Political Op-Eds

As Joe Biden leads the national polls and the country sees potential record-breaking turnout in early voting, Julian Zelizer writes that this election will be decided based on who turns out the biggest vote

What is haunting the campaign of 2020?

Barring the sudden emergence of a collective conscience, Senate Republicans will confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Monday. They have told the public - and reiterated with a 12-0 vote of her nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee - that this is a perfectly legitimate path forward, and that Barrett is a highly qualified judge who will follow the law. What they have not mentioned is her extreme ideology.

While many Americans were looking ahead to the final presidential debate earlier this week, President Donald Trump was signing an executive order the likes of which has never been seen in a democracy. It is an edict expected under a dictatorship, a banana republic or a military regime. And it appears to stifle the President's opponents within the government, posing a particular danger should it affect policymakers who are working tirelessly to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.

In a season of campaign schwag, a baseball cap caught my eye. Beneath an American flag were the words "Make Lying Wrong Again."

Noah is an 8-year-old in Flamborough, Ontario. He loves nature shows and his two cats, Shadow and Whispers (he probably meant to name the second cat "Whiskers," according to his mom, but he mixes those words up sometimes). When he grows up, he wants to be a veterinarian or a nature photographer -- something that puts him in touch with animals and the Earth.

Covid-19 has crippled the US economy, compromised the health of our nation and exposed the shameful health disparities that negatively affect people of color and those living in poverty. In light of the devastation this pandemic has wreaked on our country, it is urgent for the US to invest in public health to better detect and prevent the spread of infectious and chronic diseases, redesign America's health care system for equity as well as effectiveness, and collaborate across multiple sectors of society to meet the basic needs of all Americans.

I am the great-granddaughter of refugees who fled Russian pogroms in 1895. Had they not been given safe haven here in the United States, they would have been tortured and killed. My very existence depends on international humanitarianism, an awareness that has inspired me to work closely with others like them.

With a mute button at the ready -- and a no-nonsense moderator in NBC's Kristen Welker guiding the proceedings in Nashville -- America got a better presidential debate Thursday night.

Perhaps more than any other political issue in this presidential campaign, President Donald Trump's empathy (or lack thereof) is on the ballot. It's at the heart of why former Vice President Joe Biden frequently reminds voters that "this election is a battle for the soul of America."

CNN Opinion asked contributors for their takes on how Donald Trump and Joe Biden did in the final presidential debate. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.

In the most important pre-election case this year, Chief Justice John Roberts once again appears to have decided that, for the Supreme Court, discretion is the better part of valor.

My son Rob is 23 years old. He follows politics, enjoys sips of whiskey, and loves baseball. He also has a rare form of dystonia, a feeding tube, and a tracheostomy, among other pre-existing medical conditions. He uses a speech-generating computerized device to communicate with us. If the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were struck down by the Supreme Court after the addition of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a mother of a disabled child herself, Rob would be uninsurable, like so many of his disabled peers.

The Supreme Court rejection of a Republican ploy to have the Court intervene in a case from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is far from a major Democratic win -- and could spell bad news for the future of voting rights protections across the country, writes Joshua A. Douglas

What will the United States and the world wake up to on November 4, 2020, the day after Election Day? And could the US endure a close election in which Joe Biden is declared the winner but President Donald J. Trump refuses to concede?

Early in the lockdown, my 6-year-old was on his scooter zipping away in front of me on our quiet Seattle neighborhood street when I sensed a car coming from behind. I called out for my child to stop, but under his bright helmet painted with a cartoon lion, he couldn't hear me.

On Thursday evening, Americans have one last chance to hear President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden on the same stage for 90 minutes. While neither candidate is likely to change course or depart from their stump speech, Americans deserve to hear both candidates address the pressing issue of poverty.

The highest Catholic in all the world has pushed the door towards LGBTQ inclusion open further by pronouncing that same-sex couples, historically excluded from traditional religious and civil institutions like marriage, ought to have legal protections that recognize their unions.

In 2016, when nearly everyone in China thought that Hillary Clinton would win the White House, one group in particular was confident of a Donald Trump victory. Back when most goods flowed from China, merchants in the trading hub of Yiwu received four times more orders for Trump than for Clinton merchandise.

The Commission on Presidential Debates is giving an enormous advantage to Donald Trump with its plan to mute the microphones of the candidates at Thursday night's presidential debate when they're not supposed to be speaking. That was likely not the commission's intent, and I realize President Trump and his spokespeople are fuming about it, but the mute button is a gift to the Trump campaign.

The facts about Texas tend to be more astonishing than the mythology.

My son Rob is 23 years old. He follows politics, enjoys sips of whiskey, and loves baseball. He also has a rare form of dystonia, a feeding tube, and a tracheostomy, among other pre-existing medical conditions. He uses a speech-generating computerized device to communicate with us. If the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were struck down by the Supreme Court after the addition of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a mother of a disabled child herself, Rob would be uninsurable, like so many of his disabled peers.

As a sibling to someone who overdosed at the start of the Covid-19 crisis, I'm reminded every day that our national conversation ignores the uncounted victims of the pandemic. Victims like my brother, David, who passed away on March 24 in Orange County, California. While his death certificate states "acute polydrug intoxication due to the combined effects of heroin [and other drugs]" as his cause of death, my brother is another tragedy of this moment.

As I watched the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett last week, I couldn't help but think how much her confirmation would hurt families like hers and mine.

As a sibling to someone who overdosed at the start of the Covid-19 crisis, I'm reminded every day that our national conversation ignores the uncounted victims of the pandemic. Victims like my brother, David, who passed away on March 24 in Orange County, California. While his death certificate states "acute polydrug intoxication due to the combined effects of heroin [and other drugs]" as his cause of death, my brother is another tragedy of this moment.

