Happy 250th birthday to America and to all my fellow citizens. Let’s celebrate!

But first, let’s reflect for a moment on the state of our republic.

(If you read my columns regularly, you might assume that I’ll begin by unleashing my Trump Derangement Syndrome on our president. You’re mistaken; I’ll save that until the end.)

The ...Read more

"It was to be a party of special magnificence!" — JRR Tolkien

America’s 250th birthday on July 4 is a glorious occasion. Some people may have a different view, but ignore the party-poopers. Let’s make “having fun” an honorary American Principle this month.

For 250 years, we Americans have creatively celebrated our country’s ...Read more

As the United States celebrates its 250th birthday, it’s worth reflecting on how much has changed—and how much we’ve left behind. We no longer rely on lamplighters to illuminate our streets or switchboard operators to connect our calls. We don’t gather around the radio for evening broadcasts or wait days for news to travel. We’ve ...Read more

Growing up as a Christian, I frequently heard from other churchgoers how fortunate we were to live in a Christian nation. These days, I’m more likely to hear fellow Christians lament that the nation has fallen into secularism.

But as America turns 250, it’s worth remembering that the history of Christianity in America is complicated. So, ...Read more

As we wrote here last week, public safety must ultimately fall on the shoulders of Chicago mayors. More bureaucracy — in the form of the new stand-alone Department of Gun Violence Reduction — while well-intentioned, isn’t the panacea to what plagues our city, especially as whoever is appointed head of this new department will enjoy too ...Read more

The United States is struggling to ensure patients receive the care they need. The math is simple, and scary: more patients plus fewer caregivers equals a major crisis. The baby boomer generation is aging, and so is everyone else. Over 1 million nurses are expected to exit over the next decade, driven by a combination of burnout, retirement and ...Read more

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court last week let President Donald Trump put another nail in the coffin of America’s humanitarian asylum program and allowed him to end Temporary Protected Status for some 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians in the country, who could now be sent back to life-threatening conditions abroad.

The TPS decision has...Read more

After the 1787 Constitutional Convention, American socialite Elizabeth Willing Powell asked Benjamin Franklin whether the founding leaders had just created a monarchy or a republic. Franklin famously answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

As Americans celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, those words provide us with an excellent ...Read more

As Social Security hurtles toward insolvency, its path is a reflection of missed opportunity. In particular, many Democrats over the years have preferred performance demagoguery designed to score political points over the difficult task of finding solutions that actually address the system’s long-term structural deficiencies.

A case in point ...Read more

An old knock on renewable energy and other planet-friendly endeavors is that they can’t stand on their own without financial props from the government. Ironically, it took the second presidency of Donald Trump, in which those supports have turned to mule kicks, to kill this trope once and for all. Not only can the green economy sustain itself,...Read more

When the World Health Organization declared the West African Ebola epidemic a global emergency in 2014, I sat with my wife, Julie, and said aloud what both of us were thinking: People needed to step forward to fight the virus. As an ER nurse, I had the training; I had the experience. Our children were mostly grown. If not me, then who?

That ...Read more

Today we’re going to become investigative historians and re-purpose one of history’s most successful fact-finding moments.

Our mission is to find out why our commander-in-chief failed to better serve our chief executive – both of whom are, of course, our president, Donald J. Trump.

We are seeking to discover just how and why Trump chose ...Read more

Russia’s bloody, brutal and seemingly endless war on Ukraine has confused the world with its baffling momentum swings and surprising surges and countersurges.

This murky and dispiriting conflict has been made more complex by the Trump administration’s incoherent narrative about the war and its decision last year to show sympathy for the ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — President Donald Trump was handed a golden opportunity to upstage Gov. Gavin Newsom in Newsom’s own state on an issue of critical importance to Americans everywhere. But Trump naturally blew it.

The governor and the Democratic-led state Legislature shined.

Trump was victimized by his own self-centered obstinance and ...Read more

With the bombing paused and negotiations beginning, Donald Trump’s war has finally accomplished something considered unthinkable.

It has united red and blue America.

Everyone can find something in the Iran treaty proposal to detest.

America did not declare war on Iran. Trump did. Americans never had a chance to debate putting American blood...Read more

Do you know where your original birth certificate is? If you’re lucky, you might track it down after rummaging through that box in your closet. But most Americans would be hard-pressed to find it.

Well, you had better get on it. Because if President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have their way, you may need that document to ...Read more

According to the Pew Research Center, sentiment from polls this year can be characterized with this headline: “On the Country’s 250th Anniversary, the American People Are in a Sour Mood.”

The statistics are stark: 69% are dissatisfied “with the way things are going in the country today,” and 59% “think the country’s best years are...Read more

America’s 250th birthday party is well underway. There was a UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House. There will be a naval armada in New York Harbor— tall ships, gray-hull military vessels — passing in presidential review past the Statue of Liberty. There will be concerts, but only certain artists need apply— most of those ...Read more

As we approach the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, I can’t help recalling my 1999 visit to the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan, whose dictator had a fetish for white marble architecture decorated with gold.

As I drove around the dusty capital of Ashgabat, it was impossible to escape Saparmurad Niyazov’s face.

It was ...Read more

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani emerged as something of a kingmaker this past week, as the Democratic primary candidates he endorsed swept their races in the Empire State.

The problem for Democrats is that what sounds electrifying in Brooklyn coffee shops sounds wildly out of touch to the rest of the country. Republicans have now been gifted...Read more