After a series of victories in their fight against the Trump administration's draconian war on immigration, Los Angeles and other so-called sanctuary cities lost a battle last week: An appellate court ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice may give preference in awarding grants to police departments that agree to help the federal government ...Read more

No advocates for workers' rights or labor were especially surprised last week when President Trump nominated Eugene Scalia for secretary of Labor, succeeding the utterly discredited Alex Acosta.

Scalia -- son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia -- had made his reputation in Washington as a lawyer for big corporations resisting ...Read more

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard famously observed that if everyone is a Lutheran then no one is a Lutheran. What he meant is that if you're born into a culture in which everybody has a similar worldview, you don't have an opportunity to develop genuine belief because your convictions are not subject to scrutiny.

Put another way, if you...Read more

In September 2016 I wrote a column titled "Here's Why Trump Could Win." The column was by no means a prediction, nor do I claim any special prescience regarding the American electorate. In fact, on Nov. 8, 2016, I was as surprised as anyone else.

But the September column was the expression of a nagging, uneasy feeling that the polls, pundits ...Read more

When congressional lawmakers question former special counsel Robert Mueller on July 24, they won't need to dig far to tease out compelling testimony.

It's all there, in the report. All they need to do is ask Mueller to detail his findings -- which are shocking enough.

Few people in the country have read the full report (it is a daunting 448 ...Read more

Earlier this month, President Trump addressed a group of so-called "digital leaders" invited to a social media summit at the White House.

The guests included far right social media activists linked to white nationalists who spew out racist and anti-Muslim messages. They included individuals who produce fake videos, use hoaxes to smear ...Read more

Rep. Susan Davis is right to spotlight the sad fact that low-paid members of the military struggle to buy food for their families in areas where shelter is expensive. The housing allowances these families receive count as income in determining eligibility for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as food stamps.

"(...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- If we ever stop talking about President Donald Trump's latest racial stylings -- and since he's correct that "a lot of people love it," he'll try to delay that day -- we will eventually get back to arguing about whether Democrats would have a better chance of replacing him next year with the kind of moderate nominee who might...Read more

Our bungalow was still dark when my cellphone rang at 5 a.m. My husband and I had escaped for a much-needed yoga retreat on the remote island of Koh Phangan, Thailand, when I got the phone call no parent ever expects to get -- a call that four years of medical school, three years of pediatric residency training and 15 years of practicing ...Read more

American politics took a turn for the worse in 2015 when Donald Trump's announcement that he was running for president included a shot at Mexico for sending "rapists" to the U.S. The downward trajectory accelerated Wednesday at a campaign event in Greenville, North Carolina, when the president's denunciation of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somalia-born ...Read more

A few years ago I went back to visit the country from where my parents had immigrated to America.

It's in an important part of the world that fascinates me with its complexities. I still have relatives in Pakistan. I can understand the language. The food is delicious. The art is stunning, and the people have legendary hospitality. It's also ...Read more

Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown -- a.k.a. Jeffrey Epstein's worst nightmare -- knows what it is like to be broke and vulnerable.

Brown was just 16 when she left her Bucks County, Pa., home for good. She survived the next four years by sleeping on friends' couches and holding down a series of low-paying jobs delivering flowers...Read more

For more than 50 years, the United States and Russia have agreed that their own security required negotiating agreements limiting their nuclear weapons deployments and capabilities. In that time, the two countries have successfully concluded seven major agreements to reduce their nuclear arsenals. The last of these, the New Strategic Arms ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Marcy Lyles, a single mother of three boys, has been trying to break into the cannabis business for a while now.

She is black, low-income and a resident of the Crenshaw area, which makes her a perfect candidate for the city's cannabis social equity program, designed to give the people and places most affected by the misbegotten ...Read more