President-elect Donald Trump demonstrated in his first term a willingness to withhold and otherwise weaponize relief funding to American communities stricken by disaster, providing help to states — or not — depending on his whims.

That inexcusable behavior is set to continue as Trump, amid a flurry of lies and conspiracy theories, and ...Read more

The Hollywood sign stands sentinel above Los Angeles, watching as embers dance through the January night like wayward stars. Glowing debris floats on warm winds past million-dollar mansions, while emergency crews battle a blaze that shouldn’t exist — not in winter, not here, not now.

Two thousand miles east, in the heartland of America, a ...Read more

It was perhaps his most outlandish claim on the campaign trail, yet one Donald Trump repeated as he was seeking to win back his old job as president of the United States: He can resolve the war in Ukraine in a single day.

“They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House sparks a pressing question: Can the guardrails of American democracy survive another four years of the only U.S. president who sought to undermine the peaceful transfer of power?

Many of us on the center-right are worried the answer will be “no.” After all, conservatism, at...Read more

For folks who have so harshly turned on the FBI for supposedly targeting Donald Trump over the years, Republicans sure are quick to turn to the bureau when they need a cover-up, er, background check to salvage a troubled Trump pick for high office.

In October 2018, the beneficiary was Brett M. Kavanaugh. Then-President Trump and a Senate ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump takes office next week, and his border czar, Tom Homan, has made it clear that Chicago tops his list for deportations.

With a clear target on our backs, does the City Council have an opportunity to mitigate the fallout?

Aldermen Raymond Lopez and Silvana Tabares have been working for months to update Chicago’s ...Read more

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, desperate to appear as if he’s leading on the wildfire debacle, now tacitly admits that his state’s onerous regulatory apparatus represents an obstacle to blaze victims hoping to eventually reclaim their lives. Rather than a total overhaul, though, he prefers to nibble around the edges.

On Sunday, Newsom signed...Read more

SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Jeff Okrepkie wants to make one thing perfectly clear.

Yes, his home burned to the ground after he fled a galloping wall of flames with his wife, their toddler, two dogs and the few items they managed to cram into their cars. But no, Okrepkie insisted, he is not a fire victim.

"I'm a survivor," he said. "It seems kind ...Read more

There’s an old saying about what happens when the unstoppable force meets an immovable object, a situation where two equally powerful and contradictory forces are in opposition to each other.

Such a situation is rapidly unfolding between two powerful forces within the Republican Party on the all-important issue of immigration. This issue ...Read more

No one can be surprised that Republicans are hoping to exploit their Washington trifecta — the White House and majority control of the House and Senate — by implementing vast federal budget cuts in order to save their 2017 tax cuts from expiration.

Now we're beginning to see some meat on the bare bones of GOP policies, thanks to a "menu" of...Read more

With the public release of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the saga of Donald Trump’s federal prosecution for election interference has come to an end, less than a week before he’s sworn in to a second term. That it was short-circuited before trial is partly the fault of Garland, who waited ...Read more

Just how far President-elect Donald Trump will press his promises on trade and economic policy once he takes office is hard to say. One thing is already apparent: The harms won’t be limited to the direct consequences of his actual policies. Even if his commitments in the end amount to little, they’re already burdening companies, unsettling ...Read more

This week President Joe Biden invoked the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) to prohibit oil and gas drilling in most of America’s offshore areas, in perpetuity — or so he thinks. President-elect Donald Trump called the order “ridiculous” and pledged to reverse it immediately.

That’s precisely what Trump should do, but it won�...Read more

Which is better: A world at peace but where there is injustice in every country or a world in which justice reigns in every country but which is in constant economic, political, and military conflict? What a terrible choice! Neither world has ever existed or ever will, but it is instructive to think about both possible worlds to think about the ...Read more

How we elect our presidents has never been more broken — and that’s saying something for an Electoral College system subject to more proposed constitutional amendments than any other topic. We urgently need popular vote elections that treat every voter equally — and can do so by 2028.

When Congress recently certified the presidential ...Read more

Jan. 6 this year marked not just the anniversary of the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol four years ago, but the actual counting of the electoral votes in Congress (by the loser of the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris).

Last month, three Senate Democrats presented a bill to abolish the Electoral College. It’s a pity they ...Read more

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution designed a unique system to choose our president in 1787: the Electoral College. More than two centuries later, it remains an invaluable institution that helps safeguard us against the tyranny of the majority and vote fraud.

Back then, it was experimental. The notion of an elected chief executive was novel �...Read more

For the first time in memory, everyone around here either knows someone or is someone who has lost a home or been dislocated by the fires that have scarred so much of our beloved Los Angeles.

And everyone wonders: What happens now? Will people rebuild? When will things get back to normal?

Those of us who have been paying attention over the ...Read more

Joe Biden leaves the Oval Office the same way he entered it: in a foggy state of delusion.

On Monday, Biden defended his foreign policy legacy during a speech at the State Department, arguing the United States is stronger on the international stage and its enemies are weaker.

“I come here to the State Department to report to the American ...Read more

Donald Trump got the sentence he deserved.

An embittered Judge Juan Merchan, sitting in a Manhattan courtroom, handed the president-elect an unconditional discharge on his 34 felony convictions related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

No jail time. No probation. No fines.

The penalty was befitting the crime ginned up by ...Read more