Political Commentary

President Donald Trump’s administration has backed off its plan to fire 83,000 employees at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA will still get rid of about 30,000 employees, a figure that includes the thousands it has already let go. After arguing for months that the proposed cuts …

As lawmakers drafted what is poised to become the landmark legislative achievement of his second term, President Donald Trump told Republicans in Congress in May, “Don’t fuck around with Medicaid.” On Wednesday, as he met with holdouts on the “Big Beautiful Bill” to try to get it over the finish …

About midway through our film Familiar Touch, Ruth (played by me, Kathleen), bursts into the kitchen of the memory care facility she’s just moved into. A professional cook, she believes she’s there for a day on the job. Knife in hand, she confidently takes over the prep station, showing the …

The Trump administration released three executive orders on nuclear energy on the Friday afternoon before the Memorial Day weekend — a time often used to dump bad news. And these orders were as disastrous as they come. With these orders, President Donald Trump has embraced a dangerous strategy to promote …

Have you ever been caught up in a human stampede? You’d remember it. But let’s back up to calmer times. Even social unrest has an internal clock. It is the eighth day of protests in downtown Los Angeles since Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began grabbing immigrants from …

In 1932, veterans pitched tents along the Anacostia River. In sweltering summer heat, tens of thousands of World War I veterans and their families formed a protest encampment in Washington, D.C. They called themselves the Bonus Army, and they came with one message: America must honor its promises to those …

An obscure ideology most people have never heard of is dominating almost every aspect of American life. Nearly every important Supreme Court ruling by the conservative majority — from abortion to voting rights, from gun control to environmental protection — virtually the whole far-right agenda — has been foisted on …

On May 8, the Catholic Church elected Robert Francis Prevost, as its first North American leader. The planet and the people are in desperate need of moral healing, and there are promising signs that Pope Leo XIV just may be the voice of clarity that we need. I am a …

Commander Emily Shilling served nearly 20 years in the U.S. Navy as a combat aviator with over 60 missions. Fighter pilots are very hard for the military to find, nonetheless. Shilling will be removed from service by Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. So will many others, like former Navy …

Dear Mr. President, we say no to your power grab, and this week people are taking to the streets to protest it. Rallies, marches, town halls, and other direct actions have been increasing over the past month, and today more than a thousand protest events will take place across all …