YEAR IN REVIEW - It would be easy to survey the end of 2021 and see another year in wreckage. There’s the pandemic that won’t end. Rising inflation. Climate disasters. A democracy that looks creakier by the day.

COMMENTARY - Let us name Julian Assange’s executioners.

POLITICAL HERITAGE UNDER FIRE - If ignorance is bliss, the Western world should be ecstatic.

SENATE UN-CIVILITIES - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is resorting to obscenities to attack her Congressional colleagues, referring to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as a “bitch.”

COURT EXPANSION -  as Chief Justice in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a spate of transformational ultra-right decisions on a dizzying array of subjects, including voting rights, gerrymandering, union organizing, the death penalty, qualified immunity for police, gun control, campaign finance, and most recently, abortion.

NATION WATCH - Where are you going to get the money?  That question haunts congressional proposals to help the poor, the unhoused, and those struggling to pay the mortgage or rent or medical bills, among so many other critical domestic matters.

GUEST WORDS - Six years ago, at a press conference on the court house steps, I got into a pushing match with an Ohio attorney who I called out for a sweet heart settlement in the LA DWP billing error case that yielded his firm $13 million for a few weeks work.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE - For much of my life I have been in conversation with a man who died 86 years ago. 

MARKET EXPLAINED--Between opening an account, studying an investment, and putting a transaction together, purchasing those first shares may feel tricky.

MARKET EXPLAINED-Many investors think that they can buy shares of any company with the click of a mouse. This is simply not true.

IMMIGRATION WATCH - Like a gravitational field, there’s a narrative that exerts a powerful pull on U.S. immigration policy.

COMMENTARY - Sometimes it’s better to say nothing. This is one of those times.

STAND YOUR GROUND - One thing is certain: If Kyle Rittenhouse had listened to Johnny Cash, and left his gun at home, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber would still be alive today.

COMMENTARY - The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is over. After days of deliberation, a Kenosha County jury found the 18-year-old teenager who brought an AR-15 to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and killed two protesters while wounding another not guilty on all counts, finding that the teenager acted in self-defense.

MILITARY COMPLEX - A new Defense Budget looms. Maybe we’re running out of wars to fight, but no matter. The proposed figure before Congress is bigger than ever: $778 billion.

WEST WING POLITICS - In a lengthy profile documenting the dysfunction in Vice President Kamala Harris’ office, CNN has revealed that Harris aides are growing jealous of the White House’s relationship with out Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

MARC’S ANGLE - With nonstop news stories about divisions around class, income, race and anything big government and the media can think of to cause conflict, the reality of our unity in California is missed and hardly talked about these days.

DEMOCRACY - I wrote my new book in lockdown from a socially distanced corner of my home. That might seem an odd perch from which to write about citizenship, but it taught me something important.

GRIZZLY POLITICS - This week, while watching an online panel about grizzly bears, I noticed something that encapsulates a larger issue in this country.

COMMENTARY - I, like many of you, have become aware of the indictment of Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas. I am not surprised by any of the events, and despite what he may say, neither is he.

BUDGET WATCH - The drama over the Build Back Better Act has revealed the power of narrative in our political landscape.