Critical facts on the ground don’t support the cynical assessment that Yemen’s chaotic war pits everyone against one another in a confused melee of carnage and starvation. Stipulate the key combatant coalitions, the Saudi Arabia-led pro-Yemen government coalition and the Iran-backed Houthi rebel confederation — both have political weaknesses. Despite their flaws, they manage to […]
Op-Eds
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The time a black man joined the Ku Klux Klan
And now here is this week’s episode of Great Moments in Black History. The year is 1979. Jimmy Carter is in office, disco is on the radio and Ron Stallworth has just joined the Ku Klux Klan. We are indebted to the Deseret Morning News, of Salt Lake City, for revealing this in an article […]
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Prison reform: An unlikely GOP issue
Prison reform has normally been an issue embraced by Democrats, not Republicans. But, perhaps, like so many other things in the Trump administration, this, too, is about to change. Last Thursday, President Trump held a roundtable discussion at his Bedminster, New Jersey, property, five governors were in attendance. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, […]
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President’s trade policies cannot work
WASHINGTON — When all is said and done, President Trump’s trade war may be fated to fail. There are many reasons why. One is that the target countries — prominently, China, Japan and Germany — won’t accede to his demands. This is already happening. Another threat is a backlash among U.S. firms, hurt by tariffs […]
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Comic relief as we wait for Trump to be gone
Rick Wilson was minding his own business as a Republican operative when Donald Trump happened. Though his commercials for GOP candidates often pressed thorns in liberal flanks, he won broad respect as a principled conservative. Trump has made Wilson stark raving mad. The charges? Betraying the conservative movement and putting the Republican Party at risk. […]
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Don't ban Alex Jones
It’s just gotten a little easier for the government to control the weather. Social media sites moved en masse to ban Alex Jones, the self-parodic conspiracy theorist. Jones is a poisonous toad who leveraged his compellingly ridiculous persona and bizarre rants into considerable notoriety and a lucrative dietary supplement empire. He doesn’t represent anything new. […]
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The huge 'if' of Medicare for all
Imagine a world in which the rosy assumptions Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., makes on behalf of his “Medicare for all” health-care plan turn out to be true. That is what Charles Blahous, a professor at George Mason University’s libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center, did in a paper released last month. He found that the government would expand […]
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Universal corruption in Maine — another referendum vote
As part of the unending quest by certain groups to drum Maine into another socialist paradise like Venezuela, Maine voters in November will again be faced with yet another misleadingly worded “referendum.” This one is given the golly-gee-who-could-be-against-that title of “Universal Home Care.” Sounds appealing — “free” home care for the elderly and disabled? Think: […]
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Advice for the president
Dear Mr. President, “Would you take this advice I hand you like a brother”? It’s a song lyric from the musical “The Pajama Game,” but fitting here. There is a way you can hang onto your base, keeping them engaged, energized, without the constant Twitter assaults on those who criticize you for attacking them. If […]
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Democrats have their own foreign espionage problem
WASHINGTON — Imagine if it emerged that the Republican chairman of the House or Senate intelligence committee had a Russian spy working on their senate staff. Think it would cause a political firestorm? Well, this week we learned that Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., had a Chinese spy on her staff who worked for her for […]