The first time I met Barack Obama was in early 2006, when he was still a U.S. senator. He had come to Cincinnati to help out my husband, Sherrod Brown, in Sherrod’s campaign to join him in the Senate. I sat next to Obama during breakfast, before he took the stage. Almost immediately, our conversation […]

Well, that was quite the spectacle. In his first news conference since July, President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday likened the U.S. intelligence community to Nazi Germany, talked about himself in the third person as he described Vladimir Putin’s affection for him and attacked not one but two news organizations. He refused to take a question […]

On the last day of December, this was Donald Trump’s greeting for America — via Twitter, of course: “Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!” My immediate response to this infantile tweet from the […]

The day after Thanksgiving is usually when I begin decorating for Christmas, but on Nov. 25, I turned to my husband on the verge of despair. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think I have it in me.” The sound of those words, in my voice, was enough to startle me out of my […]

The tan business envelope is postmarked Jan. 31, 1957. It is addressed to “MISS JANEY BEBOUT,” arriving via airmail from Annapolis, Maryland. Not to her home but to the house of a sympathetic aunt who could keep a secret, one town away in Ashtabula, Ohio. The sole content of the envelope is one sheet of […]

What a thing of beauty, our First Amendment. Think about it: In only 45 words, it lays out five constitutional rights. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to […]

If you’re stressing over what to give friends and loved ones during this holiday season, I’m here to help. Consider giving them print or digital subscriptions — or both — to news organizations you regularly count on to provide strong journalism. That includes national newspapers and magazines, as well as regional papers that anchor your […]

It is as disturbing as it is inspiring, this response from so many women to publicly share their abortion stories so that members of the U.S. Supreme Court might read them. Why must women in America continue to reveal to strangers the most intimate details of our lives to preserve our constitutional right to privacy? […]