Donald Trump is no stranger to legal trouble, but it’s never been anything he couldn’t solve with his checkbook. Just after he won the White House, Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle charges that Trump University swindled thousands of students. He later paid another $2 million for misusing …
Read More »Broken Promises: How Trump Betrayed the Autoworkers of Youngstown, Ohio
I rode through your beautiful roads coming up from the airport. And I was looking at some of those big, once-incredible, job-producing factories, and Melania said, “What happened?” I said, “Those jobs have left Ohio . . . but they’re all coming back.” Don’t move. Don’t sell your house. — President Donald Trump, Youngstown, …
Read More »The Sedition of Donald Trump
Before Donald Trump got himself infected with the coronavirus, he had firmly secured his place as the worst president in American history. Now, after mocking Joe Biden at their first debate for mask wearing, Trump has proved to be a reckless superspreader, risking the lives of donors at a New …
Read More »Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on How to Lead Through a Crisis (or Three)
Gretchen Whitmer was in a great mood the evening of March 10th. Joe Biden, whom she’d endorsed, was in the middle of sweeping all 83 counties in Michigan’s primary. A relatively low-profile state legislator before she beat her Republican rival by 10 points to become governor of Michigan in 2018, …
Read More »Cory Booker Goes to Comic-Con
I told Cory Booker’s team before our arranged meeting time in San Diego that a black man who is running for president of the United States, standing six-foot-two, would stand out anywhere. But this is Comic-Con, and Comic-Con tells me that I am overconfident. The hotel lobby where we need …
Read More »The Press Will Learn Nothing From the Russiagate Fiasco
On February 15, 2016, the National Review took unprecedented action. In an all-out plea to Republican voters to stop Donald Trump before it was too late, the magazine enlisted 22 of the right’s most prominent voices to band together and throw support elsewhere, to save the party. The “Conservatives Against …
Read More »Charlie Kirk Insists He's Not Already Running for President
NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND — Charlie Kirk holds court a few steps away from a cardboard cutout of himself. Real-Life Charlie is taller than Cardboard Charlie, but Cardboard Charlie has red lipstick on one cheek, presumably from a real-life kiss. Both Charlies wear navy blue suits with sneakers — no tie. …
Read More »This Battle of Billionaires Was Inevitable
The original “Battle of the Billionaires” was a harmless entertainment event, pitting WWE chief Vince McMahon against Donald Trump in Wrestlemania 23. It was notable for being perhaps the last time Trump was not cast as the heel in a public showdown. Nothing was at stake beyond McMahon’s hair, which …
Read More »Parkland: One Year Later
On Valentine’s Day 2018, a 19-year-old ex-student took an Uber to his old high school; he walked across the campus and into a three-story building, where he killed 17 people and injured 17 more. It was the sixth of 24 shootings in U.S. schools last year, but the incident at …
Read More »What Will Your Future Look Like Without Local News?
It’s not easy to witness the watchdog of our democracy being sadistically euthanized. Another week, another wave of massive journalism layoffs. And with it, another round of hand-wringing and legitimate cries about what we stand to lose when newspapers — especially local newsrooms — are gutted. As many have pointed …
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