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2022

Green The Journey: New Year’s 2022 (4 Jan) • A Bitter January Day (6 Jan) • The Politics of Procedure (20 Jan) • The Freedom to Assemble in Covid Times (25 Jan) • Winter (30 Jan) • A Storybook Dream of Reconstruction (2 Feb) • 1870: Black Voting Rights Secured—Right? (3 Feb) •  Freedmen Leaving the Plough (4 Feb) • Where To Defeat The Republicans (5 Feb) • Stampede of Slaves from Hampton To Fort Monroe (7 Feb) • The Arrival of a Slave Family After the Proclamation (9 Feb) • Lincoln and the Broken Politics of His Time (12 Feb) • A Military Bridge Over the Chickahominy (15 Feb) • Joseph Mason and “Frank”: Two Enslaved Teens Freed in Washington DC (17 Feb) • The Dawn of Modern American Race Relations (19 Feb) • The Storm; or, Putin’s Race To The Bottom (21 Feb) • The Freed Slaves’ Prospects; or, The Copperheads’ Revenge (24 Feb) • Stewards of a Tough and Tender Earth (8 Mar) • Russia and the Rights of Man (31 Mar) • Submissions [PAGE] • The Turn to Earth (7 Apr) • Lincoln’s Death Bed (15 Apr) • Women, Angry Over Food Prices, Act Up (21 Apr) • Lincoln’s Body (1901) (1 May) • Why The Declaration Isn’t The Supreme Law of The Land (4 Jul) • Presidential Material (6 Jul) •  The Eleventh Hour (1 Sep) • I Am Bound (12 Sep) • A Touch of Covid (14 Oct) • The Honor of Our Country Is In Danger (7 Nov) • 

2021

The Grim Dawn of 2021 (4 Jan) • The Assault on the Capitol: Trump’s Foot-Soldiers Attack Representative Government and the Legislative Branch (11 Jan) • The Inciter-in-Chief (31 Jan) • Goodness (17 Feb) • Critical Elections: An Exchange (13 May) • Intensive Living [VIDEO] (5 May) • Living Through a Paradigm Shift [VIDEO] (25 May) • Chicago’s Downtown: Dead or Alive? (27 May) • Susan Barsy on Why The Republican Party Must Die [VIDEO] (4 Jun) • Truman Capote (8 Jun) • The “Contraband”—A Precarious Freedom (10 Jun) • States That Went For Trump in 2020 (8 Jul) • COVID 2.0 (3 Sep) • Where Democracy Is Greener (21 Sep) • The Rising Waters (3 Nov) • Turning My Back on You Forever (1 Dec)  

2020

2020: The Possible, Probable, and Inevitable (6 Jan) • The First of Two Thoughts on the Day: No War with Iran (8 Jan) • The Second of Two Thoughts: Bernie Sanders and Turnout (8 Jan) • Trump’s Health (10 Jan) • The Democrats’ Winnowing Process (15 Jan) • The Costs of an Unresponsive Politics (12 Feb) • Linda Tysall Ricke, Safety Bubbles (7 Jun) • The First Fourth of July (5 Jul) • Day 60: Game On (4 Sep) • Day 59: Formulating a Personal Pro-Biden Campaign (5 Sep) • Day 57: 3,000 Little Elections (7 Sep) • Day 56: Dial, Text, Write (8 Sep) • Day 55: Buttons for the People (9 Sep) • Day 54: Turning Purple Blue (10 Sep) • Day 53: The State of the Race (11 Sep) • Day 52: Online Voter Registration! (12 Sep) • Day 51: Plan Your Vote (13 Sep) • Day 50: A Mighty Blue Wave (14 Sep) • Day 49: The People Without a Party (15 Sep) • Day 48: Don’t Just Vote, Volunteer (16 Sep) • Day 44: The Non-Voters (20 Sep) • Day 43: The Ginsberg Factor (21 Sep) • Day 42: Determined on Equality (22 Sep) • Day 41: Ignore the Polls (23 Sep) • Day 40: The President Comes Out as the Enemy of the People (24 Sep) • Day 39: The Trump Voter You Know (25 Sep) • Day 37: Biden and a Return to Normalcy (27 Sep) • Day 35: The Mobilizers (29 Sep) • Day 34: Filth (30 Sep) • Day 32: Trump Tests Positive? (2 Oct) • Day 31: The Empty Shell (3 Oct) • Day 29: Sicko (5 Oct) • Day 21: The “Dangerous” Democrats (13 Oct) • Day 15: The No and the New (19 Oct) • Day 4: Extrapolating from 2016: Why I Expect A Biden Win (30 Oct) • Waiting For The Win (5 Nov) • Fade to Biden (16 Nov) • Heavens, The Great Conjunction! (27 Dec)

