To alter a sentence by Abraham Lincoln, “You cannot please all the people all the time.” Still, maybe we oughta try. We often have but one opportunity to make a relationship, be it romance, friendship or business. It’s not, as Woody Allen said, that “80 percent of life is showing up.” Sometimes he says “success” […]
Op-Eds
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Trump isn't attacking NATO. He's strengthening it.
WASHINGTON —As President Trump put Germany and other allies on notice for the harm they are doing to NATO with their failure to spend adequately on our common defense, Democrats in Washington came to Germany’s defense. “President Trump’s brazen insults and denigration of one of America’s most steadfast allies, Germany, is an embarrassment,” Senate Minority […]
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Why aren't wages rising?
WASHINGTON — It’s a mystery. The U.S. economy seems strong. Since the nadir of the Great Recession, employers have added about 19 million workers. The unemployment rate is 4 percent, near the lowest level since 2000. By standard economic theory, the strong demand for labor should be pushing up wages. But that isn’t happening. Wage […]
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Sweden prepares for Russian aggression
Russia’s heinous 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea continues to spur military responses in Free Europe. This week, Finland’s and Sweden’s defense ministers signed a defense agreement covering operations in war time as well as peace time training and crisis preparation. Since Moscow’s Crimean caper, closer defense cooperation to the point of military alliance has […]
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Don't cry for Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel is, her supporters like to gloat, the leader of the free world. Just don’t ask her to spend as if she is. Donald Trump has made the German chancellor one of his favorite rhetorical targets, especially over Germany’s anemic defense expenditures. This has led to worries about the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance, […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
The Strzok hearing damaged our democracy
Tempers boiled over on Capitol Hill Thursday as Peter Strzok, the FBI official at the center of President Donald Trump’s attempts to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller, testified before a joint meeting of two House oversight committees. With all its yelling and interruptions, the hearing was a fitting coda to the hyperpartisan farce of an […]
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How many times must we save people who overdose?
A deeply humane friend recently suggested that medics stop saving people on their third opioid overdose. The subject was naloxone, a medication that can yank users from the jaws of death. It can be given via Narcan nasal spray or injection. My friend surprised me. I thought that if a life could be so easily […]
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Vulnerable Democrats should hope for GOP unity on Kavanaugh
WASHINGTON — It is difficult to imagine any Republican senator opposing President Trump’s nomination to the Supreme Court of Brett M. Kavanaugh, a judge with impeccable credentials, strong intellect and sterling character. If Republicans stay united, Kavanaugh’s confirmation as the next associate justice is assured. And no one is praying harder for Republican unity than […]
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Is Europe awakening to the threat?
Much of Europe was asleep, or in denial, when the Nazis took power and began rebuilding their military in violation of the Versailles Treaty that brought World War I to an end. Now, after years of virtually unlimited migration from predominately North African and other Muslim regions, some European nations are awakening to what this […]
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Roe v. Wade Is Yesterday's Fight
If the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, the right to an abortion might no longer be law of the land. But the ability to obtain one would remain a fact of the land. It might be harder to end a pregnancy in some states, but there would be no returning to the […]