Mitch McConnell just did our constitutional order an enormous favor by burying the so-called Robert Mueller protection bill, hopefully never to rise again. There’s been much harumphing about how Republicans are in the tank for President Trump by not getting on board the bipartisan bill, but it is a singularly misbegotten piece of legislation. Plan […]
Op-Eds
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Voices of the Democratic Party have nothing new to say
By Ed Rogers Special To The Washington Post Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, are making an effort to lay out their priorities ahead of the 116th Congress. Given that Sanders is a top contender for the presidential nomination in 2020, and Ocasio-Cortez is the party’s star for the 2018 election […]
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The 2018 transition to . . . spending like a drunken sailor
(With apologies to all sailors who never drank to excess, it’s a phrase of historical context, no insult intended.) During a recent discussion about health care costs in Maine and Gov.-elect Janet Mills’ promise to expand Medicaid immediately upon taking office, the question arose as to whether the carefully set aside “Rainy Day Fund” of […]
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America treats illegal immigration worse than most crimes
By Kenneth Roth Special To The Washington Post Who is an American? Traditionally, we look to citizenship to answer that question, but the issue is more complicated than legal labels. Even President Donald Trump seems to recognize this in his periodic openness to negotiating comprehensive immigration reform. Among the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the […]
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Latest climate report worth only thing — the trash can
Each time an end-of-the-world prophecy is delivered — whether by a self-deluded preacher, a group of politicians or scientists — we are told that we must believe. Never mind how many of their prophecies have been wrong in the past, this time they mean it. The latest prophecy of doom and planetary extinction comes from […]
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A case of all the justice that money could buy
No one even knows how many girls there were. Federal prosecutors identified 36. In “Perversion of Justice,” a stunning piece of investigative work by Julie K. Brown that was published last week, the Miami Herald reported that it has found 80. But accounts given by the girls themselves suggest there may be hundreds. Hundreds. We’re […]
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As U.S. influence wanes, China stands ready to step in
NEW YORK — The G-20 summit in Argentina is taking place at a moment when the United States still stands at the center of the world. The U.S. economy is booming, the dollar is almighty, American technology companies continue to dominate the new digital economy, and the U.S. military remains the unrivaled master of land, […]
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Gene editing is here and it's an enormous threat
WASHINGTON — A Chinese scientist’s claim to have created the first genetically edited babies has evoked widespread condemnation from the scientific community. “This is far too premature,” one American genetic scientist told the Associated Press. But here is a larger question: Should we be doing this at all? The Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, used a […]
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Successful bad ideas
The United States has been a world leader for more than a century because we are a country of ideas. Much of what is now the world’s commonplace began as an idea in the head of some American. We have had just the right combination of individualism and cooperation to come up with ideas (individuals) […]
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This week's election in Augusta: It's not over yet
News that U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin is not only challenging in federal court the 2nd Congressional District outcome but is also requesting a recount is a reminder that the conclusion of some elections seem to be never ending. It also brings to mind the fact that some of the most important elections have yet even […]