Author
How Pennsylvania is fanning the flames of the next insurrection
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Here we go again. In the last week, two men from Pennsylvania each made headlines for attempting or threatening violence against the FBI after it executed a search warrant at the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump. One of the men, Adam Bies, 46, of Mercer, […]
Here’s how broken Washington is: Democrats agreeing with each other is big news
This commentary originally appeared in Pennsylvania Capital-Star. In an ideal world, the landmark compromise on climate change, Medicare, and energy spending that U.S. Senate Democrats announced earlier this week would barely require a second glance. That’s not to diminish the magnitude of the agreement that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., struck with […]
Trumpism is fascism, American-style
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. If you want to know what the slide into fascism looks like, go back and review Tuesday’s session of the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It was a tragic parade of public servants relaying the vile acts of harassment […]
Our national pathology over guns is no longer insane. It’s inhuman.
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Want to know what rage feels like? It’s waking on a Wednesday morning on a school day as the cable news talking heads sift through the latest on the shooting at a Texas elementary school that left 21 people dead, most of them children, and looking at […]
What the Founders meant by ‘virtue,’ and how it could save our politics now
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Writing in his diary in the spring of 1759, John Adams mused aloud on the images that were likely to run through his head as he found himself lapsing into a thoughtful mood. “In such silent scenes, as riding or walking thro the Woods or sitting alone in my Chamber, […]
What are book bans really about?
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. More years ago than I really care to count, the children’s librarian in my little town in rural northwestern Connecticut, apparently tired of my endlessly renewing the same book over and over again, pressed a copy of “The White Mountains” by John Christopher into my eight-year-old hands. Mrs. Bullock was her name. […]
Republicans denounce Putin’s war on facts, but are silent on the one at home
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. There’s a lot that’s terrible about Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s brutal attempt to erase Ukraine from the map of Europe. From the incalculable humanitarian disaster that has seen millions of Ukrainians flee their home country, to the appalling carnage on the streets of Mariupol that was devastatingly […]
3 poll numbers that should scare Democrats. And 3 that should give some hope.
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. If the central argument for President Joe Biden’s election in 2020 was his competence and decades of experience in Washington, three numbers in a new nationwide Quinnipiac University poll are a warning shot for the White House and Democrats as they look to hold their majorities in the U.S. House and […]
About the GOP’s historical amnesia on voting rights
If you get into an argument with a Republican about the GOP’s lamentable support for voting rights and its fractured relationship with Black Americans, it won’t be long before your rhetorical sparring partner bellows “Robert Byrd” at you and declares the argument over. The logic here, if it even can be called that, is that […]
The next Jan. 6 should worry us more
A version of this commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. One year ago on this day, U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle was at his desk at the Longworth House Office Building, near the U.S. Capitol, when he heard an enraged mob, fueled by a former president’s false claims of fraud, making its way up Independence […]
Report sheds new light on Pennsylvania lawmaker’s role in Trump election denial
A version of this story first appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. A newly released congressional report on efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to pressure the U.S. Department of Justice and overturn the 2020 election prominently highlights a Pennsylvania lawmaker who is a close Trump ally, and who was in the vanguard […]
Everything we know about work is wrong. The pandemic proved it.
“Everything we know about work is wrong. The pandemic proved it.” first appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. So what can the plight of a little cafe tell you about the state of the American economy and the changing face of work? A lot, as it turns out. The other week, the bistro where my family […]