Back page columnist

55 United: witness the power of the people

Before we turn our attention to the latest tawdry gossip surrounding the Trump reality show, causing news bulletins of substance to fade from our collective memory, I want to place the spotlight back on a resounding achievement still echoing off the…

‘Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?’

In the mid-19th century, over one million people fled Ireland, a dirt-poor, famine-stricken colonial outpost. Many of them landed here, in America. At first reviled for their alien religion and foreign ways…

Remember the wielder of the weapon, yes. But forget not the one who placed it in his hand.

President Donald Trump: How and Why This Came to Pass

A History of the 2016 Presidential Campaign

Last summer, when Donald Trump began his long march to the White House, I did not treat him as a joke. But neither did I think he could…

Appoint someone now. But not for life.

The time is ripe for a much needed and long overdue court reform. Let’s not have this chance pass us by.

Lead in the Water

102,000 people live in Flint, Michigan. Nearly 57% of the residents are black; over 40% of the populace lives below the poverty line. This is a poor, majority-black city. And since April 2014, every man, woman, and child in Flint has been drinking poisoned water.

On the State of the Union

This past summer, I did a brief stint canvassing for an environmental group. One evening, while doing my mostly futile rounds in the suburban environs of Mt. Lebanon (I wasn’t very good at my job), I was struck by the ideological split among those answering their doors. Support for…

These Debates are a Joke. Why am I Not Laughing?

Three nights ago, eleven candidates for U.S. president took to a stage festooned with a decommissioned Air Force One, in an effort to convince us they should be more than just candidates.