Today is this website’s last day. I’ve already said goodbye – on Monday – but since then I’ve gotten some nice, even moving emails from folks and I’d like to share a few of them. I’m leaving out the names of the writers. “Hi Barry–You should feel as proud as a peacock for the quality [...]

Any day now the Roberts court will release its Affordable Care Act ruling. It could be 5-4 against all or some of Obamacare, or as much as 6-3 in favor. Some people see Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote and that of course is possible. I’d look to Chief Justice John Roberts instead. I think [...]

I got an email from my nephew Daniel Sussman the screenwriter. He has been living in Greece for a while and thus has a calm, detached perspective on what’s going on in American politics. He wrote: Okay, maybe this is naive, but… Just about every sane person is (or a significant number of people are) [...]

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is running an extraordinary three-part series on city police violating the laws they were sworn to uphold, ranging from minor offenses to sexual assault, and often getting off with a slap on the wrist or, sometimes, no punishment. The series started Oct. 23; a second article was to appear Oct. 26 [...]

I got a few questions from a Norwegian journalist asking my reflections on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The questions tend to be a little lofty; as the writer, Tore Saevik, noted, “It is possible to write books about several of them.” But they all are good questions, so I took a shot at them. [...]

Rupert Murdoch is back under attack in London. The New York Times reports charges that bugging of telephones was widely discussed at the News of the World, despite years of denials by chief editors and owners. Also, officials at a law firm said it has not given the News of the World “a clean bill [...]

Somebody’s missing something in the grueling debt-limit debate; maybe it’s me. On the other hand, maybe it’s not. I heard and saw President Obama say on July 22nd that he would go it alone to raise the debt ceiling if need be – and in my view that should have put an end to concern [...]

Last fall and winter the Washington Post ran as good an assortment of articles on guns, gun control, assault weapons, the NRA, gun shops, tracing guns, guns on the Mexican border, police-killer guns – you name it – as I have ever seen. In addition to strong reporting by distinguished reporters, it had videos, documents, [...]

I’ve got a solution to a main issue in the National Football League lockout. It’s a simple idea but the owners and players could struggle for ten years and hire some of the highest priced legal talent around, as they’ve done, and never come up with it. At issue is some $2.4 billion that the [...]

Used to be, partisanship in foreign policy was kept moderate, civil. The expression was, “Politics stops at the water’s edge.” Republicans and Democrats in Washington were happy to use the phrase; it implied they cared more about what’s good for America than politics. Those days are gone. For the Republican leadership the goal since Jan. [...]