In comic books, a key to a compelling superpower is its limitations. Magneto can manipulate metal but only metal. Superman has problems with magic, red suns and kryptonite. The limitations drive the drama.
Earlier today, I was talking to a friend I’ve known for more than two decades when, twice, she prefaced her opinion with, “I feel.” The third time she shared an opinion, she began with, “I think.”
Clarity of thought and expression about moral issues is not a core competency of CEOs.
WASHINGTON — After weeks of dancing around its constitutional authorization to impeach a president suspected of warranting it, the House of Representatives appears on the verge of initiating the formal process.
In Alabama, where a new law denies abortion to women even in cases of incest or rape, a rapist may still pursue custody rights of a child conceived during his assault.
In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. predicted that America could elect a black president in 40 years or less. Implicit in King’s prediction is that such an achievement would show that racism was no longer a serious problem in our country. Three years later, King said: “Because of prejudices …
Both Republican and Democratic politicians want government to “do more” to give parents paid time off.
Trumpian economic nationalism is a zero-sum game in which the industries of the future are dominated either by China or by the United States. We win or they win.
Beneath the perfectly manicured lawns and under the pines and elm trees at the Normandy cemetery lie 9,388 Americans who died during D-Day or in the liberation of France that followed. Among them is a most unlikely combatant, a 56-year-old Army officer who was a wounded veteran of World War …
The intellectual right is in the middle of a huge brouhaha, as some prominent right-wing commentators celebrate what they believe is the end of the “conservative consensus” around classical liberalism — free markets, limited government, the sovereignty of the individual and even in some case…
The first time I had a conversation with editor Stuart Warner, I didn’t like him much.
On the morning of April 28, 1986, an employee of the Forsmark nuclear power plant an hour north of Stockholm was returning from a restroom break when his shoes set off the radiation alarm. Soon klaxons were sounding everywhere. Technicians scoured the plant. No leak. After performing chemica…
Breaking news: Some guy posted a doctored video of Nancy Pelosi.
WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in removing himself from the furor over the possible impeachment of Donald Trump, has invited Congress to act on its constitutional role to do so if further investigation dictates.
If there was “great love all around” during President Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom, as he tweeted Monday, the participants royal and decidedly otherwise were deceptively discreet.
“I don’t feel safe,” says a Harvard student in a video.
Uber just filed its first quarterly report as a publicly traded company. Although the company lost $1 billion, investors may still do well because the losses appear to be declining.
The guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain, “Big Bad John,” was christened in 1992 in honor of the U.S. Navy’s first father-son duo of four-star admirals, “Slew” and Jack. On July 12, 2018, their son and grandson respectively, retired Navy captain and U.S. Sen. John S. McCain III was ad…
Is Joe Biden Hillary Clinton — or George W. Bush?
Special Counsel Robert Mueller should be censured, if not disbarred, for violating Department of Justice rules and turning the legal system upside down for political purposes -- to "get Trump."
Joi and her husband wanted a baby.
With several septuagenarians competing for the presidency, the ghost of the 1990s looms over the 2020 race. Joe Biden has faced criticism for his sponsorship of the 1994 crime bill. President Donald Trump tweeted, “Anyone associated with the 1994 Crime Bill will not have a chance of being elected.”
Donald Trump and Bill de Blasio agree: Joe Biden should be ashamed of his support for the 1994 crime bill.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s abrupt walkout from a White House meeting on infrastructure legislation with Democratic congressional leaders on Wednesday has only heightened the controversy over a possible presidential impeachment.
Describing the Democratic Party as one built on “identity politics” used to be a pejorative. But Georgia’s failed 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, recently defended this description of her party. “I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are,” said Abrams…
WASHINGTON — Driving along Colorado’s scenic byways, one might be distracted these days by a series of billboards promoting safe abortions or, depending upon one’s route, alternatives to abortion, as well as assorted child-rearing recommendations.
Americans have sharply different views about what government should do, whether on abortion, guns, immigration or any number of hot-button issues. But we broadly agree about how government should go about resolving our differences.
Look at the dollar bills in your wallet. They say they are “legal tender for all debts.”
