One of the most iconic images in Hollywood film is a static black and white picture of a pair of train tracks trailing into a distant western landscape. By itself, it doesn’t seem to say much. However, in the western classic High Noon, the image represents a reckoning that’s coming and the man whose actions make him a reluctant hero....

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Twenty-five years before the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, an incident took place that squarely placed the issue of slavery before the public and the courts. In 1839, fifty-three Africans were kidnapped from Sierra Leone and sold into slavery. While being transferred by...

Conservative author and pundit Ann Coulter says she will make an appearance at the University of California at Berkeley on April 27 despite university officials cancelling a previously scheduled on-campus event. [See updates below.] I’m not a fan of Coulter. I wrote about the conservative’s narcissistic “antics” in my last book, Shameless: The Ethical Case Against Three Out-of-Control Critics, and...

At a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin last year, then-candidate Trump said, “Now remember, we’re competing in a rigged election. This is a rigged election, folks, okay?” An October 16, 2016 Trump tweet: “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary – but also at many polling places – SAD.” Even on...

Washington, D.C. – In a stunning announcement on the steps of the Capitol today, scientists from four leading research centers believe they have found a direct link between the ethics scandals of the last five years – perhaps going back as far as five decades – and a chemical imbalance in the brain. The new disease, which scientists are calling...

Don’t do it! That’s my advice to Senate Democrats who seem to be ready, willing and very able to filibuster a confirmation vote on Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch. “While a parade of witnesses spoke in the committee room,” The New York Times writes (Mar. 23), “[Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer went to the Senate floor and announced that he...

I’ve been “clean and sober” – no mention of you-know-who, (rhymes with “rump”) – for 21 days and I must confess, a change has come over me. I feel… a little happier. The birds are singing more beautifully; the blossoms on the trees smell more sweetly; and I’ve unplugged from most cable news. In a March 1 commentary (La La...

That’s right. Those two zany congressmen from Texas are off on the wildest, funniest road they’ve ever traveled! … And you’re along for the ride! Starring Will Hurd, a Republican and “Beto” O’Rourke, a Democrat… (Cue the music) O’Rourke: “We’re off on the road to Wash…ing…ton.” Hurd: “We certainly do get around.”  » Read more about: The Road to Washington  »...

No, this is not about the Academy Award-winning musical that takes place in a fabled land where fanciful dancers prance on a stalled Los Angeles freeway off-ramp. This is about a real place that’s becoming less articulate as the weeks pass, where fanciful “facts” are fabricated for the woefully and willfully ignorant. If the Trump presidency were a Hollywood movie,...

In an unprecedented move, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer last Friday, barred “journalists from the New York Times, CNN, Politico and BuzzFeed—which have been criticized by President Donald Trump and his administration for their reporting—from [an off-camera press briefing]. Reporters from the Associated Press and Time Magazine boycotted the event in protest,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Feb. 24)....