For a guy who brags about having a great memory, President Donald Trump sure has trouble remembering the folks who really like him, which, given his well-documented desire to be loved by supporters, is also quite strange. Almost as strange as QAnon.

Forty years ago, I worked on an assembly line and as a gas station attendant. Those minimum wage jobs helped put me through college and law school. Throw in government grants, scholarships, low interest loans and hard work, and a kid from an ordinary background was launched on a path to economic prosperity. I'm a good example of the upward mobility that has always been a critical feature of American capitalism. In hindsight, I can see that being born a white male also helped me.

Joe Biden's exasperated comment summed up what so many of us feel. "What the hell's the matter with this guy?" said Biden Friday of Donald Trump's continuing attacks on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, even after the recent announcement of an alleged right-wing terrorist plot to kidnap and possibly kill her. "It's despicable," said Biden.

After roughly 20 minutes of trying to pin down President Donald Trump on why he models dangerous behavior during a pandemic, NBC's Savannah Guthrie spoke for most Americans in frustration by pointing out he was the President of the United States, not someone's "crazy uncle." But for anyone watching Thursday night, what they got was a full dose of America's crazy uncle.

It was dawn on Friday, and all night scalding winds had been blowing. Our kids were sleeping on the floor downstairs to stay cool. We don't have AC, and until recently, in the Bay Area, we never needed it. Now, after four years of devastating early fall heat waves, high winds and worsening fires, I realize it's instinctive to keep the kids close on nights like this. We know full well what sweating through a hot windy October night means: Red flag warnings, constant vigilance, waking up to check air quality for signs of smoke. It means keeping an eye on the bag packed by the door.

There's some comfort after watching former Vice President Joe Biden's Town Hall on ABC: The 17 million Americans who have already voted didn't miss a thing. It was 90 minutes of nothing new, nothing eventful, nothing earth-shattering. The truth is, no news is just fine when you are the frontrunner. When you're leading key polls by double digits with less than three weeks until the election, you don't run your mouth, you let the clock run out.

In the latest of what seems like a steady stream of television and film reunions in the time of Covid, the well-preserved cast of the beloved political drama "The West Wing" came together Thursday for a staged reading of one of the show creator Aaron Sorkin's favorite episodes: "Hartsfield's Landing," the 14th episode of the show's third season (of seven, for those who may have watched occasionally but failed to stick it out to the bitter end) which originally aired in 2002.

After months of downplaying the dangers of the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump has received no-expense-spared, cutting-edge treatment for his Covid-19 infection. Of course, it is reasonable that the President of the United States and commander in chief is treated aggressively -- the country's national security and leadership continuity are vital to our well-being and safety.

"Nine seems to be a good number. It's been that way for a long time ... I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court."

The Senate confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett concluded Thursday. All indications are that President Donald Trump's nominee will be confirmed to the Supreme Court, bringing the number of conservative leaning justices to six -- an ironclad majority. However, that is not likely to be the end of the story.

In the latest of what seems like a steady stream of television and film reunions in the time of Covid, the well-preserved cast of the beloved political drama "The West Wing" came together Thursday for a staged reading of one of the show creator Aaron Sorkin's favorite episodes: "Hartsfield's Landing," the 14th episode of the show's third season (of seven, for those who may have watched occasionally but failed to stick it out to the bitter end) which originally aired in 2002.

Amy Coney Barrett's appointment to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court goes to the heart of the question of what feminism actually is. Is supporting the promotion of women inherently feminist? One of Ginsburg's best-known quotes came from an interview in 2015 when she asserted, "People ask me sometimes, when—when do you think it will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the (Supreme) Court? And my answer is when there are nine."

Judge Amy Coney Barrett delivered a relatively flawless showing in her controversial Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday. A few hours into the questioning a senator asked her to display the notes she was using to provide her detailed answers. She picked up a white notepad with nothing on it but the inscription, "United States Senate" as the hearing room erupted in laughter.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett isn't the first Supreme Court nominee in recent history to hide behind the disingenuous notion that a nominee "can't offer an opinion" on possible legal issues that may come before her as a future justice.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings over Judge Amy Coney Barrett's appointment to the US Supreme Court, the size of the nine-member court has become an election issue. If, as expected, Barrett is confirmed, the toxic polarization gripping the nation could be further mirrored in federal courts, which are supposed to be places where open-minded judges aim to treat all people equally and render just decisions.

Really, Sen. Ted Cruz? After speaking for over 20 minutes, the Texas Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee decided to ask Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a seminal legal mind, about her children's distance learning and piano lessons. Let's just say, it struck a chord with women everywhere.

I've met Nicolás Maduro, and he's about the last person you'd want running a country. He's an incompetent authoritarian. He has driven his country and its economy into the ground.

The afterglow of an idyllic late summer walk with my love around Walden Pond was shattered when my best friend texted that she was bawling because of the news. I opened my news app, saw the name RUTH and the word DEAD, and was instantly, searingly, shattered.

She is arguably the most iconic first lady, but Jacqueline Kennedy is still very much a mystery. And that is exactly how she always wanted it to be.

The coming weeks may be brutal: The level of partisan rancor and performative outrage that we've seen over the timing of Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination may intensify during the confirmation hearings. And if that's the case, the hearings will be more than just terrible TV. They will underscore the fact that the American people -- and their senators -- are sorely lacking in basic civic knowledge. There may be protesters from the gallery shouting, for example, that Judge Barrett hates women's uteruses, and senators will likely be pandering to such unfounded criticism.

If recent history is any indicator, one can no longer be sure what to anticipate in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for a Supreme Court nominee. Admittedly, as a vocal fan of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, I feared the worst on the opening day of the confirmation hearings.

Black History Month (BHM) is a celebration of our diversity -- all the colors of the rainbow that sparkle out of the black hole of creation. We share common roots in the dark, tropical wombs of our mothers and our strength lies in the variety within our oneness.

