Opelika-Auburn News says the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest decision on sports gambling is concerning: It was tough enough on sports-crazed universities such as Auburn and Alabama when last fall the FBI began revealing its findings and accusations in a nationwide,…
Posted: 20 May 2018 [08:55 PM] Posted: 18 May 2018 [08:58 PM] Opinion Editor and Political Columnist for PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. For a man who likes to brag about what a big builder he is, President Donald Trump spends a lot of time burning stuff down. From his pursuit of…
Posted: 17 May 2018 [06:55 PM] North Korea’s latest threats haven’t yet doomed the summit planned between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un - but they underscore a vital point. The White House should prepare itself and the American people for failure. Comments from one of…
Posted: 17 May 2018 [06:53 PM] The Washington Post If you ask people what caused the opioid crisis ravaging our country, you’ll no doubt hear that doctors are to blame for handing out painkiller prescriptions too liberally. That narrative makes sense: Over the past few decades,…
Posted: 17 May 2018 [06:51 PM] The Washington Post I was not, alas, close to Tom Wolfe. I knew him only slightly: I saw him at occasional parties and dinners at his Upper East Side haunts, including the Lotos Club, where a glorious full-length portrait of…
Posted: 17 May 2018 [06:50 PM] To understand the sorry state of federal public corruption law and its present inability to punish even the most egregious influencepeddling, consider a hypothetical scenario involving President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen was reportedly paid several million dollars over…
Posted: 16 May 2018 [06:51 PM] Americans might differ over the finer points of the Founding Fathers’ plan to share war-making authority between the executive and legislative branches, but the basic principle has always been clear. Congress, and only Congress, has the power to declare war;…
Posted: 15 May 2018 [08:42 PM] It has been a year since Special Counsel Robert Mueller took over the Justice Department’s Russia investigation. Since then, by all appearances, he has performed with professionalism, integrity and remarkable efficiency. That is not President Donald Trump’s view, of course.…
Posted: 15 May 2018 [08:41 PM] Endorsing Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton for governor at their convention over the weekend, the Republican state convention selected the party’s most experienced and vetted candidate, a moderate with a long record of governmental and electoral success in a Democratic city.…
Posted: 15 May 2018 [08:39 PM] There are two Mueller probes. There’s the one that exists in the Fox News-addled mind of President Donald Trump and his supporters, which features dark conspiracy-mongering about a “Deep State coup” against Trump; out-of-control federal agents jackbooting poor, hapless Trump…
Posted: 15 May 2018 [08:36 PM] Eating too much added sugar has become one of the riskiest health behaviors in the modern world. None too soon, governments are waking up to the fact. Staggering under the burden of increasingly overweight populations, more than 30 countries have…
Posted: 14 May 2018 [08:01 PM] A growing number of U.S. companies are reviewing their policies on selling guns or dealing with firms that do. This has put the Republican Party in a quandary. How is it to respond, for instance, to Citigroup’s recent demand that…
Posted: 13 May 2018 [08:29 PM] Is the age of political polling dead? Not if one considers the record number of surveys being disseminated to the public. What polling has lost, however, is the credibility that its numbers reflect a true measure of public mood, which…
Posted: 11 May 2018 [08:41 PM] The toll of pedestrians killed by terrorists using vehicles as indiscriminate weapons has prompted big-city police departments to reassess long-standing policies governing officers’ use of deadly force. In several U.S. cities, including the District of Columbia, blanket rules banning police…
Posted: 10 May 2018 [07:59 PM] It is a tribute to the resilience of the United States’ public and private institutions that, despite President Donald Trump’s incoherent management, the country has, by many measures, continued to improve, notching its lowest unemployment rate since 2000 in the…
Posted: 09 May 2018 [08:10 PM] Attorney General Jeff Sessions is indifferent about whether undocumented immigrants crossing into the United States are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families or whether they are fleeing domestic abuse, drug cartels, extortion rackets or political violence.…
Posted: 08 May 2018 [08:53 PM] Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani does not believe that President Donald Trump should sit down with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and simply tell the truth. “Every lawyer in America thinks he would be a fool to testify,” Giuliani insisted…
Posted: 08 May 2018 [08:51 PM] With the nomination of Gina Haspel to be the next director of the CIA, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement may have arrived at the CIA. For the women of the CIA’s clandestine service, having one of our own be nominated…
Posted: 08 May 2018 [08:50 PM] The Washington Post WASHINGTON - Do you wonder why the proportion of Americans declaring themselves unaffiliated with organized religion has skyrocketed in recent decades? This trend is especially pronounced among adults under 30, roughly 40 percent of whom claim no…
Posted: 08 May 2018 [08:48 PM] The Post reports: “In an unusual Rose Garden address Monday, Melania Trump said that “too often social media is used in negative ways” and that she plans to dedicate the rest of her time as first lady to bringing attention…
Posted: 07 May 2018 [06:05 PM] In New Hampshire and Maine it is legal to carry a concealed loaded firearm without first getting a permit or license, essentially stripping police chiefs of the power to evaluate whether someone poses a danger to the public. If you…
Posted: 06 May 2018 [09:07 PM] If Americans were 25 times as likely to die of cancer as citizens of other wealthy nations, the federal government would be pouring billions into research to find the causes. Yet there is much less interest in examining why the…
Posted: 04 May 2018 [07:17 PM] For many years, Democrats have been convinced that the American people, and even their Republican opponents, are open to persuasion. If they could just have the opportunity to explain why their policies are morally right and practically effective, they could…
Posted: 04 May 2018 [07:14 PM] Almost nobody was aware Rudy Giuliani was going to blow up the Stormy Daniels situation Wednesday night, and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Thursday that this included her. “The first awareness I had was during the interview last night,”…
