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It should not surprise Americans that a cheating scandal tainted a World Series, the premier event of our national pastime. The only shock is that the Houston Astros got caught and disciplined. In truth, cheating, not baseball or football, is our enduring national pastime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's strategic decision to delay forwarding the articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate appears to have paid off. Oh, it won't move Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has pledged "total coordination" with the Trump White House, to assure a fair trial. Fairness, let alone an appearance of such, just doesn't concern him. This is the Senate leader who ignored all pretense of even-handedness when he blocked consideration of President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland for 293 days to allow incoming President Trump to fill the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

News you can use about the March 3 primary [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Never is a president's credibility and judgment more critical than when it comes to persuading the American people - and the world, for that matter - that the exercise of military force was justified. What a president does each day builds or depletes the public's potential faith in his or her word on a decision that could bring this nation to the brink of war. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Chronicle is one of a few major metropolitan American newspapers to have been publishing through all four impeachment proceedings. I've only been on the editorial page for the past two, so I enlisted the help of our ace librarian Bill Van Niekerken to dig up the archives of our editorials on the Johnson and Nixon impeachments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard did not meet the qualifications for Thursday night's Democratic debate in Los Angeles. It's just as well. On Wednesday, the Hawaii Democrat showed she is not quite up to her current job as a voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Director Clint Eastwood has been promoting his new film, "Richard Jewell," as a testament to the truth about an innocent man whose life was upended by a false accusation. Yet the movie delivers an unjust smear of its own: a plot fabrication that Kathy Scruggs, the reporter who broke the story that Jewell was a suspect in the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics, was sleeping with the FBI's lead agent in the investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Don't mess with Greta Thunberg [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, knows a little something about impeachment. As a law student working for her mentor Rep. Don Edwards in 1974, she helped draft one of the articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. She served on the Judiciary Committee that produced the articles on President Bill Clinton in 1998 and still serves on the committee. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reader Lisa Frost wrote last week to observe that she was disturbed by the "extreme sentiments" expressed by letter writers on our editorial page. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How the president saved Thanksgiving [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fifty years ago, Daniel Ellsberg did not have the protection of a whistle-blower law when he decided the American people had a right to know about the lies and miscalculations they were being told by multiple administrations about the Vietnam War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

William Taylor proved the ultimate witness for the prosecution. He arrived on Capitol Hill for the impeachment hearing with unimpeachable credentials: West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran, career diplomat with some of the more challenging assignments on the planet. He was unflappable in his testimony: measured, serious and highly credible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The field that just won't shrink [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

David A. Eisenberg of San Francisco was among the readers who reacted to last week's column about how California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has followed his predecessors' penchant for skewing the title and summary of citizen initiatives to help or hurt their chances. Eisenberg agreed that the solemn duty should be shifted to an independent source such as the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By now, only the most Pollyanish Californians would expect their attorney general to write an honest title and summary for a ballot initiative he or she supports or opposes. This state has an ignoble recent history of attorneys general loading the language to skew the election. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The big money chase: Say it ain't so, Joe [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mayor London Breed did neither Suzy Loftus nor the city any favors by appointing her interim San Francisco district attorney. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The need to protect whistle-blowers has been a cause of Rep. Jackie Speier from her days in the California Senate. Rep. Eric Swalwell's experience as an Alameda County deputy district attorney instructs his pursuit of the prosecution of the 45th president. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Optimism reigned last Sunday when Sen. Kamala Harris took the microphone at the opening of her Oakland headquarters with a disc jockey spinning "Work That" by Mary J. Blige. The Democratic senator was stalled in the single digits in the polls, even in her home state, and she was wrapping up a quarter in which her fundraising would come in a disappointing fifth in the crowded field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Don't shut down Trump's Twitter account [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two words came to mind as I listened to the final question in Thursday night's Democratic debate, when ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked the 10 candidates for an example of their resiliency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stay off the sidewalk, Twitter [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The season is here. No, not that season with its shoulder pads, fixed goalposts and interminable instant replays. It's the other season with its game plans, cheap shots and goalposts that seem to be always moving: election season. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Trump has called journalists "enemies of the American people," has talked about jailing journalists or using the powers of government to hit the business interests of news organizations he detests, and has made "fake news" a go-to term for autocrats across the globe. But perhaps nothing has so thoroughly exposed his contempt for the concept of a free press as his attack on Fox News last week. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nov. 5 would have been election day for George Gasc�n if he had run for a third full term as San Francisco's district attorney. Instead, that time frame is the target zone for kickoff of another campaign he has in mind for district attorney - of Los Angeles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

