Dear Friends: Before we begin, I owe you an explanation. Why am I writing about a Democratic Senate primary in America's largest red state, where no Democrat's won statewide office since 1994? And why focus on James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and member of the Texas House of Representatives, now trying to catapult himself into the U.S. Senate?

Maybe it's because I've never lost faith in what Jesse Jackson, one of my all-time heroes, preached: "Keep Hope Alive!" Yes, "even in Texas," he might have added. But there are three other practical reasons.

One, unlike Florida or South Carolina, I've never considered Texas a lost cause. After all, this is the state that gave us some of our greatest Democrats: Sam Rayburn, LBJ, Lloyd Bentsen, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower and Kinky Friedman. Texas can't be all bad. Remember, Beto O'Rourke came within three points of defeating Ted Cruz in 2018.

Two, I must admit, I have a weakness for former seminarians running for office. It started in 1968 with Eugene McCarthy, where I got my start in politics. It continued with Father Robert Drinan, who defied Pope Paul II by running for, winning and serving in Congress for 10 years. Without trying to force their own religious beliefs on anybody, people of faith can bring a necessary moral perspective to issues we're dealing with today.

Three, because - whether he ends up running against boring incumbent John Cornyn or, better yet, against disgraced, impeached attorney general Ken Paxton - I think Talarico is the Democrats' best hope. I like his primary opponent, Representative Jasmine Crockett. She's a dynamite member of Congress. I'd vote for her against Cornyn or Paxton in a heartbeat. But, given Texas politics, it looks like Talarico has a better shot at winning statewide.

If, like most Americans outside of Texas, you're not familiar with James Talarico, I encourage you to watch his interview on February 16, with Stephen Colbert. Here's the link: https://x.com/MajorityDems/status/2023776310699725205?s=20. It's only 14 minutes long. Watch the whole thing.

But, first, a little background. Colbert had lined up this interview long ahead of time, but at the last minute, his CBS bosses ordered him to cancel it because they feared Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who's been waging war against late-night hosts, would force them to offer equal time to all other candidates in the Senate race. Which is in itself ironic since the "Fairness Doctrine," which did require equal time for all candidates, was canceled by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

That's when Colbert "trumped" them all. Banned from talking to Talarico on CBS, he interviewed him, instead, on YouTube, where it immediately went "viral." In 24 hours, the Talarico campaign pulled in $2.5 million in campaign contributions. And, as of this writing, Talarico's YouTube interview has garnered 7.3 million views - far, far more than watch "The Late Show." As Colbert needled his cowardly CBS bosses, "I wish we could have put it on the show where no one would have watched it."

If Talarico hadn't already captured my attention, he clearly did so when asked by Colbert about the influence of the so-called "religious right," extreme conservatives who are the core of Donald Trump's supporters. Talarico exposed them for the hypocrites they are.

"Well, for 50 years, the religious right, a political movement - that is the perfect description for it," he told Colbert. "They convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage. Two issues that aren't mentioned in the Bible. Two issues that Jesus never talked about."

What is Christianity all about? Talarico's got it right. "Jesus in Matthew 25 tells us exactly how you and I and every one of our fellow believers, how we're gonna be judged and how we're gonna be saved," he continued: "by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger. Nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people."

And he challenged those phony pious preachers who wrap themselves in the cloak of religion in order to support a foul-mouthed, twice-divorced, convicted sexual abuser, and his inhumane treatment of immigrants. "Don't tell me what you believe," Talarico said, "Show me how you treat other people, and I'll tell you what you believe."

Amen! It's now up to the good people of Texas to redeem themselves. All the rest of us can do is say a prayer. Keep hope alive!

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

If anything, Donald Trump is consistent. Everything he does is bad. The big things and the little things.

Of course, Trump's big, bad things get the most attention: sending troops into American cities; kidnapping the president of another country and throwing him in prison; blowing up small boats in the Caribbean and killing all onboard; tweeting out racist images; and tearing down half of the White House.

The problem is, the spotlight on the big stuff takes attention from all the other bad things Trump is doing - which may not have the same shocking impact, but are just as insidious.

Latest example: following his orders, the National Park Service took down the rainbow flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York - which follows removal of signs last year noting the important role of transsexuals in Stonewall's history. Why? Because Trump doesn't want people to know that gay activists had anything to do with the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

Taking down the LGBTQ flag didn't trigger any national headlines. But it should have. It's all part of Trump's determined efforts to rewrite - or, more accurately, to "whitewash" - American history.

It started on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, with an executive order pardoning some 1,600 armed protesters who stormed the United States Capitol. Under Trump's edict, Jan. 6, 2021 should no longer be condemned as an insurrection against the government, the destruction of federal property or an assault on police officers. History should now remember January 6th as nothing but a peaceful protest.

Next, Trump signed an executive order on March 27, 2025 called "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" - which, in truth, should have been dubbed "Rewriting and Telling Lies about American History" - ordering federal agencies to remove any historical evidence that "fosters a sense of national shame" - as if we have nothing to be ashamed of.

Making his case, Trump accused the Smithsonian Institution of being "out of control" because the new African-American museum portrayed "how bad slavery was." (He didn't say what was "good" about it).

For almost a year, the National Park Service - which used to be the most highly regarded and least-political of federal agencies - has shamelessly carried out Trump's executive order by erasing any evidence that straight, white Americans have ever done anything wrong.

