From the Left
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Trump Loves Farmers Into Bankruptcy
At a 2018 press conference in New York City, Trump said of American farmers, "I love them, and they voted for me, and they love me. ... And they said, 'We don't care if we get hurt, he's doing the right thing.'"
During his 2025 joint address to Congress, Trump said, "Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer -- I love ...Read more
Pam Bondi Faces Critics, 'Burns' Them
A lot of political figures are understandably nervous about facing a Senate committee probe.
Not Pam Bondi.
In more than four hours of testimony Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee, she responded to the most polite questions with the air of contempt worthy of her boss, President Trump, who tends to react to the idea of accountability as ...Read more
They’re Calling it a ‘Hate-America’ Rally
You know Trump Republicans are worried when they slam a planned protest — more than a week before it occurs.
Last Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson described this coming Saturday’s No Kings rally as the “hate-America” rally that would draw “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.”
I’m sure these phrases have been distributed ...Read more
It Had To End
Too much suffering on both sides. Too much division. Too much danger for Israel to be as isolated and stigmatized as it has become. Too big a rift between American Jews and the homeland we love.
Do President Donald Trump and his team deserve credit for taking a major step?
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said it best. He told reporters ...Read more
What Did You Do During the Trump Wars, Daddy?
My darling daughter gave me two dramatic blinks of her Aryan-blue eyes and flipped back her pure, naturally blonde pigtails. "What did you do during the Trump Wars, daddy?"
It felt like a fever dream.
What's that, evil libtard? I don't have a "Children of the Corn" daughter? Or any daughter at all? Who are you to say that ...Read more
Gay Kids and Garbage
When it rains, like it's raining today, I think about the people working the trash trucks in my neighborhood.
The town I live in does not provide or require a uniform trash container. You can put your trash out in any kind of container, and the container doesn't have to have a lid.
When it rains, the barrels without lids get water in the ...Read more
The Support I Found When I Dared To Dream
Erma Bombeck famously said, "It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else." This quote really resonates with me. Last fall, I quit my job as a newspaper editor to put my effort into writing stories that lift up the good in this world. I wrote in my column announcement that "I want to be part of a gentler, kinder world, hopefully...Read more
Call it What it Now is: The Department of Revenge
It’s hard to warm up to James Comey, and I never will. In fact, more than anyone else, I think Comey’s the one who saddled us with Donald Trump.
As FBI director in July 2016, Comey announced that the agency had found “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” and would therefore file no ...Read more
Trump Must Stop Trampling on Our Universities
In the course of three days, six U.S.-based scientists have won Nobel Prizes. Every one of them studied or now works at America's public universities. Five were affiliated with or educated by California's system for higher education.
President Donald Trump's assault on universities, both public and private, targets the engines of American ...Read more
Paying 'Victims' to Sue
There is a special place in hell for phony victims who take money from settlements meant for the legitimate victims of sexual abuse. Ahead of them, however, come the lawyers who make such scams work and pocket as much as half the settlements themselves.
If an investigation conducted by the Los Angeles Times holds up, hell will have to make room...Read more
The Lights Are Out in the House
WASHINGTON -- Nobody home. Gone fishing. The lights are out in the federal government.
The House of Representatives chamber is deserted and silent as a tomb. It's almost as if its Republican leaders don't care if the country is in crisis.
While the president carries out a bloody plot to snuff out the federal government like a brief candle, ...Read more
Abbott Says His Presidential Ambition Is 'God's Design'
Sometimes, cosmic oddities come together in comic ways. For example, Google positions the biography of right-wing Texas governor Greg Abbott right under the one for yesteryear's slapstick comedians, Abbott and Costello.
It's almost cruel for Gov. Greg to be juxtaposed with that quick-witted duo, for he's a dour, slow-witted, plutocratic pol, ...Read more
Slaughter at Sunrise: They Came Only to Dance
"Sunrise at the festival is the greatest moment," recalls one survivor of the Nova Music Festival that drew 4,000 young people to a spot in southern Israel about three miles from Gaza's border the first weekend of October 2023. "People just came to dance," she said. "It felt like nothing could go wrong."
Something did.
After two years of ...Read more
Democrats, Stop Being MAGA's Mommy
Exactly why are the Democrats trying to save Republicans from a drubbing in the midterms? Their shutdown of the government to stop cuts in health coverage does not work to their political advantage -- or ultimately help those they purport to be protecting.
Republicans running for reelection know that their One Big Beautiful Bill will cause ...Read more
Trump Is Abusing His Power To Build a Dangerous National Policing Force
The Trump administration continues to escalate its deployment of military troops and federal law enforcement to cities across the country. We are witnessing the build-out of a national paramilitary policing force that could be used to intimidate people and consolidate President Donald Trump's power.
This week alone, the administration placed ...Read more
The Mad King’s Television
When over the weekend federal Judge Karin Immergut (a Trump appointee) blocked Trump from deploying Oregon’s National Guard to Portland, Trump said she “should be ashamed of herself” because “Portland is burning to the ground.”
Trump promptly ordered the California National Guard to Portland.
Apart from the obvious question of how ...Read more
Trump Faces His Generals
When President Donald Trump dropped the bizarre suggestion last week that the military should use American cities as “training grounds” to fight what he called “an enemy within,” it sounded almost like old news.
After all, Trump has talked like this for years. "Don't take him literally," some would say. Or, that's just Trump being Trump...Read more
Trump's Latest Invitation to Universities
It's called the "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." It is anything but. It asks the schools who received Wednesday's letter to give up their academic freedom and adopt the right-wing partisan platform on education in exchange for preferred access to federal funding. Of course, the document points out (as it must) that "...Read more
Israel Is Finished
Dying regimes do funny things.
Dying superpowers plan for a future that never comes. I have a 1992 Soviet ruble note, redesigned the year before. Considering that the USSR closed shop in 1991, they probably should have focused on something more pressing than their next five-year plan.
Dying dictatorships bluff and bluster. Despite the ...Read more
The Day I Confronted a Buck in the Woods
Fall means deer season and I'm reminded of the time an eight-point buck confronted me in the woods. It was October in Michigan and cold enough to warrant a fleece face mask. I sat on a stool under a tree just 100 yards from my husband, waiting in the early morning quiet while the forest took shape with the rising sun.
The terrain dipped low ...Read more






















































