From the Left
/Politics
Elephants in the Room: Trump's New Sycophants Were Right the First Time
Since the stomach-turning assassination attempt against Donald Trump, some have wondered whether it is required to shade the truth about him in light of that awful event.
It isn't.
The obvious truth about the former president remains what it was before. And the phrase that best describes telling the truth about him isn't "Trump Derangement ...Read more
Days of Memory: A Journalist's Quest to Document Evil and Courage
The eruption and metastasis of antisemitism emanating from both far left and far right has prompted some to point to the poor and worsening state of Americans' knowledge about the 20th century's genocide against the Jews. The ignorance, particularly woeful among younger Americans, is widespread.
A Pew survey found that fewer than one-half of ...Read more
Trump's Court Crowns a Crooked King
In a time visited by one painful irony after another, it was yet one more irony that the Supreme Court decision handing Donald Trump carte blanche to commit whatever crimes he chooses if he returns to the presidency was issued on July 1, as Americans prepared to mark their independence from the British monarchy. The court's ruling that Trump was...Read more
Pride: 3 Guys and a Homeland
At sunrise last Oct. 7, 20-year-old Natanel Haziz was enjoying a day off from service in the Israel Defense Forces, joining masses of other young Israelis dancing at the Nova Festival, an outdoor dance party in southern Israel, a few miles from Gaza. First came hundreds of Hamas rockets fired at Israeli civilian centers. Then suddenly there were...Read more
State of Disbelief: Journalism Takes a Hit, and So Do We
A publisher, Adlai Stevenson quipped, is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff -- and then publishes the chaff. Significant segments of America believe just that: that the media are in the business of selling "product," no differently than plastic goods manufacturers or car dealerships.
Indeed, an increasingly media-savvy citizenry ...Read more
Reminder: We've Got a Fine Dad as President
Hunter Biden's criminal conviction for denying that he was a drug addict when he was one was supposed to damage his father's reelection chances, or so went the prevailing punditry. Those who hate Joe Biden for God knows what reason -- being 81 and having an arthritic spine, evidently -- ardently want the damage done.
It may be, however, that ...Read more
Proud Boys on the Left: One Side's Nuts Show the Other Side's Nuts How It's Done
The Proud Boys are synonymous with the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, and they've earned the infamy. The group played a lead role in organizing the breaching of Capitol Police lines, smashing windows, vandalizing the Capitol's interior and destroying property. It specializes in street violence, calling to mind the Nazi Brownshirts of ...Read more
Felonious Don: Long a Con Man, Now a Convict
If there's a human being more dishonest than Donald Trump, I'm all ears. He is crooked to his core, and his is no mere propensity to deceive but rather pure pathology. Long a certifiable con man, Trump has now descended to an even lower plane. Found guilty of 34 separate felonies by a 12-person jury that took only a few hours of actual ...Read more
Comeuppance: With Its Antisemitism Problem Under Scrutiny, Harvard's Not Looking That Great
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman made artful use of a common expletive to highlight Harvard's by-now well-known fecklessness in declining to address its antisemitism problem, a problem thoroughly marbled throughout its faculty, student body and university infrastructure. The problem burst into international view on Oct. 7, when, just hours after...Read more
Backlash: America Cools on Crazy
The morning after the 1972 election in which Richard Nixon defeated liberal Democrat George McGovern by 23 points, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael wandered glumly around the magazine's Manhattan office. "I don't know how this could have happened," Kael muttered. "Not one person I know voted for him."
Polls continue to show President Joe ...Read more
American Gold: At Age 100, Lieutenant Benjamin Inspires Still
If 100 can be said to be the new 70, Lieutenant Alfred D. Benjamin of the Army Air Corps' 384th Bomb Group has to be the expression's poster boy. Ramrod-straight and sharp as the proverbial tack, the Canton, Massachusetts, centenarian is as smart as the salute he gives as he finishes an interview about his service as a B-17 navigator flying 31...Read more