It’s a better than even bet that in Massachusetts today there is more than one ambitious young Democratic candidate running for local office who is deliberately pronouncing the word “again” so that it rhymes with “a pain.” Why, you logically ask? Because that’s how the martyred John F. Kenne…
There’s a reason Democrats continuously combat Republican-led efforts to enact sensible voter ID laws while simultaneously pushing for noncitizens, felons and 16-year-olds to be able to vote.
“Democrats are aggressively pushing late-term abortion, allowing children to be ripped from their mother’s womb right up until the moment of birth,” President Trump said at a Florida rally earlier this month. “The baby is born and you wrap the baby beautifully and you talk to the mother abou…
The Dow plunged 450 points on the opening bell May 6 in response to this presidential tweet: “The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No! The 10% will go up to 25% on Friday.” Economists eye this brinkmanship fearfully. Bank of America/Merrill Lyn…
This has become too rare, I suddenly realized — this unscheduled gift of a moment.
Few things offend Bernie Sanders as much as people escaping from command-and-control government systems, even minority students whose parents are desperate to get their kids a decent education.
WASHINGTON — As President Trump continues his opposition to congressional Democrats’ demands for under-oath testimony from him and various other associates, their calls for his impeachment remain in limbo.
In his book “Discrimination and Disparities,” economist Thomas Sowell notes that a disproportionate percentage of first-born siblings become National Merit scholars compared to siblings born later, presumably because the first-born starts life with no sibling competition for parental attenti…
WASHINGTON — When author Mark Childress penned “Crazy in Alabama,” he wasn’t just whistling Dixie.
When police charged New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft with soliciting prostitution, the press said the police rescued sex slaves.
The award for this year’s Biggest Backhanded Compliment to Donald Trump from a Trump Toadie goes to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who recently predicted a Trump victory in 2020 because “people will vote for somebody they don’t like if they think it’s good for them.”
In my line of work, I run into more than a few Democrats whose mood swings of late are frankly semi-wild. Last November, when their party won 41 Republican U.S. House seats and took the House majority from the GOP, Democrats were almost giddy, increasingly confident that voters in 2020 would…
The most rational response to the news that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to be president is to ask, “Of what?”
Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., tweeted in response to anti-abortion legislation passed by the Alabama legislature: “I refuse to believe that these Republican men represent the views of most Alabamians. Their action is both unconstitutional and shameful. The people of Alabama deserve to be on the #…
Let’s start with a few facts about the children currently living in Alabama.
The Joe Biden polling surge has raised the frightful specter of Democratic rationality.
WASHINGTON — As President Trump continues his schoolyard tweeting of childish nicknames for his foes by labeling former Vice President Biden “Sleepy Joe,” his target responds more in the fashion of Paul Revere, shouting that American democracy is under dire attack.
My previous column objected to President Donald Trump and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s, D-N.Y., proposed $2 trillion “infrastructure” spending. As with President Barack Obama’s “stimulus,” the Trump-Schumer plan violates the concept of federalism and bails out states that spend irresponsibly, guaran…
WASHINGTON — Growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, there was no avoiding the adorable Doris Day. She was cute as a bug, wholesome, winsome and adored, at least in movies, by the swooning-est leading men in Hollywood — Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and Clark Gable, to name a few.
Donald Trump is causing a constitutional crisis with his blanket refusal to respond to any subpoenas.
Shortly after the cooling of the earth, when I was working for The Washington Post, I more than once heard a grizzled editor skeptically caution a younger reporter who was sure that he, alone, had gotten a stop-the-presses exclusive scoop that was going to lead the paper and, quite possibly,…
The biggest threat facing our democracy and the integrity of future elections isn't foreign interference. It's Big Tech in Silicon Valley, with its unlimited resources and access to hundreds of millions of voters. For context, in 2018, Facebook alone was used by an estimated 169.5 million pe…
One of the hardest lessons for young, idealistic and educated people to learn when they come to Washington -- and some never learn it -- is that nobody is running things. Sure, they know how to hold a press conference or write a law or conduct a study. But no person or group of people has th…
