Last week was a big one for billionaires. Kylie Jenner, kid sister of reality-television star Kim Kardashian, scored a Forbes magazine cover extolling her efforts at the helm of her makeup company, valued by the magazine at $800 million. The…
Posted: 18 July 2018 [05:05 PM] Posted: 18 July 2018 [05:03 PM] WASHINGTON - Surely, now, we can concede that letting Trump be Trump has exhausted itself - even among the smugly credulous. For a year and a half, we’ve heard his supporters say: Watch what he does, not what he says.…
Posted: 18 July 2018 [05:03 PM] The U.S. economy continues to show strength in the wake of tax reform and deregulation, but the downside of robust growth is that Donald Trump thinks this means he can dabble at trade war with impunity. He ought to…
Posted: 18 July 2018 [05:01 PM] “Our relationship has never been worse than it is now,” President Donald Trump said in a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday. I was the assigned duty officer at Fort Niagara in Youngstown, New York,…
Posted: 18 July 2018 [04:51 PM] President Donald Trump on Tuesday tried to calm the wave of criticism that has pummeled him since his ignoble Monday news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. “I have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies,”…
Posted: 17 July 2018 [06:33 PM] On Monday, I tweeted about the summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin - and it seems to have hit a nerve among Republicans. I wrote: “GOP better be thinking about what to do about a [president]…
Posted: 17 July 2018 [06:32 PM] Smug, self-righteous, politically correct New Haven, where it takes only minutes to assemble a rally denouncing President Trump, supporting illegal immigration, accusing someone of racism, or condemning freethinkers, presumes to run the world while it can’t even take care of…
Posted: 17 July 2018 [06:31 PM] Maybe there never will be any rest for them. Even in an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., titled “The Sweat of Their Face: Portraying American Workers,” laborers of every kind - slaves and free people, clockmakers…
Posted: 17 July 2018 [06:31 PM] Many local youths, teens and young adults are engaging in risky behavior and the results could end in tragedy, according to authorities. Cliff jumping into the Wassel Reservoir on the Southington end of the dam and swimmers taking the leap…
Posted: 16 July 2018 [04:21 PM] WASHINGTON - When it comes to President Trump, it’s hard to pick his worst decision from the plethora he has provided. His most recent - to brazenly insult our NATO allies - surely ranks among the top three in my…
Posted: 16 July 2018 [04:20 PM] Thank you, Rod J. Rosenstein. You are just the person the country needed to hear from right now. The deputy attorney general’s announcement Friday that a dozen Russian intelligence agents have been charged with conspiring to hack Democrats during the…
Posted: 16 July 2018 [04:20 PM] To The Editor: Every election or primary season we are faced with the difficult decision of who will represent us the best in government. For the Democratic primary on Aug. 14, the choice is clear for the 9th Senate District:…
Posted: 16 July 2018 [04:19 PM] Dear Granddaddy, I can’t stand it when I see parents who don’t watch their kids. Jessica - Mad Mom Hey, Jessica. I would say that today most of us parents really do watch our kids. In…
Posted: 16 July 2018 [04:19 PM] They say, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but can you help them learn to love a new family? The Connecticut Humane Society in Newington believes all older pets - whether they are dogs or cats, rabbits…
Posted: 15 July 2018 [08:26 PM] The extraordinary rescue of the 12 young footballers and their coach from a flooded cave network in Thailand is a magnificent story of human indomitability and ingenuity. The most eagerly followed rescue mission since 33 Chilean miners were trapped for…
Posted: 15 July 2018 [08:24 PM] The Washington Post People line up to file past the open, butternut brown casket at the African-American museum, silently paying tribute. Men remove their hats, mothers wipe at tears as Mahalia Jackson’s voice fills the room. “I once was…
Posted: 15 July 2018 [08:23 PM] The Washington Post When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico last fall, President Donald Trump playfully lobbed rolls of paper towels to those taking shelter. He also lobbed praise at first responders and other federal officials. Everything was going great,…
Posted: 15 July 2018 [08:21 PM] One hundred and three. That’s the number of small children a federal judge ordered the federal government to reunite with their migrant parents by Tuesday. Yet even that modest number proved too taxing for the Trump administration, which wrenched toddlers…
