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Democratic Party isolation is getting worse

We Americans, it seems, continue to live in two separate countries. Consider two items in the news this week and the inconsistent responses they evoked. One was the conviction in Florida of Ryan Routh, the second man who attempted to assassinate then-candidate Donald Trump in mid-September ...

Free speech and its discontents

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ... " — First Amendment to the U.S. ...

St. Louis Post-Dispatch says America’s history mustn’t be whitewashed

It’s not easy, but please look at the photograph accompanying this editorial. It shows a formerly enslaved man in Louisiana displaying whipping scars on his back during the Civil War. Made in May 1863 and widely published two months later, it presented gruesome evidence of slavery’s inhumanity for countless Americans who didn’t necessarily comprehend it before. It has been credited with helping coalesce support for the defeat of the Confederacy and ultimately ending slavery. More than 160 years later, the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see it. Bowing to President ...

Moms-to-be: Are you really taking advice from Dr. Trump?

On Monday, Donald Trump issued an ignorant warning to pregnant women whose doctors prescribe Tylenol, a brand name for acetaminophen. "Don't take Tylenol. Don't take it," he said. "Fight like hell not to take it." And when in pain, "Tough it out." The idea that Tylenol use in pregnancy may ...

Forgiveness or revenge?

It's been 10 years since a white supremacist shot and killed nine people studying the Bible at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In a statement that shocked many people, relatives of the dead offered their forgiveness to the gunman. A similar opportunity came last ...

Could Trump’s campaign against the media come back to bite conservatives?

In the wake of Jimmy Kimmel's — apparently temporary — suspension from late-night TV, a (tragically small) number of prominent conservatives and Republicans have taken exception to the Trump administration's comfort with "jawboning" critics into submission. Sen. Ted Cruz condemned the ...