2019

Janus Faces 2019 (7 Jan) • Political To-Do (8 Jan) • The Nature of Our Political Crisis (14 Jan) • The Toxic Vibe at Antietam (1 Feb) • Anna Radomsky Dorko [PAGE] (8 Feb) • Ralph Northam’s Virginia (13 Feb) • Senator Flake (18 Feb) • Chicago’s Mayoral Election (25 Feb) • Lori v. Goliath (27 Feb) • It’s Lent (6 Mar) • It’s Lent [AUDIO] • Like the Moth, It Works In The Dark (20 Mar) • A Legitimately Elected President (26 Mar) • Lori Lightfoot’s Mandate (4 Apr) • “Am I Ready To Be President?” (11 Apr) • Mr. Mueller and the Central Crime (31 May) • The Dust Bowl and Human Agency (19 Jun) • Why the Parties Don’t Die (20 Jul) • Getting to Know the Democratic Field (31 Jul) • The Second Democratic Debates (1 Aug) • Impeach Trump, An Enemy of the Constitution (9 Oct) • If the GOP Is Wise, It Will Dump Trump Now (23 Oct) • Paris The First Armistice Day (11 Nov) • Devin Nunes Experiments With a Race To the Bottom (14 Nov) • In Truth, No One Knows What Will Happen (4 Dec)

2018

From a Person Without a Party (2 Jan) • A Noteworthy Day in Politics (12 Jan) [AUDIO] • Dislodging the President (22 Jan) [AUDIO] • The Carnage on American Ground (18 Feb) • How Many Enemies Can Trump Make and Survive? (12 Apr) • President, Public, and Press: A Romance Gone (6 Aug) • Will #MeToo Be the Senate’s Waterloo? (26 Sep)

2017

Trump’s Presidency Begins (20 Jan) • The Thinking Cap (21 Jan) • The Trump Years: Day 32 (20 Feb) • A Stress Test for the Constitution (14 Mar) • The Trump Years: Day 56 (17 Mar) • The Trump Years: Day 63 (24 Mar) • The Trump Years: Day 74 (4 Apr) • Something of the Radomsky Family in 1869 [PAGE] (17 Apr) • The Five-Hundred-and-Thirty-Five Shareholders (15 May) • Green America Will Prevail (5 Jun) • Political Intelligence (17 Jun) • Restorations (11 Jul) • A Challenge to the Pension-Protection Clause (7 Aug) • Rename and Repair Affordable Care (14 Aug) • A Dearth of Virtue (20 Oct) • Russia’s Patsy (6 Dec) • Unseen Fires (30 Dec)

2016

Ready or Not (1 Jan) • Hello, 2016 (5 Jan) • The Biggest Worries of 2016 (9 Jan) • The State of the Union? The President Was Too Hyped To Care (14 Jan) • Thomas Nast’s ‘Central Park in Winter’ (22 Jan) • Campaign Notes (The GOP) (4 Feb) • Why Hillary Should Declare, ‘I’m Worth It‘ (5 Feb) • The Feminist Gap (11 Feb) • Will the Electorate Destroy the Political Parties? (17 Feb) • A Glimpse of the Young Newspaperman Horace Greeley (20 Feb) • The Un-Democratic Party (25 Feb) • Columbia Has Her Eye on You (27 Feb) • GOP Options (4 Mar) • Girl With a Kodak on a Winter’s Day (8 Mar) • The Disquieting Donald J. Trump (16 Mar) • After the Tax Bill Passed (18 Mar) • The Rebel Angels (24 Mar) • The Teachers’ Example (1 Apr) • Master the CPS Pension Crisis in 5 Easy Steps (4 Apr) • When A Party Divides: The Democrats in 1860 (11 Apr) • Bernie Sanders’ Strong Hand (23 Apr) • Our Political Parties Are Behind the Times (24 Apr) • Trump at the Top of the GOP Heap (27 Apr) • Two Gilded-Age Gentlemen (2 May) • Seismic Forces Rock the Parties (11 May) • Save Us From the Likes of George and Melody (17 May) • The Democrats: Anger In a Different Key (19 May) • A Cracking Veneer (2 Jun) • Bernie Sanders: Not Leading But Misleading (8 Jun) • Power Lines: Hillary’s Nomination (10 Jun) • Inside the Wigwam (17 Jun) • How Wonderful It Would Be (17 Jun) • The Rude Power of the Vote: Brexit (27 Jun) • The Grief and Anger after Dallas (8 Jul) • Politicking at Saratoga (12 Jul) • Panicking in 1837 (24 Jul) • Trump’s Rise Signals a Full-Blown Political Crisis (16 Aug) • Political Change (30 Aug) • Day 56: Hillary Has Pneumonia (13 Sep) • Day 53: “Economic Patriotism” (16 Sep) • Day 50: A Change in the Political Atmosphere (19 Sep) • Day 46: Hillary’s Views, in a Nutshell? (23 Sep) • Day 43: Peace, Justice, and the Police (26 Sep) • Day 39: The Campaign Will End (30 Sep) • Day 35: Political Intelligence (4 Oct) • Day 32: The Tribune’s Endorsement (7 Oct) • Day 31: Republican Party Chaos (8 Oct) • Day 23: “The Best People” (16 Oct) • Day 16: Revamping Presidential Selection (23 Oct) • Day 7: Yes, It’s Scary, But Is It a Critical Election? (1 Nov) • Day 6: The Election Is In Play (2 Nov) • One Day More: The Ground (7 Nov) • On the Verge (Election Day) (8 Nov) • Donald Trump’s Win (14 Nov) • Know Your Fears (17 Nov) • “A Thanksgiving Truce” (25 Nov) • Old-Time Schools and Schooling (26 Nov) • Re-Counting Election 2016 (28 Nov) • The Face of Power (14 Dec)

