At Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue Asian security summit, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis once again displayed his masterful mix of strong personal presence and measured tone as he articulated the Trump Administration’s careful and forceful policy for addressing the region’s security issues. Careful but forceful is required, for the east Asian littoral is a 21st […]
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Presidential rule started with Obama
The Trump administration has been exhaustingly eventful, but almost none of the events have involved Congress. The beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency has been an extension of the past six years of the Obama administration, when Capitol Hill was largely a sideshow to the main event in the executive branch in general and the Oval […]
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U.S. influence in the world declines
NEW YORK — We now have a Trump Doctrine, and it is, in its conception at least, the most radical departure from a bipartisan American foreign policy since 1945. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and national security adviser H.R. McMaster explain that President Trump has “a […]
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There are good reasons for cuts to Medicare
By Charles Lane The Washington Post President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal 2018 is being condemned, right and left, for the cuts it imposes on various federal programs. Too little attention is being paid to the necessary economizing the Trump budget avoids — specifically, with regard to Medicare. Medicare covers physician services, hospitalization and […]
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Maintain faith in America’s political system
WASHINGTON — I am not a big or even a little fan of President Donald Trump. Many of his policies strike me as undesirable, some in the extreme. His background and temperament have not prepared him for the presidency. He is largely ignorant of many issues he must face. And yet, for all this, the […]
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Twin Cities lost 80 years of experience in retirements
Qaulified, talented civil servants deserve our respect Lewiston and Auburn are losing some of their ablest civil servants to retirement. At the end of this month, Lewiston Library Director Richard Speer will be retiring, followed at the end of June by Lewiston Deputy City Administrator Phil Nadeau. Both were preceded by Auburn Development Director Roland […]
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Saudis might be engaging in duplicity
Trusting Saudi Arabia to combat terrorists and extremists and “drive them out,” as President Trump called on the kingdom and other Arab and Muslim nations to do in his Riyadh speech, is akin to forging an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan to combat racism and anti-Semitism. Saudi Arabia has for years promoted the very […]
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Middle East peace comes through Saudi Arabia
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first tempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” — Irving Kristol WASHINGTON — The quixotic American pursuit of Middle East peace is a perennial. It invariably fails, yet every administration feels compelled to give it a try. The Trump administration is no different. It will fail as well. To be […]
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New oil, gas recovery techniques aid diplomacy
Sophisticated American and Canadian energy industries have given the Free World an economic boost and a powerful diplomatic weapon. The North American “fracking” revolution — hydraulic fracturing to tap vast reservoirs of “tight” natural gas and oil — has altered the world’s strategic calculus. U.S. and Canadian firms began experimenting with advanced oil and gas […]
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Marketplace of ideas has gotten washed away
I call it pouring water on concrete. You make a splash, but nothing sinks in. That’s what it has felt like lately arguing via tweet and email with supporters of President Dumpster Fire who insist there is “no evidence” he did anything to merit the investigations and talk of impeachment he now faces. It is, […]