Doctors have been searching for precise indicators of the health of their patients at least since the early 1600s, when a professor of medicine, Santorio Santori, helped perfect devices to measure body temperature and pulse rate. His goal, as Fabrizio Bigotti wrote, was "medical mathematics."

Nothing sums up more why Donald Trump is in such a rush to get back on the campaign trail than his Saturday event at the White House. The hundreds of supporters who gathered on the South Lawn dressed in MAGA gear not only exploded in cheers when the President spoke, they chanted in unison: "We love you!" In response, Trump beamed as he told them, "I love you, too."

I'm not in the habit of quoting lines from movies I've appeared in, but every once in a while, something brings one of those old lines to mind. Recently, I've been thinking of a scene from a film I did in 1972 called "The Candidate."

The President ended one of the craziest weeks in recent history with a blistering speech on the White House balcony. In his first public event since he tested positive for Covid-19, Trump stood before an adoring crowd and threw them some red meat. He repeated falsehoods about Joe Biden wanting to defund the police and insisted, despite the coronavirus' recent spread through the White House, that "it's going to disappear."

As behavioral scientists who study how to increase election turnout, we have become quite accustomed to receiving this desperate message from friends and colleagues: "I don't live in a battleground state. How can I increase turnout?" They badly want to participate in the election, but because their vote may have little influence in determining the outcomes in their home states, they want to help drive turnout where it will make the most difference.

"This is the most important election of our lifetime."

There's no way Hillary Clinton should have lost Michigan in 2016. And there's no way Donald Trump should win it again in 2020.

The fever may be starting to break. Donald Trump has held his party in line with bullying tactics and the white-hot love of the conservative populist base.

After the nation and the world witnessed President Donald Trump's selfish and dangerous game of political theater ever since he tested positive for Covid-19, there remains no doubt: Trump is not fit to hold the office now, and he certainly shouldn't be allowed to govern for another four years. America needs to put this unwitting experiment in kakistocracy to an abrupt end, and the best man to do that is former President George W. Bush by endorsing Joe Biden for president.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the nation witnessed firsthand the pressure and challenges that face our health care system when hospitals and health care providers deal with high patient volumes. At Northwell Health, we took care of far more patients outside the hospitals than inside the hospitals. Through all this we learned that Covid-19 patients required an unprecedented level of care.

The pandemic that President Donald Trump has so profoundly failed to manage now threatens his administration's top priority: installing Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court.

The President of the United States is scared, and it's starting to show. Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19, as have more than a dozen people close to him, including several sitting senators, members of his debate prep team, several members of his staff, his campaign manager and his own wife, first lady Melania Trump. The organizers of his next debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden, which was scheduled for Thursday of next week, wisely announced a plan to move the debate to an online format. After all, who in their right mind would put a coronavirus patient in an enclosed room with other people, including vulnerable American voters and at least one other senior citizen, for at least 90 minutes of yelling and spewing?

Louisa May Alcott, author of "Little Women," wrote in her famous novel, "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship." If only President Donald Trump had learned how to sail the American government's ship. Perhaps he might have been able to calm the storm that is the Covid-19 pandemic. His failure, however, has brought us perilously close to capsizing.

Anything would have been better than the first debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. So, Wednesday night's vice presidential debate, in some respects, had a lower bar to clear.

As a trial consultant, I have spent the better part of my 35-year career helping lawyers understand how trials can be easily lost even when they clearly have all the evidence and law on their side. It's an uncomfortable conversation and it comes down to a simple question: "Would you rather be right or would you rather win?" Often, you can't have both.

"This is the most important election of our lifetime."

As painful as the Covid-19 economic fallout has been, the unemployment rate today is lower -- and the average rate this year has been lower -- than the average during the four years of former President Barack Obama's first term, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is no defense of the current catastrophe -- only an observation that the catastrophe is not a once-in-a-century occurrence but one to which Americans have become quite accustomed.

South Carolina may be on the verge of what seemed like an impossibility: becoming the first state in US history to be represented by two Black men in the Senate simultaneously. It's no longer a far-fetched idea because Democrat Jamie Harrison has become a formidable challenger for the seat occupied by long-serving Republican Lindsey Graham. Political analysts have moved the race into a toss-up category from solidly Republican as a bevy of polls show Graham and Harrison in a virtual tie.

President Donald Trump has abandoned work on providing economic aid to Americans devasted by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses, families, and workers desperate for assistance will have to wait until after the election, "when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business," he announced on Twitter Tuesday.

Donald Trump is infected with coronavirus -- and because of it we are sicker. "Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life," he tweeted on Monday before Marine One flew him from the Walter Reed hospital back to the White House. Some 211,000 souls and counting are lost, but their loved ones are asked to go away quietly and to bury their pain and truth because the show must go on.

For more than seven months we've been fighting an invisible enemy on American soil. Every day, American citizens are suffering from the devastation of Covid-19. It has been a vicious and indiscriminate force ravaging communities, claiming more than 210,000 American lives and shattering the economy.

I have not been involved in the medical care of any president of the United States. That said, I have treated many patients who hate being in the hospital, who distrust medicine, doctors and the entire health care razzmatazz who only want to get home and who spend most of any conversation pleading to be discharged.

How did the President of the United States become one of the nation's largest threats to public health and safety? When one man became head of "church" and state: the Church of Trump, that is.

Four weeks from Election Day, with a 16-point lead in the polls, Joe Biden decided it was time to give a Big Speech -- and he chose the biggest historical arena possible.

The first thing most people in Pennsylvania know about former Vice President Joe Biden is that he's from Scranton, the sixth largest city in the state, and home to nearly 77,000 people. He understands and shares our values of hard work, facing tough times with resolve and being decent and kind to neighbors and strangers alike.