Posted: 13 July 2018 [07:13 PM] Ever since Britain voted to leave the European Union two years ago, the exit has been complicated by the refusal of its chief promoters to face the fundamental contradictions in their position. They claimed that the country could escape from…
Posted: 13 July 2018 [07:12 PM] WASHINGTON - Be prepared for a festival of hypocrisy, evasion and misdirection from supporters of the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Begin with the idea that because Kavanaugh is qualified, well-educated, intelligent and likable, senators should…
Posted: 13 July 2018 [07:11 PM] As an activist for Asian-Americans, I am skeptical of the lawsuit brought against Harvard University for the perceived unequal treatment of Asian-Americans in college admissions. The case, filed by the advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions, purports to represent my…
Posted: 13 July 2018 [07:07 PM] There is nothing new about the complaints President Donald Trump voiced Wednesday about spending by NATO members and Germany’s importing of Russian gas - remarks that got a summit meeting intended to be a show of transatlantic unity off to…
Posted: 12 July 2018 [06:01 PM] Hours after the last teenager made it out of a cave in Thailand alive, Elon Musk started a Twitter argument over how much credit he deserved for offering to help save the kids. The rescue efforts captured international attention for…
Posted: 12 July 2018 [05:56 PM] WASHINGTON - Even before President Trump announced his nomination Monday of federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill departing Justice Anthony Kennedy’s slot on the Supreme Court, the foul scent of anti-Catholicism began seeping into public commentary. In particular,…
Posted: 12 July 2018 [05:56 PM] Liberals throughout the country applauded three years ago when, proclaiming that the Constitution requires states to confer same-sex marriage, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed 44 years of precedent in constitutional law as well as practice going back to the adoption…
Posted: 12 July 2018 [05:55 PM] We are rightfully concerned about and should be vigilant when it comes to preventing child abuse. But something that often flies under the public radar is elder abuse. We must be ever alert to that, too. A recent report from…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:06 PM] Controversial shootings by police lead to a national outcry and a range of reforms that reduce police killings of suspects by half. Sound like a pie-in-the-sky hope for the future? It’s precisely what happened in the 1970s and ‘80s. America’s…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:06 PM] In the annals of screwball commentary about media conspiracies, the Washington Examiner’s chief congressional correspondent Susan Ferrechio distinguished herself. She was speaking with host Howard Kurtz on the Fox News program “Media Buzz” on just how former Environmental Protection Agency…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:05 PM] To The Editor: My Gov. Malloy has done marvelous things for Connecticut, and no one is thanking him. I’m tired of people criticizing politicians. Governor Malloy rebuilt the economy of the city of Stamford. He has been rebuilding the economy…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:04 PM] To The Editor: Erin Stewart says she’s running for lieutenant governor because Republicans in Connecticut can’t win with “two white men” on the ticket. Talk about the worst kind of identity politics! That’s a statement right out of the Democrats’…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:04 PM] To The Editor: Funny thing – Dannel Malloy, Connecticut’s tax-and-spend governor, has something notably in common with the Republican mayor of New Britain, Erin Stewart. Both have the distinction of imposing the second highest tax increases ever on state and…
Posted: 11 July 2018 [06:03 PM] President Donald Trump’s former chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, spoke out against his former boss’ trade policies recently. He said the result of Trump’s trade war with China as well as traditional U.S. allies could cancel out the economic benefits…
Posted: 10 July 2018 [07:15 PM] So it’s Judge Brett Kavanaugh. There will be time enough to explore the nominee’s views and record. Let’s step back a bit and get some perspective on the national debate that we are about to have. Those on the left…
