From the Left
/Politics
The Post Office: A Wonderful Establishment
There's one thing Donald Trump can't take away from me.
I'm ready for living in a reality where a knock on the door could take you and your rights away. I'm prepared for violent Jan. 6 offenders in prison to be pardoned on Trump's first day. I'm even braced for freedom of speech -- and the press -- to ebb toward being things of the past.
...Read more
Trump's Rich Rogues Carving Up American Pie
The New York Times, NBC News and the "legacy media" have got to change with the Trump times -- before Donald Trump takes power in six short weeks on Jan. 20, 2025.
One CBS News presidential historian commented on air after Trump's cruel 2016 "American carnage" inaugural address: "That was the best speech Trump ever gave."
In plain sight, ...Read more
Three Januarys: All Ye Need to Know
My father and I, discouraged at the election over the holiday, opened a book of poetry I brought along to the house.
Somewhere we traveled was back in time to John F. Kennedy's inauguration on a bright snowy day on Jan. 20, 1961.
Almost unbelievably, Kennedy asked New England poet Robert Frost to compose and read an original poem for the ...Read more
November's Broken Hearts in History
The most tragic rhyme in American history falls in November's time, one century apart. President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address on Nov. 19, 1863; President John F. Kennedy died in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
These events reach over endless bends in a profound dialogue like the mighty Mississippi River, cutting through North and ...Read more
Trump Serves Revenge, Dares Senate to Defy
"Julius Caesar did not seize power; the Roman Senate ceded power to Caesar." -- Sen. Robert C. Byrd
Let that be a lesson to us from the West Virginian's grave.
Donald Trump promised to be a dictator on day one. Yet we missed his meaning: the first day after the election. Right away, we felt the president-elect's revenge, blowing in on the ...Read more
Four Horsemen Rode in on Election Day
The biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thundered in on Election Day.
Almost as if they conspired to make now-President-elect Donald Trump win, two are Democrats and two are Republicans. The four played distinct roles in a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
The first Horseman is, of course, President Joe Biden, like aged King Lear ...Read more
A Long Time Comin': On History's Clock
Keep the faith, my friends and fellow Americans. The election shall deliver a verdict soon on the national soul-searching that could change our lives -- and the laws we live by.
All know it. Everything is on the line. History's clock falls back if we fail.
Women and children would be first overboard, to have their freedom and future darkened...Read more
Keeping the Faith in America
WASHINGTON -- Greetings from riding shockwaves in the nerve center of the free world.
Bleak fury is passed around like the plague here since The Washington Post's owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, nixed its endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.
This column before Election Day is filled with foreboding.
Then came former President Donald ...Read more
The Best Day of Trump's Life
The simple truth about Jan. 6: The mob attack on the Capitol was the best day of Donald Trump's life.
Before you cast your ballot for president, you need to know that. And it's my fate to tell the tale again.
Trump loved every moment of the deadly riot, which is why he refused to call off the rampage for three hours and counting.
Look, what...Read more
Waves and Walls Higher for Harris' Catwalk
Since crossing the Golden Gate Bridge running away from a wrecked home, I've taken to life on my own. I come and go as I please. I pursue plans and projects to my heart's content and can hear myself think.
Then when Girlfriend -- my cat -- came into my life, it seemed complete. The gray tabby seemed the perfect amount of company. She's gone ...Read more
A Political Day in Court
Election 2024 is certainly as classic an American courtroom drama as sure as "Twelve Angry Men."
The contrast, nay contradiction, between the two leading witnesses could not be clearer.
Speaking of angry men, one star witness in the witness box seems to swim in the spittle of his own outbursts of outrage. He is a 78-year-old man, but nobody ...Read more
Election Roundup: Painting the House Blue, Harris in White
On Election Day on Nov. 5, I can say with some certainty: The House of Representatives will go from a Republican to a Democratic majority.
A blue House matters, because the speaker's gavel will belong to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York on the early January day the electoral count is certified by the House and Senate.
Last time, as you ...Read more
A Place That Feels Like Family
WASHINGTON -- When you sit down at Ben's Chili Bowl, cofounder Virginia R. Ali is apt to greet you and tell you she is glad you're here.
If you're lucky, she'll tell stories of her life that intersect with every chapter of the city since 1958, the year she and her late husband opened the restaurant's doors in a segregated section in the old ...Read more