The United States has faced an extraordinary set of challenges in 2020. Foreign election interference, an impeachment trial, a global health pandemic, natural disasters, economic instability, mass protests and civil unrest have plagued the country.

The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has generated discussion about the future of Roe v. Wade, the case in which the Supreme Court legalized abortion across the country. Such conversations are not surprising given the role that Justice Ginsburg played in advancing women's rights and Judge Barrett's writings as a judge and a law professor.

President Donald Trump's recklessness about protecting himself and the White House against the novel coronavirus not only led to his own infection, but likely to the infections of many other political leaders and White House staff in recent days.

They were six days that shook America:

In many ways, having Jill Biden as the next first lady of the United States wouldn't be revolutionary. The 69-year-old educator would be similar to most of the presidential spouses before her: She's a straight, White woman who's been around politics for decades, and holds some influence over her partner's decisions (see: Kamala Harris).

On day three of his hospitalization with coronavirus, The White House released images from Walter Reed Medical Center showing a President Donald Trump rarely seen. Rendered wan by the disease that has devastated the country he is supposed to lead, he sat in shirtsleeves looking weary and worried. With no bulky suit to broaden his shoulders, Trump seemed more like a vulnerable old man than the fearsome figure revealed in Bob Woodward's bestselling "Rage."

President Donald Trump has had a lot to say about the coronavirus, a great deal of it misleading or simply false, and he has also modeled and even encouraged irresponsible behavior, all of which has surely contributed to the spread of the virus, since the President has the most powerful megaphone in the United States.

As a schoolchild growing up in Tennessee, I visited the battlefields of Fort Pillow and Shiloh and toured Andrew Jackson's home, the Hermitage. When I was a teenager, I haunted the blues clubs of Beale Street (the ones that would let me in without ID). I have watched football at the Liberty Bowl and basketball and bands at the Pyramid (before it became a Bass Pro Shop), I have driven through the Smoky Mountains and walked the floor of the Tennessee State House. (I have not been to Dollywood. I know, I hate myself too.)

The normalization agreement between Israel and the UAE, dubbed formally as the "Abraham Accords," could potentially spark a new Middle East arms race. Given the multiple conflicts already raging in the region, all fueled by imported arms, that cannot be allowed to happen.

Chris Wallace ended the first presidential debate Tuesday with a softball question, asking the candidates if they would urge their supporters not to engage in "civil unrest" around the election. Joe Biden gave a swift and clear yes. President Donald Trump did not.

The first presidential debate this week was indisputably one of the ugliest in modern US history. President Donald Trump interrupted Joe Biden at nearly every turn, and CNN's Chris Cuomo later described the event as a "shit show."

In a presidential election with more shocking moments than any other, the news of October 2 has rattled the nation and the world. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have been diagnosed with Covid-19. With only a few weeks left until Election Day, the President of the United States must now recover from a virus that has ravaged the world in 2020 and upended our lives.

One day, when I was reporting from Cuba in the late 1990s, I received a message from a dissident group about a protest for democracy and human rights they were planning to hold at a public park. Despite the obvious risks, they had decided to go forward with the protest, given that Havana was about to hold a major international gathering and the Castro regime had promised to ease up on repression.

The fact that Tuesday night's debate in Cleveland was more of a crash than a clash will no doubt dominate the media coverage and people's memory of the event. No matter how much we would like to wipe the image of that disgraceful spectacle from our consciousness, the indelible stain of a President of the United States behaving like a juvenile delinquent initiating a food fight will be tough to erase. But what may get overlooked amid the pandemonium that erupted at the first of three showdowns between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump was the stark contrast in the two candidates' body language.

Tuesday's presidential debate may have been the most emotional in history -- thanks to the interruptions, angry fits and outbursts from President Donald Trump. There was little policy discussion, rational debate or rationality at all (although Democratic candidate Joe Biden tried). Instead, viewers were treated to the rantings of a hysterical, mercurial man who wants to be reelected president.

One day, when I was reporting from Cuba in the late 1990s, I received a message from a dissident group about a protest for democracy and human rights they were planning to hold at a public park. Despite the obvious risks, they had decided to go forward with the protest, given that Havana was about to hold a major international gathering and the Castro regime had promised to ease up on repression.

The grand jury's decision to not charge the officers who killed Breonna Taylor was heartbreaking in its familiarity. From Eric Garner to Michael Brown to Sandra Bland and now Breonna Taylor, the murder of Black people by law enforcement in this country often seems not to be considered a crime. The grand jury in Kentucky played into this painful feedback loop, charging one officer out of three for wanton endangerment, but not for taking Breonna's life.

It wasn't a surprise that President Donald Trump announced Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to serve on the US Supreme Court Saturday. Barrett's conservative Catholic faith was a flashpoint during her confirmation hearings in 2017 to serve as a federal appeals court judge and is coming up again now.

"The beauty of me is that I'm very rich." Donald Trump said that in 2011, when he was talking about a White House run. In 2015 he took his ride down a golden escalator and made his super-patriot's promise to use his unmatched business skills to make America great again, as great as he was. Enough people believed it to win him the Electoral College (losing the popular vote) and the Oval Office.

Chris Wallace has the well-deserved reputation of a hard-hitting and fair journalist. He is one of the few at Fox News willing to bring as much heat to President Donald Trump as he is to any Democrat or progressive activist.

As the world braces for a possible second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is also growing concern in the counterterrorism, scientific and global public health communities over the potential future threat posed by bio-engineered pathogens.

Some days I feel like a woman without a country.

President Donald Trump seems intent on sowing doubt over the election results, creating a pathway to contest the results and remain in power even if he loses.

During the third presidential debate in 2016, candidate Donald Trump made headlines for refusing to answer Fox News journalist Chris Wallace, who was moderating, on whether he would accept the result of the upcoming election. "I will look at it at the time. I will keep you in suspense," he said, claiming the race was already fixed against him. "That's not how democracy works," replied his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who went on to win the popular vote but lose the election.

