Michael Winship

Michael Winship

Michael Winship is the Schumann Senior Writing Fellow for Common Dreams. Previously, he was the Emmy Award-winning senior writer for Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com, a past senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos, and former president of the Writers Guild of America East. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelWinship

Articles by this author

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died September 18, 2020, sparking a political fight over her replacement as early voting has already begun for the next general election. (Photo: Steve Petteway/Supreme Court of the United States) Views
Sunday, September 20, 2020
Do the Right Thing: Obey RBG's Last Wish
Two memories: in February, I attended a public conversation my friend and colleague Bill Moyers conducted with Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Union Theological Seminary on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was there for the Judith Davidson Moyers Women of Spirit Award Lecture , and had postponed...
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Sunday, September 13, 2020
The Loudest Voices Make the Greatest Changes
In mid-May, this year’s Pulitzer Prizes were announced, and as I scrolled down the list of recipients, I was surprised and delighted to see that the award for music had gone to Anthony Davis’ opera The Central Park Five , its libretto written by my longtime friend and colleague Richard Wesley . The...
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U.S. President Donald Trump greets military leaders before his speech on Afghanistan at the Fort Myer military base on August 21, 2017 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Views
Monday, September 07, 2020
Our Fake Commander-in-Chief Steps on a Landmine—Again
Reading the latest story about Donald Trump’s grievous insults to the military, I thought of a scene that was cut from the original version of The Godfather . It comes right after the big wedding that opens the movie. Don Vito Corleone and his sons go to the hospital where his consigliere Genco...
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Sunday, August 30, 2020
For Trump and GOP, No Hope, Just the Audacity of Lies
During the first Clinton term, I worked on the public TV series In Performance at the White House . One of our episodes was an Aretha Franklin concert on the South Lawn. The show was great. It goes without saying what a remarkable talent she was. But Ms. Franklin was demanding, too. At one point...
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President Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a 2016 campaign rally at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/cc) Views
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Don’t Let This Mad, Manic President Wear You Down
Today’s conjugation lesson: I am worn out, you are worn out, we all are worn out. Worn out because for the past three years and more than 218 days we have been smothered by an endless mudslide from the Trump White House and the GOP-dominated Senate, a torrent of smear and abuse, corruption,...
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Monday, August 17, 2020
Stamp Out the Trump Attacks on Our Postal Service!
As one of our most august Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin would tell Donald Trump to go fly a kite. And hope for a major electrical storm. Then Ben would advise Trump to keep his mitts off our post office. By all accounts, Franklin was a smart and charming fellow, the kind of 18 th century...
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The newly-created Center for Health and Democracy, says founder Wendell Potter, is necessary because there "not nearly enough awareness of the problems associated with money in politics and why money in politics is a real barrier for this country to move forward on meaningful healthcare reform. We will be drawing attention to how big corporations and associations are spending enormous sums of money to influence campaigns and public policy, both legislation and regulations, and help explain why that is block Views
Saturday, August 08, 2020
Covid-19 'Has Laid Bare' the Crisis of Healthcare in America
Time flies. Hard to believe that it was twelve years ago that healthcare reform activist Wendell Potter left his job as head of corporate communications at Cigna and shortly after, loudly blew the whistle on the gross malpractices of the health insurance industry that had employed him. Ever since,...
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Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) questions Attorney General William Barr who appears before the House Oversight Committee on July 28, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. (Photo: Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images) Views
Saturday, August 01, 2020
It's Easy to Laugh at Louie Gohmert. But...
A few years ago, while I was president of the Writers Guild of America, East, several union members and I went down to Washington to hold a midday briefing on Capitol Hill about net neutrality . We were in the House Judiciary Committee hearing room in the Rayburn office building. To lure an...
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A crowd of about 1,500 protesters gather at the Multnomah County Justice center for a Black Lives Matter march on July 20, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. Monday night marked 54 days of protests in the city. (Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images) Views
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
"The World's Most Dangerous Man" Picks on Portland to Pick Up Votes
Watching the news from Portland, Oregon, where night after night anonymous Federal forces in combat gear and camouflage continued to go after protesters with tear gas, flashbangs, rubber bullets and batons, doing their damnedest to make a tough situation worse, I was again reminded of a simple fact...
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US President Donald Trump takes questions during a news conference in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on July 23, 2020. (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) Views
Friday, July 24, 2020
President, Plague, Bungler, Camera, TV
Listening to Donald Trump’s White House coronavirus briefings this week, his first in 90 days, I remembered an old joke: Doctor: There’s good news and bad news. Patient: What’s the bad news? Doctor: We amputated the wrong leg. Patient: Oh my god! What’s the good news? Doctor: The other one’s...
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