Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump made clear to the world he has abandoned any pretense of global leadership.

In an hour-long speech Tuesday, the president bragged that America “was the hottest country in the world” under his leadership. While he demeaned a toothless U.N. Trump repeated his hugely exaggerated...Read more

Proposition 50, the California-slaps-back initiative, is cruising to a comfortable victory on Nov. 4, a slam dunk for Gov. Gavin Newsom and efforts to get even with Texas.

Or not.

It's actually a highly competitive contest between those wanting to offset the GOP's shameless power grab and opponents of Democrats' retaliatory gerrymander — ...Read more

“Better together.” That’s the optimistic theme that Annalena Baerbock, the new president of the United Nations General Assembly, chose for this year’s global gathering, the 80th. President Donald Trump instead confirmed in his speech what I keep hearing from the cognoscenti here at UNGA: The likelier trajectory points toward “worse ...Read more

Floating along on my bicycle on a daydream of a country road, up behind me came a man on a hissing e-bike, going fast, headed somewhere important. I thought at that speed — 25 miles an hour, I estimated — and with dusk gathering, he risked hitting a bear that would promptly eat him and the bike. But no such luck.

I saw him later at the ...Read more

Donald Trump is practicing medicine without a license in declaring that pregnant women should not take acetaminophen (brand name Tylenol) because it will cause autism in their children. He went even further than his crank Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the HHS doctors who stood with them in the Roosevelt Room ...Read more

Among the government programs that produce more confusion than benefits, H-1B visas are right up there.

If you've been hearing about H-1B visas, it's probably because President Trump abruptly changed its rules with a proclamation on Sept. 19.

As is typical of Trump's shoot-from-the-hip policy-making, the proclamation produced an outbreak of ...Read more

More than two years after the end of the public health emergency declared in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly 300 people a week still die from the disease in the United States.

Another 27,000 people tested positive for the virus in the most recent week of data available — though that number hit 168,000 during the first week of June....Read more

On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Trump administration is rewriting history by wielding the tools of censorship and erasure.

At the National Park Service site honoring Charles Pickney, who wrote a draft of the Declaration of Independence, for example, references to the people enslaved at ...Read more

As one way to keep tabs on President Donald Trump's state of mind, I'm on his email fundraising lists. Lately his 79-year-old mind has seemed to be on his mortality.

"I want to try and get to heaven" has been the subject line on roughly a half-dozen Trump emails since mid-August. Oddly, one arrived earlier this month on the same day that the ...Read more

Imagine this: Your congressman or senator votes exactly as the majority of the people they represent want them to vote. Not sometimes. Not when it’s convenient. Not when it aligns with the representative’s values or convictions. But every single time, on every single bill, mechanically, automatically, without speeches, without horse-trading,...Read more

President Donald Trump spent several days promising Americans that “an answer to autism” was imminent. Instead, his big reveal on Monday offered families distorted science, false hope, and unproven and at times dangerous medical advice.

Flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top federal health officials, Trump linked ...Read more

BOSTON -- ICE agents conducting sweeps through Massachusetts are coming under increasing attack by opponents trying to harass and block them from detaining suspects, creating a potentially dangerous standoff.

Democratic officials are also advising illegal immigrants on what to do when confronted with ICE agents, issuing “guidance” to them ...Read more

President Donald Trump’s promise to ratchet immigration levels back is colliding headlong with his other goal: a thriving economy that brings manufacturing and foreign investment back to the U.S. He can’t have it both ways, but he doesn’t seem to understand that. Perhaps that’s why his administration keeps dangling — and then ...Read more

The text of the First Amendment hasn’t changed, but many young adults would like it to. A study from The Future of Free Speech found that fewer than half of those aged 18 to 34 believe “hate speech” should be protected.

Restoring civil discourse begins with understanding why so many people view it as a problem to solve instead of as a ...Read more

Affordability has become a buzzword for Florida politicians lately, and Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing an idea he says will help — eliminating or reducing property taxes.

On Monday, a group of Florida legislators — the Florida House Select Committee on Property Taxes — met to hear presentations about ideas ranging from eliminating property ...Read more

The mid-decade redistricting fight continues, while the word “hypocrisy” has become increasingly common in the media.

The origin of mid-decade redistricting dates back to the early history of the United States. However, its resurgence and legal acceptance primarily stem from the Texas redistricting effort in 2003, a controversial move by ...Read more

During a recent military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin was caught on a hot mic saying to Xi Jinping, his Communist Chinese counterpart, “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and (you can) even achieve immortality.” Xi responded: “Some predict ...Read more

Once again, Congress seems to be barreling toward a government shutdown. Once again, the process is likely to be costly, counterproductive and completely unnecessary.

As so often in recent years, Congress has yet to pass all 12 appropriations bills needed to fund the government on time. Unless a deal materializes, the lights will go out on Oct....Read more