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The Good Life: Joe Scarnati Provided A Memorable Two Decades

Journalists can have up-and-down relationships with politicians. We need each other. At times, our jobs conflict, and we tend to dislike each other. At other times, our goals synchronize and we like each other — for a while. I like to think that I have a friendly relationship with now-retiring state Sen. Joe Scarnati of Brockway, Pa. We kid each other regularly. We have had social dinners along with our wives on occasion, and business dinners in Harrisburg, Pa. a few times. So, are we buddies? I’ll revisit that question in about two years, after Joe has become a retired ...

The Reason They Support Trump Isn’t About Him

Editor’s note: Adriana Cohen is off this week. The following column is by Salena Zito. WESTBY, Wisconsin — Spend any time with people who supported presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and you quickly find out that the reasons they voted for Trump had very little to do with him. It is likely one of the most misunderstood threads among this new conservative populist coalition. To get the real reasons for their support for Trump, you have to be where they are, have no preconceived ideas about who they are and have no prejudice for what you think their motivations are. Tom ...

Canine Companion: Dogs Say ‘I Love You’ Through Touch

My dog needs to be touching me at all times. He follows me around the house. He sleeps in bed with me. He barks if something is unusual. He has helped me through hard times and enjoyed adventures in the good times. He rides in the front seat of my car when we go places. He’s been with me through every experience I have had. That’s what I am going to take some time talking to you about today. My dog is at my feet loving me. But, what other ways does your dog say “I love you?” We discussed this a while back, but I have been receiving this question, and of course love is a ...

Crooked Big Shots Get A Break

Irving Kristol, a New York intellectual and youthful communist who became a guru of the American right, once defined a neoconservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” Thanks to Donald Trump, we have a new definition of a criminal justice reformer: a rich person who is shocked to see his felonious friends punished as though they were poor. Sorting out the motives behind the president’s sudden slew of clemency actions for people he knows and likes is not terribly difficult. Trump is a monumental sleazeball who is comfortable with other sleazeballs, provided they ...

Stop, Question And Frisk

Before former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw his hat into the 2020 presidential race, he defended the New York Police Department’s use of “stop, question and frisk” policing. At a United States Naval Academy’s 2019 Leadership Conference, Bloomberg said, “We focused on keeping kids from going through the correctional system ... kids who walked around looking like they might have a gun, remove the gun from their pockets and stop it.” He claimed that as a result of his policy, New York’s murder rate fell from 650 a year to 300 the year he left office. In the ...

Improving Presidential Debates

First, a confession: I really like presidential debates. Why, you ask? Because these debates give us voters the chance to watch and evaluate the candidates while they stand shoulder-to-shoulder and have to answer the same questions. Away from their carefully orchestrated campaign events, without their teleprompters or an audience of planted, friendly supporters, candidates in a debate are under pressure and facing criticism from both opponents and moderators. Presidential debates have been aptly described as job interviews where we, the voters, are able to assess the character, ...