Rights and Democracy
What Are Trump’s Values — and America’s?
A man who proclaims he’d like to punch a protester in the face — as Donald Trump did recently in Nevada — isn’t fit to serve as the president of the United States. That’s the first thing that must be said. Fit to be führer of Germany in 1933, yes. But not president of...
Trump’s America: A Shining Outhouse on a Hill
When Donald Trump announced he was running for president, I mocked him. “Of the United States?” I asked. (I got a C- in Mockery when I was in college, unfortunately.) When he jumped into the lead almost immediately, I laughed. “The higher the climb, the harder the...
There Are No Words Left for the GOP Charade
Help! We political wordsmiths are in urgent need of assistance from lexicologists. The Republican presidential primary has gone so far out, so beyond accepted boundaries of civic and civil behavior, that we've run out of words to describe the extreme weirdness. Words...
Clear-Cut Paternity Case
What Are We Paying Mitch McConnell For?
Why should you and I have to keep paying Mitch McConnell's salary? The Kentucky Republican is the Senate majority leader, but he doesn't lead much. In fact, he really doesn't do much of anything. McConnell says “no” to every task at hand. Repair and replace the...
A Voting Rights Victory in Maryland
Thousands of Marylanders will regain the right to cast their ballots this election year, thanks to the state’s lawmakers. The Maryland House and Senate recently voted to override a veto by Governor Larry Hogan to ensure that ex-offenders will automatically get their...
The Elephant in the Race
The audience in the theater takes its seats and slowly settles down. The curtain rises on a conventional living room in a conventional American home, neither squalid nor opulent. Middle class, it whispers. A woman of a certain age sits in a chair in the middle of the...
What’s at Stake in Apple’s Privacy Fight
Civil liberties fans in the United States recently got an unlikely champion: the CEO of Apple. In a high-profile spat with the White House, Tim Cook has emerged as a leading spokesperson against the Obama administration’s efforts to weaken Americans’ constitutional...
‘Indian’ Mascots Are a Slap in the Face
The Washington, D.C. football team is scheduled to play in London later this year. But the controversy over its name has preceded it there. Two members of the British Parliament have asked the NFL to change the R*dskins' team name — or “at the minimum, send a...
Real Feminists Don’t Tell Women How to Vote
I didn’t look up to Wonder Woman or Lara Croft as a child: I had women like Gloria Steinem. I was the type of girl who cut my dolls’ hair short, insisted girls could do anything boys could, and invented stories where brave female protagonists always outsmarted the bad...
