Shortly after the cooling of the earth, I was privileged to be given a firsthand look at a Louisiana statewide campaign. It was then that I learned about former Louisiana Gov. Earl Long, who was portrayed by Paul Newman in the movie “Blaze,” which allegedly told the story of the married gove…

Left-wing media stalwarts such as Newsweek, Huffington Post and Salon launched a barrage of fake news after I appeared on "Fox and Friends" recently to discuss new Agriculture Department rules tightening work requirement on food stamps.

WASHINGTON — As The Wall dominated the week’s news, a pitiful juxtaposition of two realities — one the hard truth, the other a lie — emerged to clarify the destructiveness of the American president’s toxic narcissism.

This is a column about some black people.

WASHINGTON – President Trump blinked in his emotional Oval Office defense of shutting down the government over what he termed “a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul” along our southern border.

The kids are bratty, the parents fighting, the homes a mess. It’s remarkable how American domestic life can breed so much dissatisfaction amid so much plenty.

WASHINGTON -- Barring some miraculous breakthrough, on Saturday the current government shutdown will become the longest in American history. But it has already hit another historic milestone: It is, by far and away, the stupidest government shutdown in American history.

As a percentage of its population, Iowa sent more troops to fight in the Civil War than any other state. Iowans fought on the side of the Union against the Confederate South. Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States and the commander in chief of Union forces, was the first Republi…

Haven’t we seen this movie before?

President Donald Trump is playing with the idea of declaring a national emergency to build a border fence despite congressional opposition.

A few days before my mother died, at age 62, she sat tethered to oxygen in her crowded hospital room and expressed two regrets about her life.

“To err is human.” So we all make mistakes. The challenge is how well we recognize and correct our mistakes.

It’s fitting that the Green New Deal pushed by many but popularized by Democratic phenom Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had her “60 Minutes” debut on Sunday, is a triumph of recycling.

Something has got to give in the Mexican standoff between President Trump and the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives.

WASHINGTON — I’m betraying no secrets by observing that the government shutdown provides a window of opportunity for identity and electronic theft.

Democrats are now in control of the House of Representatives, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After two years of Republican control over both chambers of Congress and the presidency, some balance has been restored to our democracy.

During Christmas week, Fox News invited me to discuss how President Donald Trump’s achievements for black Americans are registering in awareness in these communities. Unfortunately, we didn’t succeed in scheduling the interview.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s so-called Green New Deal makes the obligatory nod to the original New Deal, but FDR’s handiwork is much too modest an antecedent.

WASHINGTON -- In his second year in office, President Trump did many positive things, and recently, I offered my list of the 10 best things Trump did in 2018. But he also did a lot of bad things that ranged from cringeworthy to catastrophic. Here are the 10 worst:

In reference to efforts to teach black children, the president of the St. Petersburg, Florida, chapter of the NAACP, Maria Scruggs, said: "The (school) district has shown they just can't do it. ... Now it's time for the community to step in."

WASHINGTON -- President Trump did something Tuesday night that he has rarely done since taking office: He used the presidential bully pulpit to reach beyond his hardcore base of supporters to make his case to the American people as a whole.

WASHINGTON -- President Trump, in his promise to "make America great again," appears to have forgotten his primary task: to keep the federal government running.

We who follow immigration policy closely know that the wall is a dumb idea. Closing much of the government over it is dumber still.

As a general rule, I don't curse a lot.

BERLIN -- Armin-Paulus Hampel, a former journalist and commentator who now is a member of the Bundestag, is ebullient, affable, opinionated, voluble and excellent company at lunch. But because his party is Alternative for Germany, one wonders whether he is representative of it, and whether h…

Should Trump be impeached? That he will be seems likely as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, the chamber where impeachment proceedings begin. That he deserves to be is similarly self-evident.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts became the first 2020 Democratic White House challenger to announce her “exploratory committee,” a legal device that allows candidates to receive donations and to hire staff in preparation for a full-fledged presidential candidacy. Make no mistake; pres…

Mitt Romney’s declaration of independence from Donald Trump as he takes his seat in the U.S. Senate has been illuminating — more for the responses than the op-ed itself. Professional speculators are asking whether it’s the opening gambit of a 2020 primary challenge (his denials notwithstandi…

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, in announcing her 2020 presidential candidacy a full year in advance, gets the ball rolling amid uncertainty whether President Trump himself will survive the investigations against him to seek re-election.

I wanted to write this column about dogs. If you follow me on Twitter or have read my work elsewhere, you probably know that about me: I like my dogs. Though truth be told, I probably like your dogs, too. Because I just like dogs.

“To us Trump supporters, it is amazing how so many people can be wrong about so many things.

Last month, I drove an hour east of Cleveland to Ashtabula, Ohio, where I grew up and where my youngest sister, Toni, is a high school English teacher. Once a week, she also teaches a “career enrichment” class for eighth-graders, which is why I was there.

WASHINGTON — In his second year in office, the list of extraordinary things President Trump has done, for good and ill, continued to grow. Today, I offer my annual list of the 10 best things Trump has done in office. (In my next column, I will give you my list of the 10 worst.)

The right can't stop talking about the incoming youngest member of the House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The left isn't much better.

WASHINGTON — If Republicans have a lick of sense, they are alarmed by a recent sign of intelligent life in the other party. The sign is the election by Democrats in the House of Representatives of Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In Nove…

Malcolm X was a Muslim minister and human rights activist. Born in 1925, he met his death at the hands of an assassin in 1965. Malcolm X was a courageous advocate for black civil rights, but unlike Martin Luther King, he was not that forgiving of whites for their crimes against black Americans.

The filmmaker Peter Jackson deserves more than an Oscar; he deserves a medal.

As we close out 2018 with a partial government shutdown merely adding some extra spice to the monotonous stew of political rage served daily, it's worth noting that the primary sticking point isn't an ideological split over border security, nor is it the recalcitrance of the president or the…

WASHINGTON — I was arrested for having nunchucks in New York. I’m glad the law was overturned.

During this holiest of Christian seasons, who could ignore the latest statements of Pope Francis about the festering child sex abuse scandal within his church? In a Christmas address, he spoke of priests who are “ready to devour innocent souls.”

I feel moved to share something I came upon the other day because it deals with a big reality in every human life, and it seems to offer a possible good way to deal with that inescapable reality.

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s sudden announcement that he will withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria — triggering the resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis — augurs greater concern than ever about American foreign policy under an impulsive and inexperienced president driven above al…

Not long ago, agriculture was a crown jewel of America’s export economy. Then President Trump happened.

Much is made about observed differences between sexes and among races. The nation's academic and legal elite try to sell us on the notion that men and women and people of all races should be proportionally represented in socio-economic characteristics. They make statements such as "Though Af…

I was in Bill Clinton's Cabinet when Newt Gingrich pulled the plug on the federal government in the mid-'90s. It wasn't a pretty picture. A long shutdown hurts millions of people who rely on government for services and paychecks.

Somehow a Grinch always manages to show up to ruffle our Christmas spirit.

WASHINGTON -- 'Tis not the season to be jolly, thanks to Donald Trump.

Professor P.M. Forni, 67, died earlier this month in Towson, Maryland. He was born in Bologna, Italy, and became a proud U.S. citizen and educator. I didn't know the man personally, but I am sad to hear that he is gone.