It may be more than coincidental that R&B music star R. Kelly and well-connected Wall Street financier Jeffrey Epstein were arrested in the same week on federal charges related to sexually abusing underage girls. For one thing, as Labor Secretary Ale

A man named Josef Buzhminski told this story at the trial of Adolf Eichmann. It happened on July 27, 1942, at the fence of the Jewish ghetto in Przemysl, Poland. Buzhminski was watching from hiding as an SS man named Kidash seized a Jewish woman and

Conservatives talk a lot about how we don't like identity politics. But it's not always clear what people mean by it. Academics and intellectuals tend to mean one thing, while politicians and activists often have something slightly different in mind.

To help you get your arms around this week's column, just imagine this. You're the head of the National Organization for Women. You're looking for someone to give the keynote speech for your annual conference. And, for a different twist, this year yo

Two summers ago on a visit to Budapest, I asked the spokesman for the Hungarian government about the growing problem of migrants coming into Europe. He told me Hungary doesn't have a migrant problem because they don't have welfare programs. So, he sa

"They were quiet, and just staring, blankly," she said. "There were just blank stares and no expressions on their faces." Welcome to hell, as presided over by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This image bears deep reflection. It doesn't change. Ch

Tell me, into which America are young girls to put their faith? The one that has wholeheartedly celebrated the outstanding athleticism, the steely grace and unshakable comradery of sisterhood that is the U.S. women's soccer team? Those are the uplift

The Vindy announced its death about a week before Jeffrey Epstein was arrested. Though the timing was only a coincidence, the juxtaposition speaks volumes about the state of American journalism. Epstein, as you likely know, is the billionaire money m

Increasingly, the intellectual consensus seems to be that our political leanings are hardwired in our genes. There is some excellent research behind this thinking, and I've come around to believing that DNA plays a bigger role in our political worldv

I used to wonder how a society as old, grand and sophisticated as Italy could choose an elderly businessman as flamboyant, scandal-prone and inexperienced in government as Silvio Berlusconi to the position of prime minister. Then the U.S. elected Don

PLYMOUTH NOTCH, Vermont -- Rep. Justin Amash has left the Republican Party and will now represent Michigan's third congressional district as an Independent. In a Washington Post op-ed, he wrote: "I've become disenchanted with party politics and frigh

More than 18 million sturdy American TV viewers tuned in to the Democratic presidential debate in Miami on June 27. It was a new record. Another 15 million-plus watched the first round the night before. That's 33 million total viewers, not including

A few words about my sexism. Nerd that I am, I keep a book diary, i.e., a list of the 40 or 50 books I read and listen to each year. In 2016, while perusing said list, I made a discovery that startled me: there were almost no women on it. That year,

Perhaps if Colin Kaepernick had known Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly before he weighed in on those Nike shoes emblazoned with the Betsy Ross flag, he might have acted differently. Maybe he wouldn't have equated the Revolutionary era of America with slave ow

What? Mad magazine will disappear from newsstands after August? Well, as Dorothy Parker is said to have said after hearing of President Calvin Coolidge's death, "How can they tell?" After 67 years of publishing elegantly illustrated goofiness, Mad's

Yes, we have a serious problem at the border -- indeed, at every border we create and defend with force of arms and bureaucratic indifference. "'If you want water, just drink from a toilet.' That's what border patrol told one thirsty woman we met on

At last, Donald Trump's done something right: He's brought the United States back from the brink of war with North Korea and established a new, peaceful relationship with a longtime adversary. Surely, even Democrats have to applaud the photo of Trump

The notion of history repeating itself is usually viewed as a negative statement, but some history is worth repeating because we might learn and be guided by it. In last week's 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court rejecting the Trump administration's clai

Nike is doing it wrong. I don't mean the shoemaking, though that thing with Zion Williamson was pretty bad, I have to say. No, Nike is doing it wrong because it managed to do something that all the neo-Nazis, Klansmen, alt-righters and other denizens

I had no intention of telling this story here. Independence Day is Thursday, and I thought I might talk about the meaning of freedom in the age of Trump. Refugees are imprisoned in squalor on our southern border, the government balking at providing t

The consensus view on the right is that Hillary Clinton was a primary reason for Donald Trump's success in 2016. But not all conservatives agree about why that was. For devotees of the Trump-as-savior narrative, Clinton -- and all the allegedly nefar

The likelihood I would ever be invited to serve on a network panel questioning the Democratic presidential candidates is equivalent to an invitation to take the next trip to the moon. Still, as I tortured myself watching the two "debates," which were

Here we go again. Birtherism is back. Just as the original birthers rose up in 2008 to raise what turned out to be bogus questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate, new birthers appeared online after presidential candidate Kamala Harris' impres

After the first of two nights of 2020 Democratic presidential debates, I found it hard to argue with President Donald Trump's brief tweeted critique: "BORING!" Most disappointing in the two-hour event, there were no zingers. Just as there are auto ra

FILENAME: 20101014hdmsa-a.jpg;) Sometimes it takes an image of death or suffering to shock the public into thinking more deeply and critically about the policies their country carries out in their names. Think of the so-called "Napalm girl," the Viet

"These aren't people. These are animals." These words alone set off the alarm -- the fascism alarm, you might say. Donald Trump is by no means the sole source of America's democracy nosedive, but he's its current, deeply troubling manifestation. Shou

The Trump administration thinks appealing to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un by dangling promises of prosperity in front of him if he agrees to change his ways is the path to peace on the Korean Peninsula. So far there have been no agreements to bu

Given the recent fight over whether U.S. refugee detention centers are in fact "concentration camps," the Trump administration might want to borrow a page from the Chinese and simply call them "vocational skills education training centers." That way,

I never thought I would write this, but the publisher of The New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger, is right. Sulzberger wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in response to President Trump's claim that his newspaper committed "treason" by publishing

When you're a small city mayor running for the Democratic presidential nomination, television news images of you getting yelled at by angry black constituents is not a good look. That's because, among other reasons, black votes matter. A record high