Well, I’ve finally attended a Trump rally. I thought I was showing up for Tuesday’s State of the Union address, but as soon as Donald Trump refused to shake House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand, it was clear that even basic protocol would elude this impeached president. Trump’s leash ...

Let’s try a thought experiment. Suppose your friend invites you to play Monopoly. But suppose she insists on a set of special rules applicable only to her. Like when she lands on your property, she only has to pay half the required rent. And for every house she buys, she gets one free. And ...

During his floor speech explaining his vote to convict Donald Trump, Mitt Romney was overcome by emotion and paused to compose himself. The intense moment came when he spoke of his devotion to God, saying: “I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am.” Lump in throat. ...

Certainly, if it’s moral failures you’re after, you can take your pick. Just last weekend, after all, Republican senators finally admitted that Donald Trump is guilty of the offenses for which he was impeached. They conceded this as they prepared to acquit him. Sen. Lamar Alexander ...

Attending a meeting near Union Station in Washington, D.C., requires me to park a few blocks away and then walk under a bridge to an office building. People in business attire, like me, step carefully around the homeless men and women who have pitched tents under the bridge. They look filthy ...

“Kobe is dead.” Those were the first words out of my middle son’s mouth when I answered the phone. I paused, waiting for the punchline to this really bad joke. He said it twice more. My mouth fell open. Was he serious? It felt like words had become disconnected from meanings. I put ...

In July 2018, Commentary published an article by Yuval Levin that caused everyone who thinks about the balance of power among the branches in Washington, D.C., to say: “Of course! That’s it exactly!” It had long been observed that Congress had, over the course of several decades, ...

It is my habit, and my ethical obligation, to disclose a fact of my marriage when failing to do so could mislead you or diminish your trust in me. Circumstances and subject matter dictate when this is necessary. If I’m writing about our two rescue dogs, my husband’s profession is ...

This week marks 75 years since Soviet troops stormed the gates of hell. Hell was near a Polish town called Oswiecim. Hell was a place called Auschwitz. Seven and a half decades later, the murder factory has all but passed from living memory, been swallowed by that great maw called history. ...

Dear Mr. So-Called President: A few words in advance of your upcoming acquittal. That that’s how your impeachment trial will end is, as we all know, a foregone conclusion. The proverbial fix is in. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told us as much in December when he announced he ...

We have reached that time in every presidential nominating year when distinguished national opinion leaders beat up on Iowa and that admirable state’s influential role in determining the two major parties’ eventual presidential nominees and, therefore, the next president. The USA Today ...

When the economy shows signs of weakness, Wall Street analysts expect to see what they call a “flight to safety.” Investors sell stocks and buy bonds or gold. The same phenomenon can sometimes be found in politics. Understanding that George W. Bush was riding high in 2004, after what was ...

Dear Stephen King: I hope you’ll indulge me as I try to explain something I suspect you still don’t quite understand. Namely: why so many of us were so disappointed with your take on the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominations. As the white-dominated and male-centric list of ...

Last week, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Willie Nash’s sentence: 12 years for possession. Of a cellphone. Read it twice, if you want. It won’t make any more sense the second time around. Nash, it should go without saying, is African American. And his victimization by ...

Donald Trump’s “phase one” agreement with China, expected to be signed this week, is intended partly to slow China’s move into new technologies like electric cars by protecting the intellectual property of American corporations. Which lends a certain irony to Tesla’s Model 3 ...

This column might win me no fans on college campuses, but there is something that must be said. Universities across the country are unconstitutionally punishing those accused of sex-based misconduct with no regard to the civil rights guaranteed of due process. They say they are acting ...

Retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis, the former secretary of defense and an exceptionally well-read warrior, has said, “Throughout history, we see nations with allies thrive, and nations without allies wither.” Mattis’ words brought to mind those 13 fateful days in October 1962 when, ...

There’s an old story — apocryphal, as the best stories always seem to be — that Richard Nixon asked Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai what he thought about the French Revolution, and Zhou said, “It’s too soon to tell.” At first blush, the minicrisis between Iran and the United States ...

So what in the world just happened here? That’s the question of the moment as we struggle to get our heads around the latest head-snapping episode in the bizarre presidency of Donald Trump. In the last few days, we’ve seen: 1) a U.S. drone strike in Iraq, killing Qassem Soleimani, ...

The day after he ordered the strike that killed Iran’s Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, President Donald Trump showed up at an evangelical church in Miami to cast himself as a modern-day savior of Christianity. This may be a bit confounding for those of you who remember that Trump rarely ...