When President Bill Clinton selected Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the nominee from his Supreme Court shortlist in 1993, women's groups—both conservative and liberal—raised concerns. As we discuss in our book "Shortlisted," some feminists criticized Ginsburg's position on equality as one that ignored the historic oppression of women. She advocated that men and women should be treated equally under the law, rather than receive special treatment based on their sex. Additionally, abortion opponents and champions alike expressed trepidation about her appointment.

Complaining about debate moderators has now become part of the game, the same way we argue about officiating in sports. According to a report by the Annenberg Debate Reform Working Group, which was created to figure out how to increase the value of presidential general election debates, there are four main areas of criticism aimed at presidential debate moderators. I'll address these and provide some workable tips that can be used by this year's group.

Some days I feel like a woman without a country.

Women have always been punching bags for men's anger in the patriarchal systems we live in. It comes as no surprise that rates of violence are up everywhere as the pandemic and its lockdowns push women further into men's deadly embrace.

Operation Warp Speed, the mission to develop an effective Covid-19 vaccine, seeks to deliver 300,000 doses by January 2021. According to projections from the University of Washington, by then the US death toll from the novel coronavirus will likely have reached nearly 400,000.

Last week the White House was hit by a bombshell: A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence, who was intimately involved in the administration's response to the coronavirus, blamed President Trump for mishandling the crisis and causing unnecessary deaths.

Soon, hopefully, former Vice President Joe Biden may be able to atone for missteps made by him, as well as State and Local officials, in designing a criminal justice system that perpetually disenfranchises people of color and the poor. Earlier this year, when the former vice president spoke on justice issues, he recognized his shortcomings: "I know we haven't always gotten things right, but I've always tried."

If the Las Vegas oddsmakers were handicapping the upcoming Presidential debates, they might be inclined to favor President Donald Trump to win -- and Trump has only himself to blame for that.

Back when a woman could easily be fired for being pregnant; when a wife needed her husband's permission to get bank credit; and when a married man could not be charged with raping his spouse, a young lawyer had a radical idea. She believed that the US Constitution should treat every American equally, regardless of gender.

American democracy has been defined by the peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump seems to have other ideas.

President Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election, raising the already blaring alarms over threats to America's democracy to a deafening volume.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's legacy, in so many ways, is fundamentally important to understanding our current national and global age of Black Lives Matter. Indeed, her presence in popular culture rests in large part on the global popularity of hip hop, which represents a defining cultural innovation of post-civil rights America.

Moria. It was hell on earth. Unclean, unsafe. Human rights didn't exist.

On Monday, with the US on the verge of reaching the solemn number of 200,000 dead from Covid-19, Donald Trump appeared on Fox News where the topic of the virus was raised. Did Trump express sympathy for the heartbreaking losses caused to families across the nation from this deadly pandemic? Nope, instead he patted himself on the back for doing what he called "a phenomenal job" in handling Covid-19, giving himself an "A+." The only criticism Trump would offer was regarding the public relations for the virus, saying in that area, "I give myself a D." He blamed the low grade on "fake news."

The American people owe Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a measureless debt of gratitude for her distinguished service on the Supreme Court. Her inspirational life story and work helped advance justice and opportunities for women in our country.

Joe Biden's campaign policy agenda will add $5.4 trillion in new federal spending over the next decade, according to a new analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research-based initiative at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Biden has many aggressive plans, which include remaking the US health care system, expanding housing subsidies, and making public colleges and universities tuition-free for families making less than $125,000 a year. In fact, one economist concluded that Biden's policy platform added up to "the largest proposed spending increase by a presidential nominee since George McGovern," the Democrat who in 1972 proposed a universal basic income for all Americans.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is about to turn me into a socialist or whatever is necessary to save this nation's fast-fading democracy. If he and Senate Republicans move forward with quickly replacing the recently-deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I would have lost all faith in what I believed this democratic experiment to be. In a healthy democracy, Republican senators would vow not to move forward with a vote on Ginsburg's replacement until early next year or only accept a consensus pick who can garner bipartisan support. Maybe a nominee like Merrick Garland, the man whom now retired-Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch told then-President Barack Obama would easily win Senate confirmation -- until Obama actually nominated Garland. But this is not a healthy democracy.

I was very fortunate to serve as one of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's law clerks during the US Supreme Court's October 2003 term. I was also blessed by her presence in my life -- and in the lives of my daughters -- in the years following my clerkship. She always found time when we asked. She always asked how we were doing, particularly during difficult times.

Our oceans are now awash in at least 150 million tons of plastic, an amount that researchers say will soon surpass the weight of all the fish in the sea.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Friday brought an outpouring of tributes for a freedom fighter whose determination and skill led to landmark changes in the law. It also immediately prompted a partisan battle over her replacement that is likely to supercharge the November election, already considered the most consequential in decades.

The prospect of a third Supreme Court pick for President Donald Trump looms large following the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday. In 2016, when President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland for the high court, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even bring Garland up -- arguing that, in an election year, it was only proper that he should wait for the will of the people. It was "about a principle, not a person," McConnell said back then.

There are millions of people across the globe just like me. People beaten down by diseases we didn't ask for; diseases we were born with, or acquired. We are people who must face them on a daily basis, and for the rest of our lives, and for which we are minimized and ignored.

Joe Biden's campaign is no doubt feeling pretty good after the former vice president's Thursday night performance in the CNN drive-in town hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania. With 47 days until election day, Biden took full advantage of the national spotlight to address the issues, call for unity and attack his opponent, President Donald Trump.

In 1961, famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer's uterus was removed by a White doctor without her consent while she was undergoing surgery to remove a tumor. Sterilization of Black women was so common at the time that the practice was dubbed a "Mississippi appendectomy."

