South Sudan’s civil war began on the night of December 15, 2013, when a firefight erupted between soldiers serving in the presidential garrison in the capital city, Juba. “Between” is an important word. The battle pitted soldiers from the Dinka tribe (largest in South Sudan) against soldiers in the Nuer tribe (second largest). The government, […]
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Economy looking better for blacks
WASHINGTON — Here’s some good — and generally overlooked — news about the U.S. economy: Among major ethnic and racial groups, African-Americans scored the biggest job advances in 2015. This conclusion comes from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a left-leaning think tank and advocacy group. It reports that black Americans made “notable employment gains … […]
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Clean energy sources continue strong push
Why cheap oil isn’t bad for the environment It stood to reason that collapsing prices for oil would make clean energy relatively more expensive. That would dampen the public’s craving to install solar panels and build wind turbines. Well, let’s try to reason again. A lot of opposing forces are shaking the old assumptions. In […]
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Wanna be president? Start in New York
NEW YORK — Has anyone noticed? If the presidential race were baseball, then what’s shaping up would be called a Subway Series. But instead of the Mets and the Yankees, we’re getting Trump and (maybe) Bloomberg of Manhattan, Sanders of Brooklyn and Clinton who is headquartered in the same borough. New York is back — […]
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Democrats balk on campaign finance reform
By Francis Barry Bloomberg View For all of Bernie Sanders’ populist crusading against the political influence of “millionaires and billionaires,” when faced with a rare chance to pass major campaign-finance reform, he voted against it, putting the party’s biggest donors first. The vote is worth remembering not only for what it says about Sanders, but […]
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Children should know courage has no gender
I used to consider women pitifully weak and pathetically delicate. For this, I blame Marvel Comics. As a boy in the 1960s, I was seldom without my nose in one of that company’s fables. From them, I learned many valuable life lessons: Always lock the portal to the Negative Zone Never ignore your spider-sense Mutants […]
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Trump the wrong choice for president
When the publisher of National Review Magazine, Jack Fowler, called and asked me to write 300 words on why I oppose Donald Trump for president of the United States, my first thought was about the derision that was sure to come from Trump supporters. I was not disappointed, or rather I am disappointed that no […]
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I have some questions that need answering
By Jennifer Rubin The Washington Post Unless there is significant shift in polling, the same seven candidates who faced off last time, in the Charleston, South Carolina, debate, will meet in Iowa on January 28, just three days before the first votes are cast in the caucuses. Plenty has happened since the last debate. We […]
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What’s behind the stock selloff?
WASHINGTON — Capitalism has always been an epic struggle between risk and reward, and the easiest way to understand the present turmoil in world stock markets is to recognize that the two have reversed. Risk has gone up, and reward has come down. Investors have reacted by selling. Fear triumphs over greed. This, of course, […]
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Let 18-year-olds decide about alcohol
In America, alleged land of freedom, a 19-year-old soldier just back from Afghanistan can’t sidle up to a bar and legally order a beer. In supposedly regulation-crazed Europe, meanwhile, an 18-year-old can order a martini. In the beer-drinking cultures of Belgium and Germany, a 16-year-old can ask for beer or wine. Do you detect a […]