Posted: 10 July 2018 [07:13 PM] WASHINGTON - So many policy proposals aimed at reducing economic inequality emphasize moving disadvantaged people into higher-paying, higher-skilled jobs, typically with more access to education and training. We do need to invest far more in expanding opportunity for fellow citizens…
Posted: 10 July 2018 [07:12 PM] Dear Granddaddy, I have been reading your column and just wanted to let you know that I’m applying your strategy of self-assigned homework so I can jump ahead another year in math over the summer. Savanna B. - Seventh…
Posted: 10 July 2018 [07:09 PM] For decades, the U.S. system of higher education has operated on a unique premise: To make college affordable for a broad swathe of Americans, student debt must be an almost inviolable obligation. Now, authorities are starting to question that assumption.…
Posted: 09 July 2018 [03:55 PM] President Donald Trump has finally told us how he regards the #MeToo movement: with #contempt. Trump announced as much at a rally in Montana on Thursday night, when he mocked the pain of the women and men who have come…
Posted: 09 July 2018 [03:54 PM] What a great July 4. The skies over America the Beautiful were filled with fireworks, and the Twittersphere was filled with three Democratic senators blowing themselves up. My U.S. senator Kamal Harris, Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren and New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand…
Posted: 09 July 2018 [03:52 PM] Prompted by poses struck by candidates for the Republican nomination for governor, the Hartford Business Journal asked its readers the other day: “Can Connecticut realistically eliminate the state income tax and produce a balanced state budget?” Two-thirds of the readers…
Posted: 09 July 2018 [03:51 PM] You know these are interesting times in the U.S. economy when it’s a positive sign that the unemployment rate just went up. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the jobless rate ticked up from 3.8 percent in May to…
Posted: 08 July 2018 [08:49 PM] The sudden call by some Democrats to abolish ICE - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency whose multipronged mission includes deportation - makes a better bumper sticker than a blueprint for policy. Like eradicating the Internal Revenue Service, the…
Posted: 08 July 2018 [08:47 PM] Just a month has passed since the high-profile deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, yet suicide has already dropped off the public radar. That’s because it’s far too easy to personalize individual tragedies; far more difficult is confronting the…
Posted: 08 July 2018 [08:46 PM] By The Washington Post The first round of U.S. tariffs on China took effect Friday: Will July 6, 2018, turn out to be a date that lives in economic infamy, like June 17, 1930, the day President Herbert…
Posted: 08 July 2018 [08:45 PM] The Washington Post A few days ago, reporters on Air Force One asked President Donald Trump if he would accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. They had good reason to do so. As Trump prepares for…
Posted: 06 July 2018 [06:02 PM] It’s hard to imagine a better quick story summing up the Donald Trump administration than the one that broke Sunday night about a bill the White House was preparing to, as Jonathan Swan at Axios put it, “declare America’s abandonment…
Posted: 06 July 2018 [06:00 PM] WASHINGTON - We human beings cling to dogmas long after they’re disproven. We tend to believe things that make us feel better or remind of us of a past that we miss. This is certainly true of our assumptions about…
Posted: 06 July 2018 [05:58 PM] It’s increasingly clear that President Donald Trump isn’t really confused about how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s funding really works. Rather, he doesn’t care, because he wants a different global security system from the current one. In Trump’s vision, the…
Posted: 06 July 2018 [05:58 PM] A conviction for a low-level crime shouldn’t come with a life sentence. But many Pennsylvanians who undergo background checks when they seek jobs or housing are haunted by such past indiscretions for years after they commit them. That is going…
Posted: 05 July 2018 [07:46 PM] According to the old saw, anyone who wishes to maintain respect for sausages and laws should not see how either are made. Congress has just finished validating that aphorism by engaging in the sorry every-five-years exercise known as drafting a…
Posted: 05 July 2018 [07:43 PM] The Washington Post “Abolish ICE” has become the new rallying cry of the left, which is trying to turn the fury Americans are feeling about the horrors at the Mexican border on the little-understood agency known as U.S. Immigration and…
