Author: John L. Micek

If you stay in the news business long enough, you’re inevitably going to run into a reader who has a grievance – sometimes legitimate, sometimes not – against their hometown newspaper. Sometimes it’s because they feel they’ve been portrayed unfairly…

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Let Sarah Sanders Eat in Peace You’d think a pan-seared pork chop wouldn’t come freighted with political baggage. But politics, and that pork chop ($28, with Wades Mill Goat cheese grits, caramelized Sunflower Flats onions and a Dijon Jus) we…

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Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., thought reports of children being brutally separated from their parents at the United States’ southern border with Mexico were “greatly exaggerated.” After he found himself the subject of withering cri…

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Even as he cozied up to an evil dictator who routinely murders, starves and imprisons his own people, President Donald Trump’s White House made its own brutal tweak to America’s immigration policy. In a policy memo chilling in its banality, Attorney…

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Words matter. What we say to each other, how we treat each other matters. There are basic norms of civilized behavior, outside the realm of politics, beyond the reach of cable network news, that we should all be able to agree upon. One of them…

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In the great din and clatter in our nationwide argument over abortion, it’s always struck me that the warring sides actually agree on a couple of very important things. Namely, that fewer abortions are a better thing for society, that women should b…

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Sometimes, even when you win, you lose. Just ask U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa. Instead of basking in the reflected glow of his primary victory last week, the newly minted GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in a key, battleground state, found himself the…

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For a man who likes to brag about what a big builder he is, President Donald Trump spends a lot of time burning stuff down. From his pursuit of protectionist tariffs and withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, to his routine attacks on the norms …

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U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican who hails from northeastern Pennsylvania’s coal country, likes to brag about the fact he was one of his state’s earliest supporters of President Donald Trump. Insofar as he rewards displays of loyalty, Trump is b…

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Not too long ago, an anonymous commenter on one of my columns concluded that I took my stance on a particular issue because I “hate conservatives.” A couple of days later, a progressive friend who wanted to warn me about a hateful tweet aimed at a M…

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