Joe Biden's campaign is no doubt feeling pretty good after the former vice president's Thursday night performance in the CNN drive-in town hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania. With 47 days until election day, Biden took full advantage of the national spotlight to address the issues, call for unity and attack his opponent, President Donald Trump.

For a couple of hours Thursday night, America was treated with honesty and compassion by a man who wants to hold its highest office. That could be the entire review right there, how jarring and unusual it was to visualize a president who could clear the extremely low bar of telling the truth and caring about pain. We've had presidents like that before, of course, but after a particularly brutal news week it was starting to feel like that kind of leadership belongs to a different era.

College life right now is a mess: there has been an explosion of Covid-19 cases on college campuses since some schools resumed in person. According to The New York Times weekly tally updated on September 10, there have been 88,000 Covid-19 cases across 1,190 college campuses. Of these, "more than 61,000 cases came since late August."

Our oceans are now awash in at least 150 million tons of plastic, an amount that researchers say will soon surpass the weight of all the fish in the sea.

President Donald Trump is used to taking questions from celebrity anchors at Fox News, who lob softballs greased with praise. His appearance in a town hall Tuesday night, held by ABC News, featuring questions from undecided voters in Pennsylvania, was an altogether different experience. Faced with demands for answers, Trump resorted to his standard lies about what he has done and what his rival, Democratic candidate Joe Biden, would do as president.

There are millions of people across the globe just like me. People beaten down by diseases we didn't ask for; diseases we were born with, or acquired. We are people who must face them on a daily basis, and for the rest of our lives, and for which we are minimized and ignored.

Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation... we are challenged to change ourselves."

Pandemics don't care about partisan politics. So when Robert Redfield — President Donald Trump's director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a lifelong conservative — testified to Congress Wednesday that a Covid-19 vaccine wouldn't be ready before the election and probably would not be available to the general public until next summer, he was speaking as a scientist.

With the new live-action version of "Mulan," Disney missed the mark with viewers in China and the United States. How did they mess this up so badly? There are numerous controversies surrounding the film's release, but most of them do not even have to do with the fact that the movie itself is a boring, drab and inaccurate mess. Although the story is well known around the world, the live-action movie is slow, repetitive, and lacking in any substantial character development.

It was 60 years ago when tens of millions of Americans turned on the television or radio to see Sen. John F. Kennedy face off with Vice President Nixon in the nation's first televised presidential debate. The assessment was that Kennedy won by looking "tan and fit," while Nixon looked "like death warmed over."

In March of 2010, I sat in my wheelchair in a cramped kitchen in the basement of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center's amputee rehab clinic. A lone Secret Service agent stood quietly against one wall and I sat at a kitchen table. To my immediate left, with our elbows almost touching was then-Vice President Joe Biden. Across the table was his wife, Jill Biden, and also at the table were two other seriously wounded soldiers and our significant others.

It is unlikely that anyone would make a hiring decision without interviewing them, based only on some combination of the candidate's resume, testimonials from family members, social media comments and scurrilous accusations from anonymous critics. That's why we disagree with those who want to scrap presidential debates, the metaphorical equivalent of a presidential job interview.

The upcoming presidential debates promise to be a watershed moment in this election. Democratic challenger Joe Biden has been preparing to debate sitting Republican President Donald Trump. By contrast, according to NBC News, the President has reportedly eschewed formal preparation, arguing that debate "isn't something you have to practice."

Has America ever seen a presidential campaign like this one? One that involves a candidate as out-of-the-ordinary as President Donald Trump, with his small but rabid base, running for reelection during a global pandemic, a crushing economic crisis and a deadly season of back-to-back-to-back natural disasters?

What do you say about a 75-year-old dream that has died? In 1945, Vannevar Bush, the MIT dean who mobilized American science during World War II, laid out the blueprint for what would become the social contract between science and American society for the next half century.

On Tuesday, the City of Louisville, Kentucky, finally settled a wrongful death lawsuit in the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT shot dead in her own house by police officers who entered on a no-knock warrant. The settlement is for $12 million, every penny of which Taylor's family deserves, and not a single cent of which will bring her back.

America has been coming apart at the seams, with Democrats and Republicans increasingly unable of communicating with one another. Red states and blue states, as decided in the 2016 election, have confronted each other in incomprehension, and are leading very different lives with very different economic conditions. Reuniting America requires a forward-looking path of sustainable development that benefits all regions, including the states that have been hard hit by the long-term decline in manufacturing jobs.

Welcome to Donald Trump's "Covid Hunger Games: Campaign edition." That's the only way to describe Trump's continued flouting at his campaign rallies of measures enacted to keep people safe from the coronavirus. We saw another example Saturday night when Trump held a rally in Nevada that violated the state's rules on limiting events to 50 people, ignored the state's mask mandate and jammed people on top of each other.

In Lewis Carroll's 1865 storybook for children of all ages, Alice jumps down a rabbit hole. It spools into a Wonderland where eating a cake can make you grow nine feet tall. A place where rabbits wear waistcoats and kid gloves. Where Dodo birds set the rules for running races. And where the grinning Cheshire Cat sits in a tree and tells Alice that if you don't care where you're going to wind up, it really "doesn't matter which way you go."

What do you say about a 75-year-old dream that has died? In 1945, Vannevar Bush, the MIT dean who mobilized American science during World War II, laid out the blueprint for what would become the social contract between science and American society for the next half century.

"Rage" may be Bob Woodward's most important book since "All the President's Men," in which he and Carl Bernstein laid out the history of Watergate.

Much of the talk on school reopenings has focused on technology, how to balance parent work and childcare with online schooling, best techniques to engage students online and social-emotional learning (SEL) strategies. However, amid a pervasive pandemic, students' more basic needs -- like housing, mental health, the connectivity gap and food -- are not the top priority at the national level. They should be.

