In Accordance With Reason
There is so little reason being displayed in the policy of the Trump administration. More fundamental, and more disturbing, is that the president’s large group of followers have no interest in it.
Read moreBGirdner
The Shape of Prosecution
While there is little doubt that President Trump’s sometimes lawyer Michael Cohen faces indictment, the mystery remains as to what he may be indicted for.
Read moreCohen at Twitter Speed
We at Courthouse News were faced with a dilemma during our coverage of a Michael Cohen hearing in New York.
Read moreSecond Track
The law is in good measure a game of strategy. Traditionally, the players shared much in common. The judges and lawyers on all sides were versed to a greater or lesser extent in the dark art of the law and the scribes who translated to the larger audience were versed to a greater or lesser extent in the related arts of literature and writing.
Read moreNews Today
As a journalist, I am always intrigued by how people take in the news and how the publisher survives.
Read moreRivers of Prosecution
Spy trials seemed to be the special province of the federal court in Los Angeles during past decades. But the federal court in Washington D.C. is now reminiscent of the Los Angeles court in its heyday, with central billing given by the press to related prosecutions coming out of the Russia probe.
Read moreRiddle On the Left
Like a man in a dark room, the Democratic Party is bumping around and feeling its way forward. But to get through, it must first solve the riddle of the old socialist.
Read morePolitical Opportunity of a Generation (and How to Blow It)
Unlike those who believe our democracy is under existential threat, I don’t think so. The guardians of the Bill of Rights are ensconced in their federal courtrooms and not going anywhere. But the political field is fertile, you could say fecund, for a new set of political representatives.
Read moreNew Messenger
At the Courthouse News holiday party, in an outdoor patio with a chimney and a lit fireplace, small white lights strung overhead, I asked our accountant, an accomplished, professional woman, what she thought of the sex discrimination furor.
Read moreCold Country
Going out massive, glass turn-style doors next to the baggage area of the Portland airport, cold, rainy air hit me. And I realized that Southern California shirtsleeves were not going to cut it.
Read moreThe Furies
“Send after him a gust of bloody breath, shrivel him with vapor, the fire from your guts, follow him, wither him with fresh pursuit.”
Read moreQueen Sophie
Twenty years ago, my niece gave me a kitten. The cat had been my roommate since then.
Read moreOdyssey
The exhibit at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens was intended to carry you with Odysseus from Kalypso to his home island of Ithaca, and you could almost feel the old boat around you, plowing steadily ahead on a dark night in the Mediterranean Sea, with the old man using the stars as a guide.
Read moreRoaming the Milky Way
From when I was a kid, boredom was something I feared. It’s still there now, the fear. So whenever I travel I take a book, usually a serious book that will maintain my concentration. The tome I have taken along for the last couple trips has been the biography of John Adams by David McCullough. I read through the second half on a recent trip to Greece.
Read moreAmerica the Beautiful
A wondrous road trip in just a part of the great West was a reminder that the song’s phrase “America the beautiful” is founded on a deep truth about the natural majesty of our nation.
Read moreA French Companion
On my way out, I talked to the lone park ranger at the entrance to the Salton Sea. I asked him if the sea was dying. “If nothing is done, it will die off,” he said. “But s-l-o-w,” he said, stretching out the last word.
Read moreOld Alliance
Something journalist David Axelrod said on CNN has stuck with me. He was talking about Emanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau, and he said something like, “These young guys have figured out how to game the president.”
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