This week, at an event billed as a town hall in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump spent about 40 minutes standing on stage, mostly wordlessly swaying to music that he’d selected, confusing the press and his fans in attendance.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that had struck down a Pennsylvania law barring people under 21 from carrying firearms openly during declared states of emergency. It’s hard to really celebrate this as a victory given how basic common sense it is — that judges had found it proper to allow 18-year-olds to walk around with drawn firearms during emergencies strains understanding.

The image of Elon Musk that may be dominating people’s mindspace at the moment is of his prancing about joyously — and yes, a tad weirdly — behind Donald Trump on the podium during the latter’s Oct. 5 rally in Butler, Pa.

Tim Walz is right. So is Donald Trump. The Democratic vice presidential candidate wants to get rid of the antique Electoral College and the Republican ticket leader is going to campaign in dependably Democratic New York, at Madison Square Garden, which is better for democracy, even if it doesn’t help in the Electoral College math.

The “Year of the Woman” label is too often thrown around when women break a barrier that should often be the norm. In 1992, it was used when five women were elected to the U.S. Senate. It was used in 2016 when Democrat Hillary Clinton became the first woman to lead a ticket for a major political party. We heard it again in 2018 during the so-called “pink wave,” when more than 100 women were elected to the U.S. House. There will likely be temptations to dub 2024 the Year of the Woman, especially if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the White House.

Increasingly desperate Democrats — fearing a repeat of 2016 — are resorting to a round of last-minute tactics like demanding more debates, shaming voters, changing the rules and doctoring interviews in a sign that panic may be setting in the party.

For a former social studies teacher, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz missed the lessons of the 2020 presidential election.

The Republican Party is the party of fiscal responsibility? It’s been a laughable idea ever since presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have pushed massive, unpaid-for, deficit-ballooning tax cuts skewed to deliver the biggest benefits to the wealthiest among us — but it’s especially ludicrous now.

Doesn’t it feel like summer break just began? Yet here we are again. Fall’s arrival means kids have settled into a new school year with new teachers, new clothes and a new “attitude” for parents and kids alike, to start on the right foot.

Caitlin Clark can’t win.

If you are wired into the flow of campaign news — as I am, for my sins — you will be inundated this week with reports of a new analysis of the fiscal impact of the economic proposals of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

It’s no coincidence that anti-Israel student groups at Massachusetts colleges and across the country called for a “Week of Rage” starting on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas as progressive lawmakers demanded a cease-fire.

It used to be common to see Let’s Make a Deal contestants leave the TV game show smiling after winning $100 for every coin they could pull out of their purse or pocket. But as America moves ever closer to becoming a cashless society, it’s just as likely to see contestants who couldn’t scrape up a dime.

“I’m a big Lord of the Rings guy,” JD Vance once told a podcaster. The running mate of former and perhaps future president Donald Trump went on to explain that “a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien.”

Now that inflation seems to be largely tamed, another threat has sprung up in its wake: the misguided notion that politicians can and should deal with high prices by capping or controlling them.

“I grew up middle class” is not the answer to any question other than, perhaps, “How did you grow up?”

By every definition, I am a frequent flyer. Every Thursday afternoon, after I cast my last vote in the Senate, I head to the airport to fly home to Illinois, where I take meetings with constituents and attend state events through the weekend. Come Monday morning, I’m back on a plane to Washington.