2015

Boy-Powered Ice-Sweepers (8 Jan) • Scenarios of a Possible Presidential Run (9 Jan) • Thanks to Ice-Skating, Ladies’ Skirts Rise (10 Jan) • The Backward-Looking Person (11 Jan) • Sisterhood On Ice (15 Jan) • Football: A Romance in Pictures (1 Feb) • Hello, February (6 Feb) • February 12: Lincoln’s Birthday (12 Feb) • Hawaii From Above (15 Feb) • Lincoln at 52 (21 Feb) • Chicago Is About to Become a Very Expensive Place to Live (22 Feb) • Where Prentice Stood (27 Feb) • Speed Skater Hugh Palliser (28 Feb) • March 4: Old Inauguration Day (4 Mar) • They Partied On (8 Mar) • Graces I Grew Up With (16 Mar) • Minnesota in The Morning (18 Mar) • City (18 Mar) • The Democratic Party of My Dreams (19 Mar) • Rahm’s Chicago: A Nice Place to Visit (21 Mar) • As We Descended into Seattle (28 Mar) • Seattle’s Arboretum (30 Mar) • An Early Aerial View of the University of Chicago 31 Mar) • Library of Congress Unveils Rare Civil War-Era Views (1 Apr) • Why Not Challenge the Constitutionality of Illinois’s Pension-Protection Clause? (14 Apr) • The Bicycle Starts a Revolution (26 Apr) • Bike Messengers by Lewis Hine (4 May) • Subject Illinois’s Pension-Protection Clause to Federal Challenge (19 May) • The Once and Future Cyclist (3 Jun) • All Ready for the Six-Day Grind (8 Jun) • Another Illinois Politico Goes Down (10 Jun) • A Talent Gap That Favors the GOP (14 Jun) • Betsy Ross of the Capitol (24 Jun) • Consign the Sociopath and Terrorist to Oblivion (25 Jun) • A Serious Problem for Patriots (26 Jun) • American Ancestry and Identification Mapped (28 Jun) • Mending the Flag (29 Jun) • He Chose Neither the Nation nor the Time (30 Jun) • Independence (4 Jul) • Who Will Climb to the Top of the GOP Heap? (18 Jul) • Theodore Roosevelt Jumps His Horse, 1902 (21 Jul) • Origins [PAGE] (30 Jul) • Slovakia Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire [PAGE] (30 Jul) • When Nominating a President United a Party (31 Jul) • The Slovakian Census of 1869 [PAGE] (9 Aug) • Regarding the Ordinary American (16 Aug) • The Only Time President Roosevelt Ever Consented to Pose Before a Kodak (22 Aug) • The Bicycle Begins (25 Aug) • The Dream of Emancipation (31 Aug) • Today We Rest From Our Labors (7 Sep) • Ours Is A Sympathetic Service (9 Sep) • The Humanitarian Sensibility (10 Sep) • Factor Rauner In (12 Sep) • The GOP Candidates Debate on CNN (17 Sep) • A Death Pool for GOP candidates (18 Sep) • An Overseer and His Underlings (19 Sep) • Marco Rubio’s Problem (23 Sep) • Exploring Farm Security Photography (14 Oct) • The President’s Vision of Progress on Guns (27 Oct) • Leaving Fort Lauderdale (29 Oct) • S Is For Supernatural (31 Oct) • Good TV Is the Front-Runner, For Now (7 Nov) • The Paris Attacks (14 Nov) • Resisting the Drumbeat (23 Nov) • Maidens Speed-Skate, 1809 (24 Nov) • Scandal Envelops Chicago (3 Dec) • A Day in the Life of the Finance Committee: Estate of McDonald, case no. 14C2041 (7 Dec) • The Neapolitan Crèche (13 Dec) • Could Donald Trump Become President? (20 Dec) • George and Martha Washington’s Christmas Pyes (23 Dec)