Every single White House press secretary faces his or her own moment of truth on the job. Jerald terHorst, for example, resigned after just one month because he could not live with President Gerald Ford's decision to pardon his predecessor, President Richard Nixon.

In his August 20 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Joe Biden said that "there is only one way forward. As a united America ... United in our dreams of a better future for us and for our children." He later asserted that, fortunately, we are indeed "united in our love of America and united in our love for each other."

Welcome to Donald Trump's "Covid Hunger Games: Campaign edition." That's the only way to describe Trump's continued flouting at his campaign rallies of measures enacted to keep people safe from the coronavirus. We saw another example Saturday night when Trump held a rally in Nevada that violated the state's rules on limiting events to 50 people, ignored the state's mask mandate and jammed people on top of each other.

Fresh allegations of Russian meddling in the upcoming US Presidential election shine a harsh spotlight on the dangerous deadlock between the nuclear-tipped powers. In a reprise of 2016, Moscow is apparently pushing hard for Donald Trump to win the White House. But is a Trump second term really in the Kremlin's best interest? Or would a Joe Biden win actually be the more pragmatic outcome for Russia?

"Rage" may be Bob Woodward's most important book since "All the President's Men," in which he and Carl Bernstein laid out the history of Watergate.

When Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 63 years ago, legendary Harlem Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. called it "the second emancipation."

This week, President Donald Trump again stated his hope that the United States would have a Covid-19 vaccine by year's end. He even suggested that maybe, just maybe, vaccinations might start by late October.

As another anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks approaches, we are reminded of how far we've come in the fight against global terrorism. Al Qaeda's devastating blows 19 years ago targeting America's political, economic, and military summits turned us into a more vigilant nation, determined to prevent any future attacks against the homeland.

Like many of us, I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing on 9/11. Nearly one year earlier, I had made one of the toughest decisions any young 18-year-old American could ever make -- I raised my hand to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic" and became part of America's finest. I became a United States Marine.

On Thursday afternoon during a news conference, President Donald Trump treated the country to a spin around his fantasyland, where he is a great leader besieged by meanies, and the needless death and suffering due to his failed response to the coronavirus pandemic are not worth acknowledging. Instead, he spoke about Fox News as if it is his security blanket and bashed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for using a teleprompter during his speeches.

Wednesday, it was as if the sun never rose. Dawn was murky, and by 8 a.m., it seemed to get darker. A moldering reddish-bronze haze rose around us but also made no light. Inside the house, we re-lit our lamps against the gloaming. The windows swam black, and outside, all morning, above the trees, the sky glowed grisly red. Where we had left the windows open to the night breezes, our papers, clothes, combs and brushes were coated in a fine layer of ash. The air hung, gritty and oddly cold. It was hard not to feel a deep foreboding.

America's democratic process is in greater danger in the 2020 election cycle than it was in 2016.

Just when it seemed that Attorney General William Barr couldn't degrade the Justice Department any further with efforts to protect President Donald Trump's political fortunes, Barr has found a new low.

As we remember the tragedy of 9/11 and honor the thousands who lost their lives, we find ourselves in the midst of another tragedy. More than 191,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, and as many more could die by the end of the year.

If Americans weren't consumed with the historic political contest at home, they would be riveted to the drama unfolding in Belarus.

Wednesday, it was as if the sun never rose. Dawn was murky, and by 8 a.m., it seemed to get darker. A moldering reddish-bronze haze rose around us but also made no light. Inside the house, we re-lit our lamps against the gloaming. The windows swam black, and outside, all morning, above the trees, the sky glowed grisly red. Where we had left the windows open to the night breezes, our papers, clothes, combs and brushes were coated in a fine layer of ash. The air hung, gritty and oddly cold. It was hard not to feel a deep foreboding.

Last month, Americans celebrated the centennial of the 19th Amendment, recognizing women's right to vote. This celebration rings hollow -- as we hurtle toward the 2020 election -- if we fail to learn from the ways that race has been used to fracture women's efforts toward coalition politics and our collective understanding of our rights. For example, even as Senator Kamala Harris's historic role as the first woman of color to run for vice president on a major party ticket energizes feminist coalitions, Donald Trump's divisive manipulation of racial stereotypes seeks to fracture and obscure women's shared interests.

Just two days ago, the Trump campaign blasted an Atlantic story detailing the denigrating language the President allegedly used about fallen American troops for its author's use of anonymous sources.

If it weren't already a bad idea to throw a party without proper safety measures during a pandemic, one that sparks a massive forest fire is just arsenic-laced icing on the poison cake. A California family set off a "smoke-generating pyrotechnic device," causing a fire that is raging through the San Bernardino National Forest. The fire has burned thousands of acres, destroyed countless wildlife and may potentially cause a lot more devastation as the uncontrolled fire continues to burn.

As I'm about to begin a new semester online at Middlebury College, I'm reminded of James A. Garfield's comment that "the ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other." Hopkins was a philosopher (and later president) at Williams College, and he was a legendary teacher. This has always been my mantra: a teacher, a student and a log. That's all you really need for education to happen.

Scientists across the world are working around the clock to supply a vaccine that could halt this devastating pandemic. Yet this deadly virus has once again highlighted how we also desperately need a cure for a completely different disease -- one which will sadly outlive Covid-19.

President Trump loves the pomp of the military. He went to a military-style boarding school in New York, he has always pined for a big Kremlin-style military parade in the streets of Washington DC and when he came into office he appointed retired and serving generals to key positions in his cabinet, to a greater degree than any other modern president.

From Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic article, which alleges that President Donald Trump referred to soldiers who died in battle as "suckers" and "losers" -- a claim Trump denies -- to Michael Cohen's book that paints the President as a bigot, a liar and a fraud, the avalanche of negative news for the President is coming at the worst possible time for him: less than 60 days before Election Day.

