Half a century ago, the famed presidential biographer James MacGregor Burns voiced this warning about the Electoral College: “It’s a game of Russian roulette, and one of these days we are going to blow our brains out.” We’ve since done that twice. Popular vote loser George W. Bush marched us into a disastrous war in […]

What does Donald Trump want to do with the presidency? He makes his intentions clear, though less clear is whether he can turn his plans into reality. Kamala Harris describes him as “unserious,” but cautions that voters ought to consider as “serious” the risks of his presidency. Trump favors a strong presidency, enjoying powers he […]

Through Sept. 13, Vice President Kamala Harris has visited Pennsylvania 12 times, with most of her campaign stops happing in red counties that supported former President Donald Trump in 2020. Harris’ mission is to acquaint voters with her qualifications and her views for the future. A September New York Times/Siena poll found nearly one-third of […]

As a self-employed writer, I’ve become knowledgeable about how high my income taxes really are. Every now and then I like to reply to readers with tax advice. Q: Dear Tom, they say the only things certain in life are death and taxes, but could I still pay taxes when I am gone? (Curious in […]

Years ago, I wrote about favorite names I’d come across in my lifetime, some I thought gratingly awful, some riotously funny. One was a kid I knew named Three Searles, named Three because he was his parents’ third child and they couldn’t think of another name at the time, so they named him a number. […]