That’s Arizona Republican and Speaker of the House . . . correction, former Speaker of the House, Rusty Bowers who had been abruptly shown the door by his own Republican Party after Bowers refused to accede to Donald Trump’s wishes and overturn the will of 3.4 million Arizona voters who voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election. If his...

Of all the books written by historian David McCullough the book I return to is a compilation of his speeches. The American Spirit offers exactly what its title implies and at this moment, we need a big dose of that spirit more than ever. In a speech to Dartmouth College in 1999, McCullough draws inspiration from a line in the...

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” In the depths of the Revolutionary War, George Washington’s troops struggled with disease, hunger, and defeat. What Washington needed was a...

The country is facing a confluence of alarming events that challenge even the best optimists. Thus far, the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has held 8 hearings with testimony from key witnesses. Among them: Capitol police, Justice officials, White House aides, state Republican election officials, a conservative judge, a member of the Oath Keepers whose...

In September 2009, I posted a commentary with that title with the following opening . . . “During an awards ceremony, a Rap star takes the stage away from one winner and shouts that another should have won. “A political pundit calls the President a racist. “In the middle of the President’s address to a joint session of Congress, a...

In a Q&A session last month after a performance of the Broadway show Company, a woman in the audience was asked to put her mask back on. When she refused, singer Patti LuPone unloaded on her. “If you’re not going to follow the rules, Get The F*** Out of Here!” “I pay your salary!” the woman yelled back before she...

The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6 is expected to hear testimony from three top Department of Justice officials on Trump’s push to overturn 2020 election results within the department. I will be live-tweeting at 3:00pm EST and 12:00pm PST: @jimlichtman This is subject to any time change. After the third installment of the...

In honor of Memorial Day, last Friday I began by describing the longest battle American forces faced in the the Hürtgen Forest during World War II. I wrote how my father, Private James Lichtman, survived an 88mm German canon attack, and a minefield as he crawled to an aid station to receive medical attention for his frozen feet. This is...

In chronicling one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, historian Charles Whiting writes, “Thirty thousand American G.I.’s were killed or wounded in the longest battle ever fought by the US Army—a battle that has been ignored for more than fifty years, a battle that should never have been fought.” My father, Private James Lichtman, was one of the...

Character is a word that’s rarely used today; rarer still is finding leaders who demonstrate character. But there are a few. Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, against their party’s wishes, chose to participate in an investigation into the causes of the January 6, 2020 insurrection. It takes character and courage to choose principle over politics. Where would we be...