I hope that my columns reflect evidence and argument—maybe even proof—rather than partisanship, but if you read a dozen of them, you could be forgiven if you get the impression that my political perspective reflects the left more than the right. Fair enough.

In fact, I’ve been accused of having a bad case of TDS—Trump Derangement ...Read more

This might be Republicans’ last big year to get things done for a while. President Donald Trump is in the second year of his second term — his last before reaching lame duck status. His party is unlikely to hold Congress after the midterms if history is any indication.

What do Republicans want? As 2026 begins, I’m not sure they know. ...Read more

Although the first quarter of the new century has seen four presidents, it is doubtless Donald Trump who will most fascinate future historians. And with the first year of his second term nearly in the books, our stocktaking of the moment must begin with what has been most mashed and mangled since Jan. 20: the rule of law.

It’s true that Trump...Read more

By invading Venezuela, President Donald Trump just lit America's eternal exploding cigar.

For over 175 years — ever since the United States conquered half of Mexico — nearly every president has messed with Latin America while telling the rest of the world to stay the hell out.

We have helped depose democratically elected leaders and ...Read more

I am a 56-year-old woman who loves romance fiction, so I fell for “Heated Rivalry.” My daughter introduced me to the streaming adaptation. She texted me about it with the confidence of someone who knew I would understand why it mattered. I raised my daughters to believe that sex can be a source of connection and pleasure, something to claim ...Read more

In one version of U.S. history, California is a place where slavery was prohibited from the founding, in the 1849 state constitution, and where that ban was reaffirmed by the state’s ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. In another telling, it was a place that had ended the practice some 30 years earlier — when it was part of Mexico.

...Read more

Modern demagogues do not operate by inventing complete fantasies: They operate by weaponizing core, evident truths. Their most potent narratives begin with real wounds -- neglect, inequality, corruption, contempt, cultural anxiety -- and then twist those wounds into myths that serve only to concentrate power and disable collective action. These ...Read more

The academic money pit that has become New College of Florida received kid-glove treatment in The New York Times, but it’s because nobody checked the math. There’s a cost to swapping out curriculum that produced Fulbright scholars for beach volleyball scholarships, and The Times missed it.

It’s important to set the record straight on New ...Read more

Before Beyoncé married Jay-Z and began growing her family, she sang about dating a trifling, good-for-nothing type of brother who didn't know what being a man was about. He couldn't pay her bills. Not her telephone bill. Not even her automo'bill. This was back in 1999, while she was a member of Destiny's Child. Maybe the lyrics to the hit "...Read more

So much for Donald the Dove.

President Donald Trump mounted an illegal invasion of Venezuela, kidnapping president Nicolás Maduro and his wife and spiriting them out of the country.

The breathtaking use of military force against a sovereign state has no legal justification. It opens the door for anarchy in Venezuela and threatens to make the ...Read more

Pics or it didn’t happen, as they say, meaning if you don’t capture a moment in photos or video and then share it online, what’s the point?

We’ve written extensively on the growing societal obsession with phones and social media, specifically in regard to young people, pointing to both the short- and long-term harms this problem causes....Read more

President Donald Trump wasn’t joking when he welcomed guests to the live “Trump-Kennedy Center Honors” on Dec. 7, a comment that was cut in the televised version Dec. 23. Shortly after the original event, the president’s hand-picked board voted to rename the center. Guess who got top billing?

Signage was erected on the facade the day ...Read more

President Donald Trump had planned for months to invade Venezuela and seize its real prize, the nation’s vast oil reserves. Capturing President Nicolás Maduro was more pretext than purpose.

This was an act of naked and indefensible aggression. There’s no other way to describe it. It was, as U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said,“a...Read more

What happens now? Will democracy really prevail in Venezuela?

In Doral on Saturday, decades of pent-up fear and frustration spilled onto the streets. The news that the United States had “captured” — the word used by President Donald Trump — Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife during the night after a months-long pressure ...Read more

California has tried all manner of design in choosing its governor.

Democrat Gray Davis, to name a recent example, had an extensive background in government and politics and a bland demeanor that suggested his first name was also a fitting adjective.

Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, by contrast, was a novice candidate who ran for governor on ...Read more

In September, when the U.S. military began blowing up boats the administration said was carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea with no investigation or convictions, public discomfort was immediate, and criticism sharp. Many military and political leaders alleged a war crime after an especially disturbing, deadly attack on survivors of a first ...Read more

No sooner had the new year dawned than President Donald Trump introduced a new level of stress to the world, grabbing the leader of a sovereign nation without congressional approval, hauling Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, off to a New York jail cell and installing Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the de facto viceroy of Venezuela....Read more