Teri has written novels, short stories, nonfiction for both young readers and adults, and lots of legal briefs. She is currently writing an overlapping series of biographies called the Making of America. Her political commentary has appeared on the NBC Think Blog and CNN.com. Her articles and essays have appeared in publications as diverse as Education Week, Slate Magazine, and Scope Magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in the American Literary View, The Iowa Review, and others. For twelve years she maintained a private appellate law practice limited to representing indigents on appeal from adverse rulings. She believes with the ACLU that when the rights of society's most vulnerable members are denied, everybody's rights are imperiled. She also believe with John Updike that the purpose of literature is to expand our sympathies. Teri lives with her family on the beautiful central coast in California.
The idea that all politicians are corrupt leads to tribalism. “He’s a liar, but he’s our liar. I’d rather stick with our
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We learn today that American democratic institutions are alive and well—and that Donald Trump is running out of defenses.
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In dealing with a pandemic, a democratic leader bases success on how many lives are saved. A would-be oligarch bases success on whether he maintains power.
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The GOP doesn’t think they are dismantling the Republic. They think they are making America great again. They think they’re taking us back to the time America was great.
MoreThere’s a theory on Twitter (and perhaps elsewhere) that the GOP bows to Trump and does his bidding because they are being blackmailed.
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It’s not okay to let grandparents die. “I was willing to die to save my grandson’s portfolio” is not in the range of normal.
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Fascist leaders are not equipped to deal with a real crisis. They only know how to deal with a manufactured crises.
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A real crisis causes myth and lies to collide with reality in a way that Trump is unprepared to handle.
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An advantage of federalism is that states can experiment and find procedures that work. Other states, then, can learn and borrow those procedures.
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We push forward, and the reactionaries push backwards. We build agencies, we create rules for fairness, they hate the agencies and break the rules. It never ends, unless we all give up.
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The antidote to cynicism is to hold onto your principles and remember that there are people who have them.
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The parties are rule of law v. authoritarianism. People who embrace rule of law include former Republican conservatives, who must now get used to a big messy tent.
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