Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated the year that former U.S. Senator John Danforth first took office (1968). The Watergate break-in happened the year he was re-elected to that post, as Missouri’s attorney general (1972). Danforth entered the U.

Ready, aim, fire: “I believe in Jesus, guns and babies.” So declares Kandiss Taylor, GOP candidate for governor of Georgia, in a campaign ad. Or how about: “I’m Eric Greitens, Navy SEAL, and today, we’re going RINO-hunting.” This is not about killing

In the 1950s when television was in black and white as was the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, comedian Milton Berle would occasionally wear a dress in a skit, causing the studio audience to laugh uproariously. How things ha

Will Donald Trump be held accountable for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and what was a multi-layered conspiracy to overturn the results of the presidential election? Attorney General Merrick Garland has stated that "We're just going

ABC News thought it was — in the words of George Stephanopoulos — “too ugly” and “too dangerous” and declined to show it on air. So Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted it Sunday night, letting us all see the threatening letter that recently came to his wife

While some people wonder whether we’re on the brink of a second Civil War, I sometimes wonder whether we ever really finished the first one. The Juneteenth holiday weekend, a celebration of the ending of legal slavery in the United States, offered am

For congressional Republicans, the election can’t come soon enough. In the modern era, it’s hard to think of a time when the party out of power had more things going its way. Harry Enten, CNN’s political data analyst, recently noted that going by the

While inflation, high gas and food prices, a falling stock market, corrosive politics and a looming recession are all causes for concern – even alarm – two recent Gallup polls reveal an erosion of foundational principles that are key to a stable and

She’s not exactly starving for affirmation. To the contrary, Malala Yousafzai is a global icon. Since 2012 when, as a 15-year-old Pakistani girl, she survived being shot in the head by a Taliban thug, she has met with heads of state, addressed the Un

Sometimes in the art of political stagecraft, an entire debate can shift on a single statement. Former Nixon aide John Dean comes to mind. His declaration during the Watergate hearings of “a cancer growing on the presidency” stands out as a pivotal m

If a man takes a gun, shoots, and kills a woman who he’s been in an intimate relationship with, is the gunshot victim more, or less worthy of protection depending on if the two were married? Really, it’s not a trick question. Logically, from an empat

If the House January 6 committee proceeds to its seemingly predetermined conclusion that Donald Trump incited the Capitol riot and tried to reverse the results of the 2020 election and if they recommend to the Department of Justice that Trump committ

The nation has seen blockbuster congressional hearings before: the Army-McCarthy hearings, which wrecked the career of the hateful Senator Joseph McCarthy; the Watergate hearings, which forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon; and the Iran-

“Just imagine for once if we led the world in funding peace and not wars.” Just imagine! The words are those of Robert Weissman, president of the organization Public Citizen, in response to the legislative efforts of Reps. Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan,

"Everybody plays the fool.” -- The Main Ingredient, 1972 I won’t bother reasoning with you. As I’ve said before in this space, it’s my opinion that you folks who support Donald Trump are, by definition, incapable of that function, so it’s foolish to

As they were preparing to go to the airport to visit their new grandchildren, two friends of mine were robbed recently outside their Kenwood co-op building near the University of Chicago. Suddenly I was alerted once again to the horrors of Chicago’s

We’re only two installments into the limited-run production of the Jan. 6 hearings, and so far, I think they’ve been great. But I also think they’ll leave almost everyone, except for me, unsatisfied. For many Democrats and Never Trumpers, the hope is

Most people are familiar with the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” The incendiary rhetoric that has engulfed our political system has demonstrated that especially violent words can cause hurt, even death, t

It comes at the end. After his supporters march on the U.S. Capitol chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” after they breach police barricades, after they smash windows and climb through, after they chant “Hang Mike Pence” and erect a gallows for tha

My condolences to Chesa Boudin, the by-now-famous San Francisco district attorney who lost a recall election Tuesday. The polls saw it coming. As expected, his loss is being celebrated with Champagne by lock-’em-up conservatives and, for that matter,

We’ve never seen anything like this week’s first public hearing of the House Select Committee on January 6. By any standards, it was a blockbuster event: The first House committee hearing produced like a Hollywood action movie. The first House commit

The U.S. Capitol riot hearings were upstaged before they started. All it took was one man with a lethal intent toward a U.S. Supreme Court justice. A relatively young man at that. But one with access to the type of weaponry favored by many of the foo

If things aren’t going your way on issues such as high gas and food prices, inflation and the hordes flowing across the southern border (Fox News, The Guardian, and other news outlets report between 10,000 and 15,000 migrants are on the way and neith

“They were at places that seemed safe — but few spaces in America are guaranteed safe anymore.” This is CNN, doing its best to stay atop America’s mass shootings and keep the survivors (by which I mean us) informed. Yeah, 13 gun massacres this past w

I was amused by an “unscientific opinion” survey of Republican primary voters in Arizona’s heated race for Democrat Mark Kelly’s Senate seat. Many said they’d grown tired of Republican candidates’ extremism. “I know I don’t want any more GOP extremis

It opens with a woman’s voice and a black screen. “I had no other options,” she says. “I wanted it over with.” Then you see her. White, gray-haired, maybe somewhere in her 70s. And she continues her story. “I didn’t care how it was done. I was that d

On Thursday, the Jan. 6 committee will make its televised primetime debut, some 519 days after the event that gave the committee its name and purpose. For its ardent supporters, the committee’s mission is nothing less than an effort to save democracy

What comes to mind in the month of June? Weddings. Vacations (and how to pay for record high gas prices if you’re driving). Graduations. Time was when many commencement speeches at major universities were about America and its values and what graduat

Where were you when we needed you? That’s my blanket response to a persistent trickle of emails from readers who keep asking me to, in effect, stop using the word “conservative” when I mean “crazy.” “Or “fascist.” Or “mean.” Which is to say that thes

Can blood and fragments of human flesh motivate politicians to act reasonably on firearm reforms? The question was raised shortly after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 grade schoolers and two teachers were slaughtered with a military-grade we