2014

Christening the Quistconck (5 Jan) • It Was a Very Good Day for Charles M Schwab (9 Jan) • A Valentine’s Day Idyl (14 Feb) • Doings (13 Mar) • Susan H Douglas: She Collected the Stuff of American Politicking (6 Apr) • American Hunger Means a Feast for Some (18 Apr) • Kerry and Clinton in 2016 (31 May) • Small Red House (5 Jun) • The Shape of the Post-Recession Economy (6 Jun) • A Nation of Bankers and Shopkeepers (8 Jun) • A Feather in Her Cap, or A Fire in Her Belly? (12 Jun) • Earthly Glory (13 Jun) • A Talent Gap That Favors the GOP (24 Jun) • The Real Stuff of History (3 Jul) • Speaking out on Politics (22 Oct) • On Getty’s Mountain (29 Oct) • After the Red Wave: What Democrats Should Do (6 Nov) • Democracy on the Ground (8 Nov) • A War with an End (11 Nov) • To the End of the Road (23 Nov) • American Scenes (2 Dec) • “Summertime 1944” (6 Dec) • Jamaica Pond Ice-Skaters, 1859 (11 Dec) • Cool Girls with Skates (14 Dec) • Philadelphia on Ice (16 Dec) • Ice-Skates circa 1850 (20 Dec)

2013

Cuba (1 Jan) • A Working Holiday (2 Jan) • Where Was I?* (12 Jan) • Looking In on Lincoln’s Inaugurations (17 Jan) • Obamacratic Gossip (25 Jan) • American Beauty: The Inauguration as Medium and Message (30 Jan) • The Real Thing (30 Jan) • All About a Ball (3 Feb) • Social Welfare Comes of Age (7 Feb) • 1913: A Beginning More Modern Than Intended (13 Mar) • Introducing Continental Chicago (15 Mar) • Kickstarter a Natural for PBS (26 Mar) • The Era of the Dynamite Girl (18 Apr) • The Greening of American Workers (10 May) • Roundup Ready (29 May) • A Meditation on the Old North Bridge (4 Jul) • The GW Who Lacks a Memorial (29 Jul) • The Summer Without a Summer (7 Aug) • Papal Charisma (23 Aug) • Peaceful Co-Existence (4 Sep) • Republican Fire-Eaters (30 Sep) • The GOP Obstructionists (3 Oct) • The GOP’s Marriage of Convenience Turns Sour (23 Oct) • On John Kerry’s Eerie Resemblance to George Washington (28 Oct) • Use Post Offices to Turn Obamacare into a Smashing Success (4 Nov) • The Burial of the Unknown Soldier (11 Nov) • E. B. Thompson: His Wives and Times (2 Dec)

