Black Friday was once a hallmark celebration of American consumerism. Lately, it has lost some of its thunder.

It took no time at all for Donald Trump to again begin attacking the law clerk of Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron after an appellate court stayed Engoron’s gag order against the former president in the ongoing case over fraud in Trump’s real estate business. The defendant assailed Engoron in personal terms, calling him “politically biased” and “a disgrace.”

Democrats and the independents who caucus with them will be playing defense in 23 of the 34 Senate seats on the ballot in the 2024 congressional elections. Four of the 23 are in swing states that Joe Biden won narrowly in 2020. Three are in states that Donald Trump won in both 2016 and 2020.

The holidays are around the corner and in this economy, that means Americans will either stretch budgets as best they can, go into debt or go without.

It has become impossible to distinguish between Israel’s decidedly non-surgical operation against Hamas militants in Gaza and the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians. When so-called humanitarian pauses in the bombardment and ground operations are too brief to realistically permit innocents to flee, or when there is no place for non-combatants to go that is not also in the line of fire, such pauses are so deficient as to be meaningless.

Less than an hour after the House Ethics Committee published their extensive report on the elected fraudster from New York, Con(gress)man George Santos took to Twitter to claim that he will not be running for a second term next year. Don’t believe him. Don’t believe anything this schnook says, since everything is a lie.

The credit rating agency Moody’s on Nov. 10 lowered its outlook on the United States from “stable” to “negative” in the latest knock to the country’s fiscal stewardship. Though the White House and other federal leaders decried the change, is it any wonder investors have soured on the country’s long-term prospects? The federal government spent weeks careening toward a shutdown — again.

As President Joe Biden looks to boost his reelection campaign and lousy poll numbers, there’s one policy position that is popular with voters, could help unite Democrats and would leave Republicans scrambling to respond. It’s time he come out in support of legalizing recreational use of marijuana.

It makes perfect sense to treat Donald Trump as the most immediate threat to the future of American democracy. He has an ambitious plan to turn the office of the presidency into an instrument of “revenge” against his political enemies and other supposedly undesirable groups.

In the name of national security, former South Carolina governor and current Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley wants to use government authority to ban anonymous speech on social media platforms. “Every person on social media should be verified by their name,” she told Fox News.

Los Angeles is a city where the closure of a one-mile stretch of freeway triggers a state of emergency.

It is a full-time job to call out every one of Donald Trump’s lies and efforts to divide this nation, but his “vermin” address on Saturday deserves special attention.