I’ve spent much of my life thinking and writing about ethics. About honesty. About responsibility. About integrity—not simply when doing the right thing is easy, but when it demands courage, carries consequences, and comes at a personal cost. We are 18 days away from a national election. Lately, I’ve found myself wondering whether we’ve reached a point in American life...

It’s difficult to write about honesty, responsibility, and integrity when our minds are consumed daily by a president who demonstrates zero respect for those values and treats public office as a vehicle for his own power, profit, and self-glorification. As of October 12, 2026, President Trump and his administration, including the Justice Department headed by Attorney General Todd Blanche, have...

Republican John Williams, a chicken farmer and feed dealer from southern Delaware, had never gone to college.  He spoke so quietly on the Senate floor that the news media dubbed him “Whispering Willie.” But when he spoke, people listened as he exposed the biggest corruption scandals of the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s – sending hundreds of government officials to...

“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers. As it should be,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of murdering 13 people and wounding 32 at Fort Hood. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it. That it’s public. Because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of...

Nowhere is there a greater metaphor for Donald Trump’s policies, priorities, and unfulfilled ego than the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington’s cultural cathedral showcasing artists from around the world. When Trump took control of the Kennedy Center, he removed much of its board, installed allies, and the newly constituted board immediately elected him chairman. Then he set about...

This is the opening statement delivered by Jack Smith, former Special Counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice, before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 29, 2026. I’m including his statement in its entirety because, in Washington today, character, integrity, and courage are increasingly endangered virtues. Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Durbin, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity...

Whom can we trust? Who has the credibility to lead? Integrity still matters, and there are examples worth remembering. In The Buying of Congress, Charles Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, highlights two: Senators Philip Hart and John Williams. I’ll share Williams’ story on Friday. “An infantryman wounded on D-Day during World War II, Philip Hart had earlier...

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.”—Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s Alignment Science Lead, September 2026 Artificial Intelligence identifies patterns, evaluates information, predicts outcomes and selects actions. That is the basic function. The ethical problem begins when the system is given authority. Alignment is the attempt to ensure that...

BREAKING: News organizations responded forcefully on Monday after President Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. They went to federal court—and, in an extraordinary show of solidarity, ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC agreed to suspend video coverage of the president until further notice. “I want it clearly understood that from now on, ever, no reporter...

Tonight, protesters are surrounding the Kennedy Center, the living memorial to John F. Kennedy and the heartbeat of Washington’s cultural life. They are there because Donald Trump has raised the possibility of demolishing it amid a legal battle over his effort to put his own name on the building. A federal judge has ruled that only Congress can change the...