At the President's House in Philadelphia, NPS agents removed plaques commemorating nine enslaved Black Americans who lived there, serving George and Martha Washington. In Trump's America, they just didn't exist.

At all national monuments, as first reported by the Washington Post, officials were ordered to no longer display a famous 1863 photo of a man named Peter, known as the "Scourged Back." Because the photo of a man's back heavily scarred by whipping showed only one side of slavery.

At California's Muir Woods, NPS staff removed signage that acknowledged the roles of Native American Miwok Americans and conservation-minded Marin County women in saving the redwoods. Instead, all credit for creating the park goes to influential, philanthropic white men.

At the National Portrait Gallery, the text under Trump's portrait was changed to eliminate any mention of two impeachments during his first term. The text under Bill Clinton's portrait, however, still states he was impeached for "lying under oath about a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern."

This week, the White House attempted to rewrite the history of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), celebrating it as a glorious victory against Latin American aggressors, rather than what most historians agree was an attempt to seize lands from Mexico, where slavery was prohibited, in order to create more slave states.

Meanwhile, in some red states, efforts are underway to rewrite American history books, drop certain courses and remove critical books from libraries in order to deny students any knowledge of the shameless treatment of Native Americans or Black Americans - thus creating an entire generation ignorant of history. Which would be a real tragedy. Because unless you know and accept the reality of history, both the good and the bad, you can never apply the lessons of history to charting a better future.

In the long run, Trump will lose his battle to rewrite history. As soon as he's gone, historians will go back to telling the truth about America. And that will include painting Donald Trump as the most dishonest, disgusting, hateful, ignorant, ineffective, divisive, egomaniacal, gold-digging, feckless president in history. No historian can dispute that. It's a fact.

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 

Washington's annual Gridiron Dinner is a throw-back to the 19th century: women in long gowns; men in white tie; officials of both political parties, who pretend to get along for one night; and journalists who play nice to politicians they routinely roast during the day.

I was there in 2017, Donald Trump's first year in office. But the rock star of the evening was not the new president. It was the new owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. Ignoring Trump, journalists like me lined up to shake hands with Bezos and thank him for breathing new life into one of our greatest newspapers.

One day after Trump took office, in fact, Bezos demonstrated his commitment to journalism by giving the Post a new slogan blaring out from the top of the front page: "Democracy dies in darkness." We all knew its powerful double-meaning: when governments operate in secret, accountability is lost; and a free, independent press is vital to maintaining a functional democracy.

What a burst of new faith in good journalism, but how brutally it's been shattered. Nine years ago, we celebrated Jeff Bezos for saving the Washington Post. Today, we condemn him for destroying it. Bezos decided to no longer hold Donald Trump accountable. He decided to become one of his biggest enablers, instead.

Bezos actually started out OK. After buying the Post for $250 million in 2013, he doubled the size of the national reporting staff, increased foreign coverage and invested more money into building the paper's online and video capacity. Trump repeatedly attacked the Post for its coverage and retaliated against Bezos by ordering the US Postal Service to raise delivery rates on Amazon. Yet, despite those threats, Bezos remained strong, even though the Post was losing money. But that suddenly changed when it looked like Trump might make it back to the White House. Bezos realized his two other mega-business ventures, Amazon and Blue Origin, both of which depend on federal government contracts, might be threatened under a second Trump administration. So he decided to throw the Post to the wolves.

It started in 2024 with significant layoffs and buyouts. Then, on Oct. 25, 2024, only 11 days before Election Day, the Post announced it was canceling its planned editorial endorsement of Kamala Harris - prompting hundreds of thousands of loyal readers to cancel their subscriptions.

As if that wasn't enough to curry Trump's favor, Bezos followed up by contributing $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund, showing up at his inauguration and shelling out $40 million, plus $35 million in advertising, for Melania Trump's self-promotion documentary.

By now, Bezos was one of Trump's biggest cheerleaders. So imagine how Trump cheered this week when Bezos, in effect, pulled the plug on the Post. On Wednesday, February 4, the Post announced it was firing 300 of 800 journalists in its newsroom. There will be no more sports section, even though Washington has four major league teams. No more book section. No more local news. And no more international coverage from the Middle East, India and Australia. It's no exaggeration to say there will be no more Washington Post. Certainly not the Washington Post that won the Pulitzer Prize for its courageous coverage of Watergate.

No matter where you live in this country, this is bad news. Because it underscores the danger to free and independent journalism, so essential to democracy, under Donald Trump. As the Post's former Executive Editor Marty Baron lamented, "This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations."

And the worst part is - unlike Trump's suing ABC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, or prosecuting Don Lemon - the Post's demise is entirely self-inflicted. As Peter Baker of the New York Times reported, Bezos is worth $249.4 billion today. If the Post is, in fact, losing $100 million a year, Bezos could absorb those losses for five years - for what he makes in a single week. It's not that Bezos can't afford the Post anymore, he just doesn't care. He'd rather suck up to Donald Trump.

Is there anything we can do about it? Here's what I've decided. I read a lot of books. For years, I've been one of Amazon's best customers. But no longer. No more Amazon for me. It may take longer, but I'd rather order from my local bookstore than give Jeff Bezos one more penny to fuel his $500 million yacht.

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.