A presidential impeachment trial in the Senate is one man's worst nightmare. That man isn't President Donald Trump, however. He'll take it in stride. It's Chief Justice John Roberts, who will have to preside.

Roberts has devoted his whole career to trying to keep the Supreme Court from being seen as a partisan body. That started with the famous...Read more

Looking back at key foreign policy events of 2019, a line from Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" popped into my head: "Something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

Back in the day, there was much debate over whom Dylan had in mind. But "Mr. Jones" soon came to symbolize folks who remained oblivious to the seismic ...Read more

Cut the tags off 2020, sweetheart: We are proud owners of this new year, and there's no reason to pretend we can return it.

Time doesn't offer a refund. We don't get to try on the future the way we try on a bathing suit and then decide we don't like it once we see what it looks like in natural light.

We broke the seal on the new year, and it's...Read more

Breaking with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told a TV interviewer in her home state this week that the Senate shouldn't work "hand-in-glove with the defense" on President Trump's impeachment trial.

Congress as a co-equal branch of government -- what a concept. But Murkowski was only ...Read more

The problem with the Impeachment of Donald Trump, a drama that's about to open in the U.S. Senate, is that all the actors, all the media critics and even all who will be in the audience are already acting like they are sure how it ends.

Everybody is talking as if they have sneaked a peak at the script's last page. They are sure the finale will ...Read more

The term "progressive" gets bandied around a lot, even by people who aren't talking about insurance. As the editor of a 111-year-old publication called The Progressive, I like pointing out that this designation is not about belonging to any political party (my magazine's founder, legendary Wisconsin Sen. Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette, was a ...Read more

For this year's naughty-or-nice list, we could have filled the page just with names from the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry. But the disappointments and delights of 2019 extended far beyond the drama on Capitol Hill. Here are some of the public figures whose actions stood out as the most lamentable -- or laudable.

NAUGHTY

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WASHINGTON -- In their search for a presidential nominee, Democrats have argued about all manner of things.

They've debated "Medicare for All" and a "Green New Deal." They've weighed a wealth tax and free college tuition. They've clashed over campaign donations from millionaires.

But their most important dispute isn't about ideology or policy....Read more

I believed House Democrats had a case for impeaching President Donald Trump, so I eagerly tuned in to the debate on Dec. 18 to hear the Republicans' rebuttal. But after 12 hours in front of the TV hearing their accusations of hatred, socialism and a refusal to accept Trump's election, I myself felt like the victim of an angry male mob.

Anyone ...Read more

Last Friday, in a grim prelude to Christmas, China and Russia vetoed cross-border aid deliveries from Turkey and Iraq to millions of desperate Syrian civilians.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the two countries of having "blood on their hands." He's correct, since Russian planes continue to bomb hospitals and markets in rebel-held areas ...Read more

It's a dark time in America.

This year, the holiday season comes at a time when our country is in distress. The federal government faces a constitutional crisis following the impeachment of the president. Though, at least the government is not shut down, unlike last Christmas.

But our leaders have failed to provide much-needed relief to the ...Read more

Since the 2016 presidential election, I've written and lectured frequently about the death of evangelicalism, how a movement once distinguished for its concern for those Jesus called "the least of these" systematically and determinedly debased itself by aligning with the far-right fringes of the Republican Party. Beginning with Ronald Reagan in ...Read more

Some who have heard that President Trump cannot block people from his Twitter account think other elected officials cannot block people. This is wrong. Almost all elected officials can block people from their Twitter accounts and not violate the First Amendment.

The part that is missed is the first five words of the First Amendment -- "Congress...Read more

In the social media age, numerous politicians have come under fire for blocking critics from following them on Twitter. The latest is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who recently settled a lawsuit brought by Dov Hikind, a former elected assemblyman from Brooklyn. Following the settlement, Ocasio-Cortez offered a forthright apology.

"...Read more

What happens in the wine cave stays in the wine cave.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work in the world of American politics. For decades, Democrats would rail against the "wealthiest 1%" and "tax cuts for the rich," often before audiences of some of the wealthiest people in America.

Then came Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

After years of ...Read more

It's always tricky when a secular person, in a secular forum, writes about religion. More often than not, people who are strong advocates of that presumptive wall between church and state feel uncomfortable when faith is discussed in the same breath as politics, the law, societal customs and pretty much anything else that takes place outside a ...Read more

It's Christmas time, and that means it's time for stories in books, on TV, in movies and sometimes flowing from the mouth of a grandmother with a lovable little one in her lap. The stories concerning this holiday of holidays about caring triumphing over greed, about love wondrously rising above the merely material, about goodness prompting ...Read more

We're crawling on your skin. Teeming under your toenails. And lurking on your doorknobs and countertops.

We're drug-resistant microbes, immune to all but your strongest antibiotics. And we're evolving so fast that soon even those medicines won't stop us. Unless your scientists invent new antibiotics, we'll kill 10 million people annually by ...Read more