“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”— Lincoln Too many have become slaves to fear and prejudice losing the best parts of themselves to an ideology of lies and hate. I was in the process of writing about the media’s continuing obsession with reporting every word and action about Donald Trump and the...

Note: On assignment, but I’ll be back! No high-fives. No victory laps. No champagne room. You’re not out of the woods, yet. Watching Democratic leadership win back the Senate, you’d think they had won the Super Bowl. They didn’t. What we all won was a return to democracy, and a keen sense that most Americans don’t want to hand over...

“A-well-a everybody’s heard about the bird! Bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word A-well-a bird, bird, bird, bird is the word . . . ”—The Trashmen, 1963   What do you do if you’re the richest billionaire on the planet who has built the premier electric car company on the planet, and has invested billions in SpaceX to eventually go to...

How much toxicity can American democracy take before it collapses? Here’s pro-life conservative pundit Dana Loesch speaking about the scandal surrounding former pro-football player, anti-abortion advocate, and Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker after Walker denied allegedly paying for an abortion for his girlfriend. “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the...

Attending a Padres/Dodgers game in San Diego, I’m sitting next to a die-hard Padres fan. Despite my lifelong Dodger fever, we shared laughs, baseball stories and favorite teams: he loved the Yankees; I loved the Red Sox. What makes baseball so compelling is that while both sides want to win, they play on the same field, follow the same rules,...

Is there any Rubicon, despicable, illegal or otherwise, that Trump could cross that would change the hearts and minds of loyalists? Fox pundit Sean Hannity asked former president Donald Trump about Top Secret, classified documents he took with him to Mar-a-Lago. This was Trump’s response: “If you’re the president of the United States you can declassify just by saying it’s...

The cancer of false conspiracies, lies, and cynicism eating away at the Republic—lies propagated and fed by the former president and his allies—has metastasized to many Republicans running for office in state elections. The New York Times writes, “When asked, six Trump-backed Republican nominees for governor and the Senate in midterm battlegrounds would not commit to accepting this year’s election...

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...