Yesterday’s FBI search of Mar-a-Lago is a turning point, but like the people who lived through Watergate, we’re transfixed and filled with foreboding. — The first episode of Slow Burn, Leon Neyfakh’s brilliant podcast series reconstructing many of the biggest political scandals of modern American history, delivered an absolutely critical insight about the Watergate years: Once the break-in to Democratic National Committee headquarters was public and the ties of the burglars back to the…

Even if the Inflation Reduction Act is filled with compromises, its passage is a huge win for the party that wants to use government to solve big problems — From 1918 to 2004, the Boston Red Sox led a cursed existence, making it to the World Series just four times and losing each in seven games. On top of that, the team won its division several times but lost again and again in league championship series. Growing up in…

Public goods that serve everyone are under attack, a recurring story in America — When a wealthy suburban town votes to defund its own public library while continuing to fund other public amenities like road improvements and the fire department, you know something is deeply dysfunctional in America. But that’s exactly what just happened in Jamestown Township, a conservative community southwest of Grand Rapids…

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has woken the pro-abortion majority, as conservative Kansas (!) just demonstrated yesterday — According to Vote.org, a nonpartisan website that helps people register to vote, after the Supreme Court released its opinion in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, there was “a huge uptick in traffic to our website and on our voter tools. Nationally, we saw a…

Third parties in America sound good until you try to stand one up — Former failed Democratic presidential candidate and failed NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Yang and two retired Republican elected officials, Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, and David Jolly, a former congressman from Florida, have announced that they are launching a new political party, the Forward Party, in the hopes…

A lesson in aging gracefully and a reminder of the power of song in a dark time — Woke up, it was a Monday morning and the first thing that I thought was: what do I write about today? Another column about the dark clouds hanging over our heads and the challenges we face with our climate, our democracy, and the disconnect between our leaders and the public? …

This buzzy new tactic is being touted as a silver bullet to help Democrats stave off disaster this fall, but it’s a bandaid, not a cure. — Imagine you are in charge of a legacy enterprise, a company that’s been in business for decades, even longer. You still have some loyal customers, but a lot of people loathe your product and the rest are indifferent. You’ve tried all kinds of ways to get more customers, including hiring…

What pain, injury and illness can teach us about how to be a conscious citizen in today’s world — Today I woke up with a nasty muscle spasm behind my right shoulder. On a scale of zero to ten, the pain is a seven — just barely tolerable. I tried lying on the floor with a tennis ball underneath me to try to find the trigger point that could…

Startling testimony and powerful words have to lead to action, but so far no one has offered a plan for what to do next — The hearings of the House Select Committee on January 6th have been going great. Each session has offered a gripping narrative of the efforts of President Trump and a small army of his acolytes to corruptly hold onto power after losing the 2020 election first in the balloting and then…