In the week or so since the White House inner circle added yet another Covid-19 adviser to President Donald Trump, many have become confused about what he thinks the country should do about the pandemic.

Let's call a lie a lie. It gets tiresome under President Donald Trump as his inaccurate statements pile up, but it's important that Americans are made aware that the President continues to lie about almost everything. Each new falsehood is unsurprising based on his track record with the truth -- but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. They pose risks to our democracy, including the security of our election in November.

Labor Day makes us think of trips to see friends and family, backyard barbecues and a few last, lazy moments of summertime freedom before school and work turn up the pace of life.

We should be prepared for the likelihood that we won't know who our next president is on Election Day.

Although it's said that Washington, DC, is a city where secrets go to die, the explanation for why President Donald Trump was hurried to a hospital last fall remains a well-guarded mystery.

I remember how it felt in March, as the shadow began to fall. Empty shelves at the grocery stores. Sirens wailing in New York. And with the dread came a fleeting glimpse of national unity. We cheered from the balconies as the nurses changed their shifts. In Irvine, California, a medical worker saw a message in chalk from neighbor children: "Thank you so much for what you do." Someone put a sign outside his apartment. It said, "A hero lives here."

While the world is waiting for a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, there is a strategy that can potentially bring an end to the pandemic in the United States without the development of pharmaceutical drugs. The strategy, which is cost-effective and compatible with American values like personal freedom, could feasibly bring the epidemic to a halt within two to three months.

Donald Trump once claimed that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City and not lose any voters. He's now seeing whether the same is true if he kills Social Security.

President Donald Trump may admire the military, but he has shown his contempt for the people who decide to join it and serve the nation -- a decision he seems to find utterly incomprehensible. Americans have heard him disparage war heroes for years, from the late Sen. John McCain to the families of soldiers killed in battle. Americans who sacrifice everything for their country are not heroes in his view, but "losers" and "suckers," according to a new article in The Atlantic, which quotes multiple unnamed sources, including at least one retired four-star general. Trump has vehemently denied the report, but other news organizations separately corroborated some of the claims in the piece.

If there was any question before about whether William Barr could be willing to use his power as attorney general to tilt the scales in the upcoming presidential election, there shouldn't be anymore. Barr appeared to confirm as much in his interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN Wednesday: that he would be willing to breach longstanding Justice Department norms -- that is, the unwritten "60-day rule" -- to advantage the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump.

The Black community has suffered the highest death rates from Covid-19, and the numbers are staggering. Black people are nearly three times more likely than White people to contract the virus, and twice as likely to die from it, according to a report from the National Urban League.

It is harder because it was so sudden. It is harder because it is a disease that I know all too well. It is harder because he was young, gifted and Black. It is harder because our community has already endured so much in this cold and callous year that is 2020.

If you ask people who haven't served in uniform what it takes to be a great military leader, many would say "strength," "toughness" or "courage." People who have served -- and particularly those who have had the honor of commanding -- will tell you there's a lot more to it. Leaders -- military or otherwise -- need character, intellect, vision, humility and will.

Before a bombshell story in The Atlantic revealed eye-popping allegations that President Donald Trump had referred to America's fallen soldiers as "losers" and "suckers," another story was making its way into the ether without much notice.

Jacob Blake, the victim of gunshot wounds that left him paralyzed from the waist down, was also shackled to his hospital bed for days. His father pleaded with health care officials and the media to open their eyes to this injustice -- or even to common sense. A man who is paralyzed poses no immediate risk that shackling him to the bed could prevent.

While President Donald Trump is threatening American democracy, fueling violence and strife, and continuing to make the US an outlier in coronavirus cases and deaths, he and his GOP minions want us to focus on Nancy Pelosi's hair.

President Donald Trump is right in believing most Americans don't want violence in their streets. But it's America's profound tragedy and grave danger that he, Trump, seems to want more of it.

With the German government's announcement Wednesday of "unequivocal evidence" that the nerve agent Novichok was used in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, we are once again reminded how a vacuum in global leadership -- notably, in this instance, the silence of the American President -- can potentially open the way for the world's strongmen to reach for the deadliest means to silence their critics.

You've seen them. They check your name and voter registration when you arrive at your polling place, provide you with the correct ballot and hand you an "I Voted" sticker when you're done. They're poll workers: volunteers recruited and trained by county and local election officials to do the tough work of keeping our elections running.

I remember how it felt in March, as the shadow began to fall. Empty shelves at the grocery stores. Sirens wailing in New York. And with the dread came a fleeting glimpse of national unity. We cheered from the balconies as the nurses changed their shifts. In Irvine, California, a medical worker saw a message in chalk from neighbor children: "Thank you so much for what you do." Someone put a sign outside his apartment. It said, "A hero lives here."

This year, as a result of the pandemic, we will likely see a dramatic increase in absentee voting, but some states will not verify or count those ballots before Election Day. This delay could be a major problem for American democracy, sowing doubt in the results and distrust in our electoral process.

A bystander video recorded shortly before the fatal shooting of two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shows the accused shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse, with an assault-style rifle, milling among a group of other armed civilians claiming to be standing guard against people gathered to protest the police shooting, two days earlier, of Jacob S. Blake.

Joe Biden's selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate is a powerful statement of his commitment to ensuring that all Americans feel part of our democracy -- that government of the people, by the people and for the people applies to all Americans, be they men or women, White or Black, Asian or Latino, gay or straight, recent immigrants or descendants of families who have been here for generations. The Biden-Harris ticket is the first in US history to truly reflect the American people they aspire to serve.

How did the President of the United States become one of the nation's largest threats to public health and safety? When one man became head of "church" and state: the Church of Trump, that is.

I'm not in the habit of quoting lines from movies I've appeared in, but every once in a while, something brings one of those old lines to mind. Recently, I've been thinking of a scene from a film I did in 1972 called "The Candidate."