The Resignation of Tom Price May Create the Opportunity We Need
Earlier today, as a comment on the News Summary on the website Blue Virginia, I posted this comment:I have a concern about whether the Democrats are prepared to deal effectively with the challenge...
View ArticleWill This Be Trump's "Have You No Decency?" Moment?
Something big may be happening. It's about today's news in the Trump/Puerto Rico story. Trump may have crossed a line, for some of his supporters. It's conceivable, even plausible.I am not going to...
View ArticleEnd Gerrymandering Altogether
This piece is my weekly op/ed for newspapers in my conservative congressional District (VA-06).*********************Gerrymandering is as old as the nation. Even so, it violates basic values of the...
View ArticleCalm Before What Storm? Can Trump Start a Nuclear War on His Own?
A week with a reckless president beating the drums of (nuclear?) war. First he publicly tells his Secretary of State that "he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man." Then he...
View ArticleA Clue Revealing the Republican Darkness
This piece will be appearing this week as an op/ed in newspapers in my very red congressional district (VA-06)****************************Like the clue that unravels a mystery, here’s a revelatory...
View ArticleDoes the 25th Amendment Apply Here?
The following piece is my weekly op/ed for newspapers in my very red congressional district, VA-06.*****************************What should be included in the notion of the President being “unable to...
View ArticleWhy Sexual Predators Are Traumatizing for Women
This piece will be my weekly op/ed for newspapers in my very red congressional district (VA-06).The recent spate of stories about prominent sexual predators has been disturbing. But also, for me,...
View ArticleThe Brokenness Gen. Kelly Displayed is His Own
In the wake of General Kelly’s problematic performance in last week’s press conference, one heard thoughtful people talking about how Trump corrupts all those around them, about how everyone who comes...
View ArticleOpen Letter to Senators Corker, Flake, and McCain: You've Got Leverage (and...
This piece is my weekly op/ed for newspapers in my very red congressional District (VA-06). (Please note the postscript after the piece.)*************************************In your different ways, the...
View ArticleWhat Last Night's Elections Mean for America's Trump Problem
It is widely recognized that yesterday's election results -- in Virginia, and elsewhere -- represent a powerful repudiation of Donald Trump's presidency. Perhaps a bit less obvious is how these results...
View ArticleRep. Goodlatte (VA-06) Stepping Down -- Why Now?
The main news station in Harrisonburg, VA — WSVA — just called me moments ago to ask for my reaction to the "surprising news" that Rep. Bob Goodlatte will not be running for re-election. (They called...
View ArticleIt's Time to Take It to the Republicans Over Their Protecting Trump
The Democrats have an opportunity – more than that, they have a duty – to intensify the pressure on the Republicans in Congress to protect the nation against Donald Trump.Last Tuesday’s election made...
View ArticleRoy Moore as an Illustration of the Proposition That Evil Tends to Destroy...
That evil destroys itself is an old motif in literature and in the religious traditions of the West. We can see that being demonstrated in America today.****************************For more than a...
View ArticleWould Any Wrong-doing Delegitmize a Presidential Election?
I would like to raise two main questions of a general and hypothetical sort. But clearly, it is our specific situation in America today that I have in mind.Imagine that someone is elected president,...
View ArticleWhom Not to Believe (A Message to Trump Supporters)
This piece is appearing in newspapers in my very red congressional District (VA-06).It has long seemed to me that making information visible -- as through the use of charts and graphs -- is a much more...
View ArticleNot Taking Our Blessings for Granted (What These Times Have Taught Us Americans)
This piece is appearing this Thanksgiving week in newspapers in my (rather red) congressional district (VA-06).*********************It is natural to take for granted those good things that, in one’s...
View ArticleFrom "The Lord of the Rings," A Speech for Our Times
This speech comes at the end of the second film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy ("The Two Towers"). Our band of heroes has been split up from the ordeals they have encountered along the way. Each...
View ArticleChanges that Old Movies Reveal
The article below is my op/ed for this week in newspapers in my conservative congressional district, VA-06. This piece appears at first to be entirely non-political. (I intersperse such pieces among my...
View ArticleAre These the Kind of People Who Should Choose Our Future?
This will be running as my weekly op/ed in the newspapers of my very Republican congressional District (VA-06).**********************Such things are rarely displayed so blatantly, but there it is. And...
View ArticleIndicting a President
I begin with two premises:1) When Robert Mueller’s investigation is completed, he will likely have uncovered the largest set of scandals and criminal wrong-doing to besmirch any presidency in...
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