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Donald Trump: Grifter in Chief
There are anniversaries worth celebrating. Like last weekend’s 50 th anniversary of the movie “Jaws.” And there are anniversaries we’ll regret forever. Like June 16, 2025: the 10th anniversary of Donald Trump’s coming down the golden (of course!) escalator in Trump Tower and announcing he was running for president.
Reporters noted ...Read more

What I Fear Trump Will Do with His War
One of my goals in writing this column is to alert you to dangers to our democracy so you can alert others, who then alert others, and by this means we enlarge and strengthen our bulwark against the tide of fascism.
Wars pose particular challenges to democracy because nations at war often become more xenophobic and willing to give those in ...Read more
'A Lot of Americans Are Going to Die' Courtesy of Bobby Kennedy
Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican from Louisiana, is also a doctor. He put up resistance last February to Donald Trump's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Bobby," as Trump likes to call him, has long cast doubts on the safety of vaccines that have saved millions from death or serious disease ...Read more
All's Well That Ends Well?
Not exactly.
First of all, it's not clear what "all" exactly means. Was Iran's nuclear capacity really eliminated? What capacity did they actually have? We don't seem to have a consensus within the administration on even the most basic questions, or they wouldn't be pushing back so hard against those who claim that Trump's rhetoric was ...Read more
Campbell Keeps Capitol History Fires Burning
In a time of tense partisan clashes, Capitol Hill has a trusted leader in Jane L. Campbell, president and CEO of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.
Campbell's focus is far from skirmishes but rather on the forces and figures that filled the halls of Congress, keeping memory alive in the spirit of Clio, the mythical muse of history whose ...Read more
Soldiers Say It's Hard to Eat a $45 Million Parade
How embarrassing. Our showbiz president's glorious $45 million military parade -- fssssst -- fizzled. The gods rained on it, the thing dragged on and President Donald Trump himself kept nodding off in his chair. Sad.
His show needed some of the reality-TV drama that defines this president. For example, he could've had a phalanx of food trucks...Read more
No Sense of Decency: Donald Trump Unwraps a Changed America
In his book on America's hitherto most accomplished demagogue, "No Sense of Decency," journalist Robert Shogan concluded that the principal reason America's favorable view of Joseph McCarthy eventually collapsed was "the increased revulsion of many Americans for McCarthy as a result of what they saw of him. ... What came across was McCarthy's ...Read more
The War Should Be Turned Back to Israel
Let me offer some rare praise for Donald Trump. His attack on Iran's nuclear development sites was carefully executed. Nobody outside a tight circle knew about it in advance. And he was wise in shifting the talk into calls for peace.
We don't know whether the bunker busters reached all the near-bomb-grade uranium or if other sites for fuel ...Read more
Parents Push Back Against the Trump Administration's Latest Attack on Working Families
The Trump administration has followed through on its promise to gut the Head Start program. Since April, it has slashed 60% of the Office of Head Start staff, closed half of the regional offices where staff with local knowledge worked, delayed funding necessary for payroll and rent and undermined the program's mission through its ban on ...Read more

Did You Miss a Holiday, Mr. President?
Juneteenth came and went Thursday, but curiously something seemed to be missing from the annual celebration: a cordial salute from the president of the United States.
Well, sure, you might say at this point in our political history, after all, he’s Donald Trump. What do we expect? The only times when the master of Mar-a-Lago brings up a ...Read more
The Question for Donald Trump
To bomb or not to bomb.
That is the question.
And the answer is: he'll decide "within the next two weeks."
Why two weeks?
Because with President Donald Trump, "two weeks" could mean almost anything.
Asked two months ago if he could trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, he replied "I'll let you know in two weeks." Still waiting?
Asked ...Read more
We Support Ukraine. Shouldn't We Be Supporting Iran?
In "1984," one of George Orwell's characters explains that "doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." There's a less elegant, yet equally absurd, way to describe the behavior of a politician who expresses two contradictory beliefs at once. People do what they want,...Read more
The Fifth Estate
If you've been a reporter long enough, you learn that when people say you're a "member of the Fourth Estate," they mean to insult you and to let you know they read a book once.
The only exception is lawyers, who use the term the same way they use Latin, as a way to remind you that they've read a lot of books.
And in America, we can afford a ...Read more
What Is Due Process?
In the first months of his administration, President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened due process, a fundamental principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. His attacks have spanned from the arbitrary use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport legal residents to the unlawful detention of students.
For years, due process has protected us from ...Read more

When the President’s Peacemaking Efforts Invite More Chaos
While the nation braced to see what would happen next in Los Angeles, on Thursday a surprising message appeared on President Trump’s Truth Social account.
A day after videos emerged of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents chasing after terrified farmworkers trying to hide in California fields, the president suggested in the Truth ...Read more
From Day One, Trump's Immigration Agenda Has Grown More Extreme
Four months into President Donald Trump's second term, he has aggressively pursued efforts to strip entire communities of their rights and circumvent the rule of law.
While many voters expected Trump to ramp up deportations, they did not foresee the hurricane of horrors he has unleashed. The president has attempted to assert wartime ...Read more

Big, Beautiful Bromance Breaks Up — Live On Social Media
For those who think government should be run like a business, the messy social media spat that played out last week between President Trump and billionaire CEO Elon Musk suggested that business could be doing a lot better.
That may help to explain why shares of Musk’s company Tesla dropped 14 ...Read more
The Supreme Court Cases To Watch
The Supreme Court's docket this term includes many of the complex issues American society is currently facing, including immigration, free speech, religious liberty, LGBTQ rights and voting rights.
The ACLU has served as counsel or filed friend-of-the-court briefs in all of the cases addressing these hot-button issues. In addition to its ...Read more

Hey, guys, Democrats want your votes. They really do
Where are the Democrats? What are they doing about the damage President Trump is doing to ... everything?
I hear that a lot from my liberal friends these days, ever since Trump swept the battleground states six months ago and proceeded to dismantle government as we Americans used to know it.
With the fury of a man who is trying to make up for ...Read more

Trump’s Grudge Against South Africa is Based on Racist Fiction
I can hardly think of President Trump and Africa without also remembering his global insult to underdeveloped nations.
In a 2018 Oval Office meeting, you may recall, he grumbled aloud about why this country would accept more immigrants from “politics/fromtheleft/clarencepage/s-3722120">Read more