In Focus

Clearly, what we are witnessing are the devastating results of dreadful taste combined with an inability to contain arrogance.

As thirsty as we were, year after year, I and other fans remained hopelessly faithful to our Knicks, working hard to distinguish between those who actually played basketball from the boss who controlled them.

As with Venezuela and Iran, Donald Trump exercised his imaginary executive powers by bypassing Congress and declaring war here at home.

At the very time that we should be extending a heartfelt greeting to those folks from foreign lands who have come here, at extraordinary expense, to partake in the beautiful game, Donald Trump can’t help but enforce his hateful agenda. Again, his political rage overwhelms basic dignity.

As time is running out on his rule, Ozymandias-like, he rushes to erect monuments to his transitory and pathetic rule.

n the midst of this madness, I am happy to share a story of vindication, the story of a very courageous judge and an overdue acknowledgment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s perseverance and courage in the face of the enormous misapplication of state power.

Segregation demanded “the separate,” but it was never, ever equal—not in peace, not in war.

After all these years, all that blood spilled, all that extraordinary courage mustered, we in America are back to racism resurrected.

The story we are being told about Iran reminds me of the story we were told about Vietnam. The story we were told about Afghanistan. The story we were told about Iraq. The story Donald Trump is still telling about Venezuela.

There is a yawning gap between how Robert F. Kennedy speaks about influenza and the flu vaccine and the very real experience of ordinary Americans.

I know I am not the only American completely confused by Donald Trump’s contradictory Iran rhetoric and vacillating strategy. One moment he is saying peace is almost at hand, the next he is waging war.

With very good reasons, shaped by a profound understanding of the ways of the world, He has opted for conscientious objection.

We are all in danger of losing the little that is left of our souls.

As the threats to democracy escalate, I find myself wondering about those who were central to the endeavor of creating a new nation, a nation more free and nurturing of independence than the British kingdom they had worked so hard to defeat.

Because Congress was not told or involved, because our allies were not involved or even informed, and because the American people were surprised, the administration has stumbled to justify going to war to crush the current Iranian regime while destroying a nuclear threat they had just bragged they had obliterated.

Trump and Hegseth and their supporters will do everything in their power to hide the cost of war. But like it or not, this is our war. These are our leaders. It is our tax money that has bought the bombs.