In the latest of many cynical and highly political moves, the House of Representatives last week passed a measure that would transform the District of Columbia and make it the 51st state. “DC,” as it is often abbreviated by locals, is already a “state.” It is a state of corruption, ...

New York Times/Siena College has Democrat Joe Biden at 50% and Republican President Donald Trump at 36%; CNN has Biden at 54% and Trump 36%; Fox News has Biden at 50% and Trump at 38%. These recent national polls have left Democrats almost giddy with anticipation. But before Democrats put the ...

This is an emergency. Election Day is little more than four months off, voters facing their most important choice since 1860: Donald Trump or America? It’s a decision that will define the future. And millions of us wonder if we’ll get to have our say. Such is the state of things seven ...

Last week, the Supreme Court stopped President Donald Trump from inflicting the devastation that candidate Trump had vowed to inflict on 700,000 young immigrants in this country. This is a temporary reprieve, which makes this another reason why this year’s presidential election is the ...

Meanwhile, back at the pandemic . . . The death toll now stands at 120,000. The United States, with roughly 4% of the world’s population, accounts for about 25% of its COVID-19 deaths. Those states that reopened despite warnings that doing so would cause a spike in coronavirus cases are ...

For many years, I was skeptical about accusations of racism in the criminal justice system. Yes, I knew that blacks comprised only about 12% of the population yet represented 33% of the prison population. But those data alone did not prove that police are racists or that courts are tougher on ...

“I wish I knew how it would feel to be free” — Nina Simone, 1967 Here’s a knock-knock joke: “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Aunt Jemima.” “Aunt Jemima who?” “Ain’t yo’ mama on the pancake box?” OK, so you’re not laughing. But that joke killed in ...

Dear Dwight Howard: So I hear you’re not sure you want to come back and play basketball. Your team (also my team), the Los Angeles Lakers, was considered a championship contender before the season was abruptly halted by the coronavirus pandemic. Now comes word the NBA plans to resume a ...

This column is presented as a public service. A few days ago, Greg Glassman, the founder and CEO of CrossFit, set off an uproar by belittling the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. In a Zoom call with gym owners, he bristled at the idea of memorializing a man whose ...

We thought it was a fixed feature of our new era. We thought that objective reality didn’t matter anymore, if it even existed at all. We thought we were so entrapped by our information silos that nothing could penetrate. “LOL. Nothing matters” ran the Twitter meme. What we’ve learned ...

For two weeks now, outrage has convulsed America: pundits, preachers, protesters and at least one “severely conservative” GOP senator all raising their voices to condemn police brutality. Yet, here’s the startling truth: No one has made a stronger case against the police than the ...

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The First ...

After George Floyd became the latest unarmed African American killed by police. After cars were overturned and cities were burned. After armies of angry people filled our streets with raw screams. After all that, a white man with an impressive title went on CNN to explain things. “I ...

“I know you’re asking today, how long will it take?” Thus spake Martin Luther King Jr. at the end of the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march. He went on to assure his soul-weary people that the moment of their deliverance was just a little ways down the road. “However difficult ...

Always before, there have been words. Always before, someone crafted them with writerly skill and gave them to the president to give to us. Always, before. When seven people died aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, President Ronald Reagan spoke of how, just that morning, they “waved ...

Among dozens of addled tweets from the commander in chief over the past few days, one in particular deserves pausing over because it demonstrates not just the weak-mindedness of our president but also the way his leadership is sabotaging conservatism. Trump retweeted a post featuring ...

It is a common, if not especially honorable, practice in American politics for a candidate and her campaign to prefer to run not against their actual opponent on the ballot but rather against the most unpopular caricature of the opponent’s party. That explains why Democrats, for close to ...

In 2012, Annie Glenn and I were doing what we so often did, which was to sit side-by-side in a quiet place offstage, waiting for our extroverted husbands to finish speaking to a crowd. We had been close friends for six years by then. My husband, Sherrod Brown, was running for reelection to ...

“Oh beautiful, for heroes proved In liberating strife Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life.” — “America The Beautiful,” by Katharine Lee Bates And Memorial Day comes around once more. Gateway to the summer, to beaches, beer and barbecue, yes. But ...

Are these people lying to us or are they lying to themselves? For years, that’s been the great imponderable of American politics, the question the rest of us asked as we watched nominal “conservatives” sink ever deeper into a morass of conspiracy, lies and alternative facts. Were they ...