Day 28 of a partial government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. Politifact reports (Jan. 16), “…shuttered federal departments and agencies employ more than 800,000 people, or roughly 40 percent of the federal workforce. … About 380,000 of the have been furloughed, meaning they cannot come to work and are not being paid. Another 420,000 aren’t being paid but are...

No sooner had I written that I could not find any evidence of a single furloughed federal worker who supports the president in shutting down the government in favor of a southern border wall, (Faces from the Crisis, Jan. 14), then The New York Times reported late Monday (Jan. 14), that there are some federal workers – in Parkersburg, West...

“ ‘Right now, I can go get a bunch of loans, but if I’m not going to get paid, when am I going to pay those back?’ said Kerri Woodridge, a furloughed Office of Personnel Management employee.” WBAL-TV reported. “Freda McDonald, who’s furloughed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, brought up health care costs. She has an incurable neuromuscular disease,...

But not where you think! As reported by CBS Evening News Anchor Jeff Glor. John Siciliano, a federal corrections officer in New Jersey, hasn’t received a paycheck since December 29, 2018 “and is about to miss a mortgage payment. The bank told him and his wife if they miss a second one, it will start foreclosure proceedings.” As reported in...

“To be courageous… requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula… whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces, if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he...

Colman McCarthy is always a supportive friend but he’s much more. The former Washington Post columnist retired to start The Center for Teaching Peace, a radical little group that has the audacity to believe that “unless we teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence.” Among his advisory board: former Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Hatfield, Arun Gandhi...

(With apologies to Booth Tarkington) The ‘magnificence’ of the Trumps began with Frederick Christ ‘Fred’ Trump, who acquired his wealth by building and selling housing to soldiers who returned from World War II and their families. Their gilded splendor lasted throughout all the years that son Donald took over his father’s company, later renamed The Trump Organization. The younger Trump...

As the partial shutdown of the federal government grinds on, we have learned that employees who have been furloughed will eventually be paid. That’s little consolation to those who literally live paycheck to paycheck with housing and other costs. “The shutdown is affecting parts of nine cabinet-level departments,” The New York Times writes (Jan. 1), “and as it drags on,...

“Individual faults and fragilities are no excuse to give in, and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves. Today, more than ever before, I believe that each of us as individuals must not only struggle to make a better world, but to make ourselves better, too….” – Senator Edward M. Kennedy, speech at JFK School of Government,...

In a time of domestic chaos and conflict, CBS On the Road correspondent Steve Hartman updates his yearly story about Secret Santa… with twist, (Dec. 14). “A lot of people ignore the homeless, but folks rushing past Moses Elder might regret their haste. This week, all people had to do was pay him some attention and he would pay them...