Why Elections Are Vital to the Concept of Justice For All by Mark M. Bello Familiar with the name Mahmoud Khalil? He’s the Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian protester who was jailed for months by the Trump administration. Obviously, as a strong supporter of Israel, I do not support his views on the Israel-Hamas conflict, […]
By Mark M. Bello President Donald Trump’s latest threat to invoke the Insurrection Act — a rarely used 1807 law that would allow him to send the U.S. military into American cities — exposes a startling hypocrisy in how this administration defines “insurrection.” Trump publicly announced Thursday that he might deploy troops to Minnesota to […]
Jackie and I went to the beach today for a little R&R. Sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Good omen, I think. Jan. 13, 2026 by Bob Gatty Yesterday was my 83rd birthday, and I celebrated that day with both joy and some degree of trepidation about what might lie ahead. I’m sure we […]
Will America to Come to its Senses Again? by Mark M. Bello It’s happened before. Every so often, American politics produces moments where citizens must feel they live in some alternative universe. But then . . . A politician tones it down, two opponents speak like adults, or someone once fueled by outrage suddenly […]
What ICE is and What it is Not By Mark M. Bello When the government kills a citizen it had no lawful reason to stop—and lies before it investigates—the Constitution is already bleeding. Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was recently shot and killed by an ICE agent during a […]
By C J Waldron There are monsters living among us. Unlike the fictional monsters with their grotesque appearance, these have a human face. They dwell not in the shadows, but in plain sight. Rather than fearing the sun, they bathe in spotlight. They are in our government, our churches, our schools and even in our […]
Questions about America’s Motives and Interests by Mark M. Bello In the early hours of January 2, the United States did something extraordinarily dangerous. Was it in our country’s national interest? Time will tell. A foreign head of state—Nicolás Maduro—was seized, removed from his country, and transported to New York to face criminal charges. Shortly […]
Competence is Still an Option by Mark M. Bello After a year filled with headlines, arguments, and outrage, it’s easy to believe that dysfunction is inevitable — that chaos is just the cost of governing a large, divided country. It isn’t. What Americans experienced in 2025 wasn’t the unavoidable result of hard choices in a […]
Part Two: The Fix By Mark M. Bello The most frustrating thing about 2025 wasn’t just the damage—it was how unnecessary the damage was. None of the problems described in yesterday’s Part One required radical ideology to fix. They required competence, balance, and honesty about tradeoffs. What Better Policy Looks Like (Plain English) Economic Stability […]
How Government Choices in 2025 Hurt Ordinary Americans — and How Easily We Could do Better by Mark M. Bello Bad outcomes don’t fall from the sky. They’re made—carefully, repeatedly, and often predictably—by policy choices. In 2025, Americans didn’t suffer because the government was “too big” or “too weak,” but because the Trump Administration focused […]
