Baseball's infamous bribery scandal of 1919
A century ago, baseball faced its darkest hour when eight members of the 1919 American League champion Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to throw the World Series. Published January 2, 2019
David Keene
Articles by David Keene
Building a wall, and the shutdown
Say what one wants about President Donald J. Trump, but he is a man who makes every effort to keep his promises. Published December 26, 2018
Harold Baines, both good and great
Once upon a time every American boy dreamed of becoming a major league baseball player. Harold Baines was one of those boys. Residents of St. Michaels, Maryland, where Mr. Baines grew up in the '60s, say he was rarely without his baseball glove. Before video games and before St. Michaels had become a tourist destination, the small Maryland Eastern Shore village was the sort of quintessential small town one associates with that era. Published December 18, 2018
Crafting a surveillance state
The fear of a nightmare future that inspired "Animal Farm," "Brave New World" and "1984" is rapidly becoming a reality in today's China, where that nation's Communist leaders have embraced the technology of the 21st century to craft a surveillance state few but these 20th century authors could even imagine. Published December 4, 2018
Another 'Year of the Woman'
Shortly after his confirmation in 1991, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas observed that "being black has far less to do with the color of one's skin than one's politics." This truth has become more obvious in the years since for women as well as African-Americans. Published November 27, 2018
Medal of Freedom for Orrin Hatch
Last week, President Trump awarded Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Senate Republican ever, the Medal of Freedom. In doing so, Mr. Trump emphasized the high personal regard in which he holds Mr. Hatch, but the medal was deserved not just because the president likes the senator, but because Orrin Hatch deserves recognition as a Senate great at the end of a distinguished career. Published November 20, 2018
Confirming Aurelia Skipwith
Last April, Aurelia Skipwith, the new deputy assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks arrived at a hotel for a speech. When she asked the desk clerk for directions to the ballroom, she got not only the directions she sought, but the observation that "you must be an Obama holdover." Published October 29, 2018
Gosnell the murderer revisited
When Philadelphia police obtained a search warrant and raided Dr. Kermit Gosnell's clinic eight years ago, they were seeking evidence of illegal prescriptions for opioids and other addictive drugs. Gosnell would later be sentenced to 30 years in prison for running an illegal prescription mill, but they found much more. Published October 22, 2018
Speaking from both sides of the mouth
Spending a little time in a state like Montana is enough to convince anyone that Washington is not the center of the universe. President Trump carried the state in 2016 by some 20 points and has been back here twice in the last month in an effort to help Republican State Auditor Matt Rosendale beat back Democratic Sen. Jon Tester's bid for a third term. Published September 23, 2018
Adrift in the age of #MeToo
The other day as my old friend Adam Walinsky and I were lamenting the craziness of the current political atmosphere, he asked me what earlier period I believe was as bad as the one we are living through today. Adam, a former speechwriter and aide to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, once ran as the Democratic candidate for attorney general in New York and is a close student of history. I asked in return if he was thinking of the McCarthy era, Published September 18, 2018
Weaving a 'blue wave' from impeachment fantasies
Democrats are convinced that the "blue wave" they've been counting on to set the stage for President Donald Trump's impeachment in a House of Representatives they control is out there and building. They continue to enjoy a four to six point "generic" advantage in the polls, and there is evidence that their voters are more anxious to turn out and vote than their Republican counterparts — two indicators that combine with the media's continuing effort to demonize Mr. Trump to give them more than a fighting chance to take the House. Published September 11, 2018
Journalism and the bias problem
NBC's Chuck Todd has taken to the pages of The Atlantic to call on his fellow journalists to take down Fox News, charging that Fox News founder Roger Ailes has waged a concerted 50-year campaign to divide the American people and demonize legitimate journalism. Published September 9, 2018
Politics and security clearances
Former CIA Director and current MSNBC commentator John Brennan's intelligence service cronies have taken to the airwaves in their disgust at President Trump's decision to revoke Mr. Brennan's security clearance for what they claim is a first-time-ever act of vengeance by an out-of-control president. Published August 22, 2018
A case study in suffering and lack of freedom
The tragedy that is Venezuela, a case study in the suffering and lack of freedom woven into the very fabric of Marxist socialism doesn't receive the attention it deserves at a time when last week's Gallup poll shows that Democrats view socialism more favorably than capitalism. Published August 14, 2018
Reforming the criminal justice system
On May 22, the House of Representatives managed to pass the First Step Act prison reform by a vote of 360 to 59, an unheard of margin in today's deeply divided Congress. The bill is a long-overdue attempt to at least begin to reform the way those caught up in the criminal justice system are treated while in prison and how they are prepared to live once they have paid their debt to society. Published August 8, 2018
Getting Beijing to back down
Western business has lusted after the Chinese consumer market for hundreds of years. The dream of a billion or two Chinese consumers buying one's products is as intoxicating today as when British textile makers yearned for the Chinese to keep their mills humming forever, but until recently the Chinese consumer market existed more in their dreams than in reality. Published August 7, 2018
When Nixon met with Mao
The outrage over President Donald Trump's demeanor during his Helsinki sit-down with Russia's Vladimir Putin resembles in many ways the reaction to the visit of another U.S. president to the capital of a foreign adversary. Published July 25, 2018
Supporting Judge Kavanaugh
Once one buys into a conspiracy theory everything makes sense because everything can be explained in terms of the conspiracy. Published July 23, 2018
Imperialism in flower again
That, however, was then. In today's world others are not as willing as they once were to tolerate the sort of overt aggression that took place during the days when Nazis and Communists were running amok, forcing aggressor nations to find subtler ways of taking over their neighbors. Published July 17, 2018
Supporting the rights of others who may disagree
Chuck Morgan headed the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington office in the mid-1970s. He worked with conservatives and liberals on free speech issues and became a friend to many on both sides of the political aisle. Published June 26, 2018
