from Missouri led a bipartisan battle to strengthen America by exposing self-interest and waste in our military ...Read more
Sociopath Versus Sycophants: The GOP's Field of Contenders Takes Shape
"If you can't admire Joe Biden as a person," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham once said, "you've got a problem. You need to do some self-evaluation, because what's not to like? He's as good a man as God ever created."
That was back when Graham had credibility. Those were also the days when he described Donald Trump, succinctly and precisely, as...Read more
Sauce for the Goose: Democrats Scramble to Whitewash a Scandal of Their Own
From national security adviser Michael Flynn to Rep. George Santos, former President Donald Trump has promoted, deployed and spawned an epic parade of dishonest lawbreakers in his own mold. Democrats have had a justifiable field day pointing out what can euphemistically be called the "unsuitability" of Trump's acolytes for public office.
Now ...Read more
Discredited Suisse: Congress Spotlights a Bank's Attempt to Obscure Its Nazi Links
Until lately, America's longstanding tradition of bipartisan congressional investigations had been robust, recognized even by partisans as an essential feature of Congress performing the job Americans need it to do. The tradition has taken hits recently, falling victim to extreme, vitriol-infused polarization and the erosion of what had been ...Read more
Tuesdays With Charlie: A Golden Retriever Goes to College
Charlie is a 7-year-old Golden Retriever who knows there's something different about Tuesdays. For starters, her dog walker comes earlier than usual, and deposits Charlie back home by early afternoon. A bag appears out of the closet, and Charlie's favorite stuffed animal is placed in it, along with a sandwich bag full of dog treats and an ...Read more
A Question of Rape: Donald Trump Goes on Trial
As former President Donald Trump solidifies his support among Republicans for their party's 2024 presidential nomination, a civil trial underway in federal court in Manhattan will adjudicate whether next year's presumptive Republican presidential nominee is a rapist.
Writer E. Jean Carroll has sued Trump for battery and defamation. The ...Read more
Unjaded: Celebrating the Irish, Joe Biden Celebrates America
The late Irish poet Eavan Boland paid famous homage to the daughters and sons of Ireland who, beginning in the early part of the 19th century, endured the trauma of uprooting themselves from their homeland and traveling to the strange, forbidding land that was America. "What they survived we could not even live," she wrote in her poem "The ...Read more
Smell Test Alert: The Embarrassing Case of Clarence Thomas Gets More Embarrassing
When President George H.W. Bush chose Clarence Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991, he called Thomas "the best man for the job on the merits." This claim was preposterous, and over the course of the 32 years since Thomas was nominated his appointment has been a national embarrassment.
His confirmation was ...Read more
Multiple Bookings: Mr. 'Lock Her Up' Ponders A Lockup
If there's anyone who embraces the strategy "The best defense is a good offense" more fiercely and more relentlessly than former President Donald Trump, it would be surprising. After news broke of his extortionate telephone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conditioning American release of congressionally mandated military ...Read more
At The Ramparts: Under Siege from Autocrats and Crooks, Fighters for Democracy Hang Tough
The fight to preserve democracy around the world has come to resemble Whac-A-Mole, with autocrats wielding power or chasing it emerging on the global scene only to be faced down, then to emerge again. The biggest battle of them all is playing out in Ukraine, where a conscience-less war criminal unrepentant about committing mass murder has sought...Read more
Arresting Developments: Donald Trump Prepares to Face the Music
Sir Walter Scott's famous line about what a tangled web it is that we weave when first we practice to deceive was written in 1808, but the poet might as well have prophesied former President Donald Trump's ill-fated one-night stand with Stormy Daniels when he wrote it.
The "affair," let's call it, was suffused with dishonesty at every stage, ...Read more
Indecent Exposure: The Rot That Is the Republican Party Reclaims Center Stage
Former Vice President Mike Pence made news last Saturday by saying something that shouldn't have been news at all, but rather self-evident pablum right out of the mouth of Captain Obvious. Twenty-six months after an insurrectionist mob attempting a putsch stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, beating the daylights out of police and seeking to ...Read more