From the Left
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Know Your Rights in Encounters With Law Enforcement and Military Troops
On Aug. 11, President Donald Trump invoked a provision of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 and temporarily placed the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control for 30 days, saying he would allow the police to "do whatever the hell they want." At the same time, he deployed nearly 1,000 D.C. National Guard troops and almost as many ...Read more

Trump is losing
As I travel around the country flogging my new book “Coming Up Short” (which, please remember, you can order at bookshop.org, and the audiobook at libro.fm ), I’m seeing a groundswell of revulsion against Trump.
His economy is a disaster. He promised to bring down prices, yet the prices of most goods are rising. Food prices are soaring. ...Read more
Roll Away the Stone
Half the country is hoping President Donald Trump is dying. The other half thinks that, if he does die, he will rise again on the third day and send troops into Cleveland.
This does not make me more comfortable as I head to the dollar store to buy the cat litter my wife told me we need. Everyday errands are almost embarrassing during times of ...Read more
Can Democrats Come Back? They Already Are.
During a summer when the popularity of Donald Trump fell to abysmal lows -- and strong disapproval of his presidency achieved record highs -- those dire warnings were mostly brushed aside. What received far more intense and sustained attention were the awful numbers registered by the Democratic Party, with analysts bemoaning its "historically"...Read more
The Mamdani Effect
In his classic 1954 treatise on his human comparison theory, the social psychologist Leon Festinger stipulated that human beings assess their social standing by comparing themselves to those around them and how those other people are evaluated and received.
The corporate liberals who, despite being underrepresented in their own party's ...Read more

When the Immigration Debate Becomes War by Another Name
Sometimes we don’t appreciate people until they’re gone.
That thought came to mind with the news that the Gallup Organization’s latest poll shows a dramatic surge in positive views of immigrants.
The share who thought immigration ...Read more
Finding Kinship in 'The Perils of Girlhood'
The worries we have as parents are tightly tethered to childhood experiences that shook us. Growing up in the latchkey days of the 1980s and '90s, without cellphones or supervision, it was the wild-wild west of adolescence. We explored our neighborhoods and navigated our development with nothing but a bicycle and a best friend.
In some ways, ...Read more
Roll Away the Stone
Half the country is hoping President Donald Trump is dying. The other half thinks that, if he does die, he will rise again on the third day and send troops into Cleveland.
This does not make me more comfortable as I head to the dollar store to buy the cat litter my wife told me we need. Everyday errands are almost embarrassing during times of...Read more

Trump Attacks Victims, Sides With Jeffrey Epstein
OK. It’s time to take the gloves off and tell it like it is: Donald Trump may not be a pedophile – but we do know he has no problem with pedophiles. At least, not with his one-time friend, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
This week, given a choice – side with the children sexually abused by a pedophile or stand with the pedophile – ...Read more
Blue America Starts to Separate from Red America
It started quietly enough. MAGA Republicans put lunatic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. He's forced top scientists to leave and slashed research in cancer, autoimmune diseases and other health threats. Thanks to him, getting the updated COVID vaccine is harder for many and confusing for everyone....Read more
Jury Nullification
Jury nullification is a fancy term for what it's called when juries -- or, in this case, grand juries -- say no. It doesn't happen very often, which is why you may have never heard of it. The old line is that a good prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Not so fast. Not in the District of Columbia right now, where a ...Read more
A Masterpiece Museum on the Nation's Mall
The first of September was a bright morning on the National Mall. We went to pay respects to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
On the top floor, we were greeted by Chuck Berry's sleek red convertible. Nearby, Odetta sang "Oh, Freedom" at the March on Washington. Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial on ...Read more
This Trump Looniness Is Even Too Much for Marjorie Taylor Greene!
Some days I don't know whether to rage in fury, weep quietly or just throw up.
This, however, is definitely a throw-up day. Our U.S. Secretary of State (a once-honorable position that advocated humanitarian values) has just decreed that war-torn Palestinian children from Gaza will be denied medical visas that would let them come here for life...Read more

Why Trump is Doomed
The neofascist takeover of America — of our cities, universities, media, law firms, museums, civil service, and public prosecutors who tried to hold Trump and Trump’s vigilantes accountable to the law — worsens by the day.
As I’ve traveled across the country peddling my book, trying to explain how this catastrophe happened and what we ...Read more
From All Directions: America's Become a Place For Hate
"You know," the late William F. Buckley Jr. once mused, "I've spent my life separating the right from the kooks." The conservative commentator was famously pugilistic, an ideological brawler, in fact, unrelentingly caustic, if eruditely so, about what he regarded as the deeply misguided policy prescriptions of liberal Democrats. Staunchly anti...Read more
How the White House Takes Power from Congress
Russell Vought is the ultimate Trumper. The head of the Office of Management and Budget just anointed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to wind down the U.S. Agency for International Development ("wind down" being one of his favorite words) had a new stunt to try out this week to subvert constitutional separation of powers. You remember -- ...Read more
How This Nature Preserve Ended Up Named for Logging Company Founder
When you think of the people who protect forests, loggers don't usually come to mind, but the Dale and Jackie Riddle State Nature Preserve in Athens, Ohio, is named for the founder of Dale Riddle Forest Products of Laurelville. To get the story, my husband and I hiked the preserve with Phil Cantino, who is a botanist and one of Athens ...Read more
Trump's War Against Tradition
As American schoolchildren, we are taught that the great genius of the Framers was to create a constitutional balance of powers that wouldn't rely on the assumption that "enlightened statesmen will ... always be at the helm." This structure is presented like an ecosystem, as self-regulating and auto-correcting. As the liberal political ...Read more
Travis and Taylor Sittin' in a Tree. They're W-H-I-T-E
I didn't know who Travis Kelce was until he started dating Taylor Swift, and I only knew who Taylor Swift was because television news was always doing a story about some father who sold the family home to spend $600,000 on two tickets to a Taylor Swift concert.
It worked out fine for the dad, too. He took his 15-year-old daughter to see Swift...Read more

Trump’s New Theme Song: Cha-ching, Cha-ching!
Not every president has been such a gold-digger. In his masterful biography of our 33rd president, David McCullough describes Harry Truman’s humble return to Independence, Missouri.
“He had traveled home from Washington unprotected by Secret Service agents and there were to be none watching over him. He had come home without salary or ...Read more