In the final part of my conversation with Representative Salud Carbajal (D-CA-24) from July 29, we discuss principles, money in politics and avoiding partisan traps. Lichtman: Here’s one thing that frustrates many voters, me included: political decision-making appears to be calculated toward getting re-elected where appealing to the base of supporters becomes the overriding priority. How do stay true to...

Senate Republicans are making yet another attempt at repealing The Affordable Care Act, this time, under the guise of the Graham-Cassidy bill which would impose stringent cuts to Medicaid. “Eleven governors, including five Republicans,” The New York Times writes (Sept. 20), “urged the Senate to reject a new push to dismantle The Affordable Care Act.” Republicans are using the same...

A brief conversation with U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal (D-CA-24), led to a 50-minute discussion concerning health care and his participation in the Problem Solvers Caucus. Elected to Congress in 2016, Representative Carbajal previously served three terms as a Santa Barbara County Supervisor and served in the Marine Corps Reserve. He currently sits on the Armed Services and Budget Committees. Our...

I awakened the other day to a message from New Hampshire Technical Institute Professor Stephen Ambra: Hi, Jim — Not sure if you signed up for Gabe’s post…but one of things I look at on a daily basis… I click on the link, and was taken to Wake Up To Politics, sub-head: This Is Your Wake-Up Call. And the intriguing...

During the month of August, comfortably ensconced in my “cone of silence,” I spent most of the time reading a variety of books. While all of them speak to various ethical values, many of the authors were simply good storytellers. After listening to an interview of former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill, I became interested in reading his account of how...

In a vigorous and powerful speech to the Senate yesterday (July 25), Arizona Senator John McCain wasn’t a Republican or Democrat; he spoke as an American and political figure fitted with the responsibility to do something for “the public good.” He spoke less about the health care debate that brought the Senate to a vote, and more about their lack...

There have been many issues on which I have disagreed with Senator John McCain. However, I respect the Arizona Republican for one simple reason: I trust him; I trust that he acts in the best interests of the country, not his own. Last week, when it was announced that McCain had brain cancer, I was stunned not because such a...

In 2005, New York Times Magazine described him this way: “ ‘Can you smell money?!?!?!” Jack Abramoff wrote. “The scent of money was coming from the Saginaw Chippewa, the owners of the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort — a $400-million-a-year enterprise in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. Abramoff and his informal business partner, Michael Scanlon, an independent public-relations consultant who had been...

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  – George Santayana Recently, I received an e-mail from a reader to a 2016 commentary (Fact-Checking a Reader) I wrote regarding candidate-Trump’s original statement calling for a “total and complete shutdown” of all Muslims entering the United States. “I think if Trump would have left out the word Muslim,”...

There is no nice way to say it: I am tired of political leadership in Washington using words like “inappropriate,” “inconsistent,” a “distraction,” and “un-presidential” to describe what my parents, grandparents, teachers, religious leaders, and most anyone with common sense would otherwise call, WRONG! To state the obvious: we have a 71-year-old president whose Twitter rants demonstrate that he is...