So, there is life after lying [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the facts unfold, the illegal May 10 raid on a freelance journalist's home and office in pursuit of his source's identity is shaming more and more of San Francisco's establishment. Its disregard for California's shield law that gives journalists an expansive right to protect the identity of confidential sources was a disgrace to the police who requested the search, the many politicians who initially defended it - and now, most consequentially, judges who authorized it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Terry McAuliffe, former Virginia governor, knew there was interest in that infamous march of white supremacists on Charlottesville in August 2017. He visited 25 states after he left the governor's office last year and began testing the waters for a potential presidential run. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Quentin Kopp: tanned, rested and cranky [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Let me begin with the most positive takeaway from the just-concluded second round of Democratic presidential primary debates. They drew out legitimate contrasts among the 20 candidates. Anyone who endured all 10 hours came away knowing that Democratic voters will be tasked to choose between two distinct courses: an ambitious expansion of government authority and investment that would most notably include "Medicare for All" and free college tuition - or a more incremental approach to those and other issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The great debate in U.S. newsrooms this past week was whether a qualifier should be attached to President Trump's racist comments about four congresswomen of color. Should they be described as "racially tinged" or "denounced as racist" or "racially charged" - or simply called what they were: racist? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rep. Eric Swalwell, having just dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, laughed when I asked: Does he envision making another run at some point? He is, after all, just 38 years old. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pelosi-AOC clash sound familiar, San Francisco? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

These are precarious times for editorial cartoonists. A Canadian publishing company just terminated its contract with a cartoonist who had portrayed a golfing President Trump standing over the bodies of two migrants and asking, "Do you mind if I play through?" This as the shrinking legion of cartoonists was up in arms over the New York Times' recent decision to stop running cartoons in its international edition. And last year Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoonist Rob Rogers revealed that he was fired after 25 years for being too mean to Trump. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In one dramatic exchange, Sen. Kamala Harris answered three perceptions that have dogged her presidential campaign. She went into Thursday night's debate in Miami with questions about whether she was too cautious, too reticent about showing a personal side and terminally stuck in the second tier of candidates after an impressive rollout in late January. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It's not every mayor who can have a proposed act of Congress named after her. But Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf gained that distinction last year after she famously issued a public warning that she had received word that an immigration raid was imminent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Governor's advice? Don't open your door [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dads sure take a lot of abuse for their "dad taste." If your teen tells you "those are dad shorts," it's her way of telling you to change out of your comfy cargoes. If a passerby points at your "dad hat," chances are it's the stadium giveaway with the adjustable band that has been faded and sweat-stained beyond social acceptability. If your kids comment on the "dad rock" you're enjoying on the car radio, it's their way of telling you to change the channel from that old-school station - now! [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pelosi crosses the line with 'prison' comment [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes to invoke the words of Abraham Lincoln as one of her guiding principles: "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed." [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Democratic National Committee and two of its prominent presidential contenders - Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif. - have been shunning Fox News. This is a mistake. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is the term of the hour: "constitutional crisis." Rep. Jerry Nadler, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, took it a step further: "a full-blown constitutional crisis." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the imprimatur of her leadership on it. The nation, she declared, is in a "constitutional crisis." [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

23 and (everyone but) me [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It's hard to quarrel with Facebook's decision to permanently ban some of the high-profile prolific and incendiary users on its social media site. Who among us would want to defend the bile of Milo Yiannopoulos and his racist slurs, the anti-Semitic rantings of Louis Farrakhan or the ugly conspiracy theories of Infowars host Alex Jones who has threatened journalists and suggested the 2012 slaughter of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., was an Obama-orchestrated hoax to promote gun control? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The high cost of pursuing truth [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A majority of San Francisco and Oakland voters supported a special tax increase in November. Yet neither San Francisco nor Oakland has been able to spend a dime of a tax approved by more than 60% of voters in each city - and may not be able to do so for years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ellen Tauscher (1951-2019): pioneer, thinker, leader [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Shane Bauer had an inside look at a private prison run by one of the industry leaders. In 2014, the Oakland writer went into the Winn Correctional Center in rural Louisiana as a $9-an-hour guard. He expected the conditions to be bad. They were worse than bad. The level and pervasiveness of the violence. The substandard health care. The perfunctory training for guards faced with absurd ratios to inmates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the Robert Mueller report's more damning examples of President Trump's attempt to stymie the investigation included his order for White House counsel Don McGahn to tell the deputy attorney general to fire the special counsel. "Mueller has to go," was Trump's directive. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]