Dan Rodricks

At last week's Republican National Convention, speakers mentioned Obamacare exactly once. This from the same party that consistently opposed government-backed health insurance for millions of lower-income Americans, whose members in Congress refused to support it and whose House members voted to repeal it dozens of times. The GOP's favorite policy for ridicule and court challenges … Continue reading Democrats must talk it up because Republicans don’t anymore, and for good reason

I had an exchange of text messages with a friend from Maryland who went back home to Canada for a visit with family. He, his wife and their two children were in quarantine in Manitoba for two weeks. After that, they visited a province that, according to the global coronavirus tracker at Johns Hopkins University, … Continue reading Only Trump could have gotten us here

I don’t think it’s accurate to say, as The Washington Post does today in an editorial, that the Republican Party “stands for nothing.” The GOP officially offers no platform -- no policies or ideas -- at its 2020 convention and, instead, fully endorses Trump. Critics say that makes the Republican Party nothing more than a … Continue reading Who needs a Republican platform? We know what it is.

The neglect by Senate Republicans of Americans out of work because of the pandemic is about to compound the misery already out here. Supplemental unemployment benefits expired at the end of July. Even if the additional funding Trump authorized were to materialize, it won’t reach anyone until the end of September. Eviction protections expired and … Continue reading Are Republicans just going to let Americans go hungry?

Let us not forget, swamped as we are with outrages from four years of Donald Trump as president, the cruelty this nation inflicted on migrant families seeking asylum here. We separated at least 3,000 children from their parents, and Stephen Miller, this dark and racist young man who advises Trump on immigration policy and who … Continue reading America’s Shame: Stephen Miller and Official Cruelty

There's a bounty of plum tomatoes in the Covid Victory Garden so I deal with them in two ways -- fresh for a quick meal, and slow for a savory sauce you can freeze or can for a taste of summer later in the year. First way: Fresh tomato and basil on pasta al dente … Continue reading Dan Can Cook: Two ways to celebrate Italian plum tomatoes

It is a federal crime to obstruct mail delivery in the United States. I cite 18 U.S. Code § 1701. Here’s what it says: “Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail, or any carrier or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six … Continue reading A federal crime unfolding in plain sight

For late arrivals to this blog and my social media accounts: I have great respect and admiration for the longtime Washington Post sportswriter Tom Boswell. In July, as the COVID MLB Season was about to begin, he coined a phrase: The Awful Baltimore Orioles. The Awful Orioles has a certain poetic lift, wouldn't you say? … Continue reading Rooting for the Awful Orioles of 2020

The FBI has established a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the men who killed Bryan McKemy in August 2018 as he worked on the renovation of a house on Woodlea Avenue in northeast Baltimore. Bryan was 27 years old, an innocent bystander. Police believe that the two gunmen who killed Bryan … Continue reading $25,000 if you know who killed Bryan McKemy; FBI develops leads in senseless 2018 murder

A note about a journalist I admired, Pete Hamill, who died this week in New York after a long, rich life as a reporter and editor. Years ago, the late Nick Yengich, Baltimore Evening Sun reporter and rewrite man, handed me a book of columns and essays by the New York journalist Pete Hamill. Published … Continue reading Two Minutes to Midnight: Hamill and the first draft of history