Over the past few days, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump received the equivalent of a Little League participation trophy. Some in the press lavished praise on the "new Trump" for offering an ersatz apology to no one in particular for nothing specific. Then the man who has the lowest approval ratings from African-American voters in […]

In his first major address since turning over the reins of his campaign to Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump provided two notable--if not laudable--moments. For starters, the Republican offered a blanket apology, or more accurately, an "unpology." That is, his expression of conditional regret applied only in unspecified circumstances in which "you don't […]

From the beginning of presidential campaign, Donald Trump has positioned himself as the posing populist. The man his friends and family tout as the "blue-collar billionaire," the real estate tycoon turned reality TV star proclaimed himself the "voice" of "the forgotten men and women of our country." In September, the supposed ally of average Americans […]

The grief and suffering of the families of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 must be unbearable and interminable. Only someone with the most hardened heart would fail to understand their pain and anguish. But that doesn't mean the latest efforts of some of the relatives, enthusiastically supported by Republican hardliners, to […]

This was the week that some Republicans finally responded to their wake up call about Donald Trump. Or perhaps more accurately, found themselves like the married man at 3 AM who discovers himself naked in a seedy hotel room bed, with his face covered in cocaine and a dead hooker laying motionless by his side, […]

And now for some friendly advice for my Republican friends. If you want to criticize President Obama on anything having to do with Iran, don't waste your energy seething about "Iran" and "ransom" and "hostages" and what Ronald Reagan would do. It won't end well for you. After all, it wasn't Reagan's inauguration that secured […]

The Democratic and Republican conventions just completed broke new ground in modern American politics in two ways. Casting a dark shadow over the first presidential nomination of a woman by a major party was the reaction to it by the other. Republicans don't merely want to defeat their opponent at the polls in 2016. They […]

Throughout the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump's water carriers repeatedly praised the pretend populist as a "blue-collar billionaire." Given his inherited wealth and decades-long record of scorched-earth business practices, that title was always comical on its face. But there's nothing funny about the payday for plutocrats Trump has in mind if elected President. His gargantuan […]

If nothing else, Republicans used their convention in Cleveland to get their hate on. The delegates who cheered Chris Christie's ersatz prosecution of Hillary Clinton had already made "lock her up" the event's lasting sound bite. Offstage, Trump surrogates accused Clinton of "treason" and called for her execution by hanging or firing squad. The foaming […]

One day after the horror in Munich, German authorities are still assembling a fuller picture of the 18-year-old assailant who killed 9 people in a shopping mall there. With the revelations that the gunman was a seriously depressed loner who had researched past school shootings including Columbine and Virginia Tech, it appears increasingly likely his […]