2012

2008: The Critical Election That Wasn’t (Part II) (1 Jan) • Maybe the Answer is Song * (10 Jan) • Illinois Smash-Up * (13 Jan) • MLK: Memorial and Man (17 Jan) • Mitt Romney as Exhibit A (23 Jan) • Bring Back the Platform! (1 Feb) • Free Folk (4 Feb) • Tracking the American (7 Feb) • Back Where It All Began (10 Feb) • The Map of Federal Benefits (12 Feb) • Parties Made New: Our Critical Elections (17 Feb) • Be Mesmerized (19 Feb) • A President without a Party?: Americans Elect (23 Feb) • Gallery: The West In Winter (24 Feb) • Help Understanding the Budget (26 Feb) • Why Democrats Should Embrace Simpson-Bowles (2 Mar) • Critical Elections [PAGE] (3 Mar) • New Democrats (7 Mar) • New ‘Critical Elections’ Page (8 Mar) • The Political Animal at Rest (14 Mar) • Off-Beat Graphics (16 Mar) • Fiscal Policy Is Not Economic Policy (19 Mar) • Is the Republican Party Dying? (22 Mar) • Up Salt River (25 Mar) • Edie, Spill the Beans * (27 Mar) • A Decision We’ll All Feel (28 Mar) • Lay It on the Fire (2 Apr) • See Where Your Federal Taxes Go (5 Apr) • This Just In from Wrigley Field: Private Enterprise Needs You * (7 Apr) • Gallery: The Forest In Spring (11 Apr) • Before There Were Income Taxes (13 Apr) • The Political Animal at Rest #2 (19 Apr) • The Pledges We Need (22 Apr) • When Spring Comes to Chicago * (23 Apr) • A World Without Lincoln (27 Apr) • Democrats: Shake It Up (1 May) • May Day Meditations (3 May) • How the Fed Makes Us Lazy (And What We Should Do) (8 May) • What We Know about American Third Parties (12 May) • The NATO Getaway * (20 May) • What You Saw of the Summit * (22 May) • Bringing Political Innovation to Market (24 May) • Our New Skyscraper * (28 May) • I’ve Been Away * (31 May) • The Closed-Door Campaign (4 Jun) • That Thing in the Park * (6 Jun) • Should Leaders Who Can’t Govern Their Party Govern the Country? (11 Jun) • Political Affections (15 Jun) • Be Our President, Please (18 Jun) • The Pension Standoff in Illinois * (22 Jun) • The Political History of a Garden * (24 Jun) • Florida Out of Season * (25 Jun) • Progress Isn’t Popular (29 Jun) • The Fascination of a Port City * (1 Jul) • The Untouched and the Untouchables: Connecting to the Body Politic Today (4 Jul) • The Next Political Football: Medicaid (6 Jul) • The Depths of a Mature Garden (9 Jul) • The European Muddle (11 Jul) • An Old-Time Speaker (13 Jul) • War Dead (15 Jul) • Farm Stand Intel * (16 Jul) • Worshippers (20 Jul) • Was American Greatness Built on Fiscal Folly? (21 Jul) • Rooftop Chicago * (22 Jul) • Lorimer (26 Jul) • Vintage Midwest * (27 Jul) • Ferris: His Wonderland (28 Jul) • Contraband (29 Jul) • How Much Do We Need? (6 Aug) • Florence and Margaret Make a Play for Freedom (7 Aug) • The Bridges * (8 Aug) • ‘Style Is Forged on the Terrible Anvil of Daily Deadlines‘ (10 Aug) • Message Barn * (15 Aug) • The Sunny Side of War * (17 Aug) • The Chicago Food and Craft Cooperative * (18 Aug) • Abstraction at Comiskey * (19 Aug) • Biden’s Arrow Hits Home (22 Aug) • Echoes of an Uncompromising Time (24 Aug) • Moment of Truth for GOP’s Conservative Wing (28 Aug) • Are You a Rare Political Bird? (30 Aug) • Deep Throat: What Secret? (1 Sep) • Lurie Garden * (3 Sep) • A Great White Nation of Self-Made Men (5 Sep) • That Was Some Speechifying (10 Sep) • Good Luck, Karen Lewis * (11 Sep) • One American Strike * (14 Sep) • A Prisoner of the Bully Pulpit Breaks Free (17 Sep) • What If They Can’t Take the Capital? (20 Sep) • Faces of the Thirties (23 Sep) • Should We Treat Guns More Like Cars? (26 Sep) • The Grand Old Chicago Post Office * (28 Sep) • Our Secret Bog * (1 Oct) • I’ve Been Away * (5 Oct) • Big Bill Haywood (6 Oct) • Presidential Selection 12 Oct) • Excitement Is General (17 Oct) • Woodrow Wilson Casts His Ballot (26 Oct) • Spinning the Storm (30 Oct) • Election Scenarios; The Spolight on Silver (31 Oct) • Milestones and Thanks (1 Nov) • The City Beautiful That Day * (2 Nov) • The Good News? A Dollar Can’t Vote (6 Nov) • The Incredible Shrinking GOP (11 Nov) • Once Noble Senate (18 Nov) • Thank Goodness for Their Goodness (23 Nov) • The Best of Everything (28 Nov) • Happy One! (30 Nov) • We Need New Talents and New Political Parties (4 Dec) • A President Ventures Abroad (7 Dec) • A Glimpse of Another Christmas (13 Dec) • Bringers of Cheer (19 Dec) • Society (20 Dec) • Gifts * (25 Dec) • It’s In Our Back Yard * (27 Dec)

2011

The Invisible Chorus * (29 Sept) • Why (30 Nov) • About [PAGE] (1 Dec) • 2008: The Critical Election That Wasn’t (Part I) (8 Dec) • Illinois: Where Our Governors Make Our License Plates * (9 Dec) • The Problem of Home * (10 Dec) • Selling Us Short? * (13 Dec) • The Passing Year (25 Dec) • Gallery: The Passing Year (26 Dec)