Posted: 04 May 2018 [07:12 PM] There’s something extremely fishy about President Donald Trump’s tweets on Thursday morning about the source of the money his lawyer Michael Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement. Trump, echoing what his lawyer Rudy Giuliani said…
Posted: 04 May 2018 [07:10 PM] Two former National Football League cheerleaders who have filed discrimination complaints against the league have offered to settle their claims. They don’t want a lot of money or even an admission of guilt. All they are asking for is the…
Posted: 03 May 2018 [08:04 PM] Favorable winds are blowing from offshore - winds that literally will bolster the economic and environmental futures for both the region and state, as long as state officials and regulators move decisively. Connecticut last week received three proposals vying to…
Posted: 03 May 2018 [08:02 PM] The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- One of the many costs of the Trump era is the dumbing down of our political discourse. The incoherent spoken and tweeted outpourings from President Trump and the daily outrages of his administration leave little…
Posted: 03 May 2018 [08:00 PM] The Federal Reserve has successfully led financial markets to price in its baseline interest rate signals for 2018. In concluding the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Wednesday, policy makers will face the important question of how far to go…
Posted: 02 May 2018 [09:04 PM] There is a painful, chronic lack of affordable housing in urban areas. The causes are often rooted in local law and policy, notably exclusionary zoning that limits high-density projects so as to protect the property values of single-family homeowners. So…
Posted: 02 May 2018 [09:02 PM] Since most people know better than to ask the barber if they need a haircut, why does state government bother asking educators if it should economize with education? Like barbers, educators will give only one answer. But worse than asking…
Posted: 02 May 2018 [09:01 PM] Credit Israeli intelligence for another coup: Its agents smuggled 100,000 pages of documents out of Iran about that country’s nuclear program. The mullahs will now have to patch a major security leak. But the revelations contained in those papers are…
Posted: 02 May 2018 [08:59 PM] The call to defend democracy by French President Emmanuel Macron in a speech to Congress last week resonated in Washington, but it is even more relevant to the European Union. What is supposed to be a community of 28 free…
Posted: 01 May 2018 [08:47 PM] Tammie Jo Shults is commercial aviation’s latest hero. So why aren’t there more pilots like her? The Southwest Airlines captain, praised for her cool handling of an April 24 depressurization and emergency landing in Philadelphia after the Boeing 737’s engine…
Posted: 01 May 2018 [08:44 PM] Gov. LePage on Wednesday vetoed a bill because, he says, it would limit his power as chief executive. He’s right - and that’s exactly the point. The governor wants to use his executive power to all but eliminate a program…
Posted: 01 May 2018 [08:43 PM] The White House has confirmed that President Donald Trump will be addressing the National Rifle Association convention taking place this weekend, as will Vice President Mike Pence, joining Diamond and Silk on the already star-studded speaker’s list. While Trump has…
Posted: 01 May 2018 [08:41 PM] According to many national security observers, foreign dignitaries and the president himself, Donald Trump deserves a lot of credit for the seemingly successful Korea summit in Panmunjom late last week. Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell told CBS News: “I…
Posted: 30 April 2018 [07:51 PM] Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s expanding ethical cloud is one reason he should not be the nation’s top environmental officer. The other is that he seems determined to ruin the environment. Two major EPA announcements last week illustrate his…
Posted: 30 April 2018 [07:47 PM] Whenever a police officer falls in the line of duty, their sacrifice reawakens gratitude among those they protect. There is no higher calling than putting one’s own life on the line in the service of the community, and when…
Posted: 29 April 2018 [09:22 PM] If a national security policy is irrational and inspired by religious bias, can it still be legal? The Supreme Court had to weigh this question Wednesday as it considered a challenge to President Donald Trump’s travel ban. Morally and practically,…
Posted: 27 April 2018 [09:14 PM] WASHINGTON - The early story line about President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron focused on their “bromance” and Trump’s puerile claim to dominance when he brushed what he said was dandruff off Macron’s suit. But on the last day…
Posted: 27 April 2018 [08:58 PM] Although Cuba has a new leader, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio still is not impressed by the internal politics of Florida’s tiny island neighbor. Last week, after Cubans went through the motions to pick a new president, Florida’s Republican junior senator…
Posted: 27 April 2018 [08:57 PM] Connecticut’s campaign for governor is promising an election that means something, if not yet one with a good chance of saving the state. The leading candidates for the Democratic nomination have pledged themselves to take orders from the government employee…
Posted: 27 April 2018 [08:57 PM] You don’t want to live in my state. Sure, it’s beautiful. The weather is great. And most people who live here are nice, good, successful, talented, smart - except when it comes to politics and voting. That’s when a majority…
Posted: 26 April 2018 [07:58 PM] The Guardian has published a new investigation into Sean Hannity’s real estate holdings. As it turns out, Hannity was not above using government money to help finance his investments, purchasing two apartment buildings in Georgia with the help of a…
Posted: 25 April 2018 [07:48 PM] Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and consistently the most competent person in the Trump administration, just sent a clear message to the vaping industry: He’s not tolerating its nonsense. The FDA, Gottlieb announced Tuesday, has uncovered…
Posted: 24 April 2018 [07:54 PM] The annual Pulitzer Prize winners were announced this week, and as usual, they include examples of exceptional journalism: sexual harassment in major industries, the U.S. Senate race in Alabama, white supremacists in Virginia and the fires in Sonoma County. But…
Posted: 24 April 2018 [07:53 PM] The Trump administration’s failing campaign to bully so-called sanctuary states and cities by denying federal grants to police departments unless they offer unconditional cooperation to U.S. deportation agents is a study in the arrogance of power. Nowhere did Congress impose…
Posted: 24 April 2018 [07:51 PM] In recent weeks, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has capitulated to political pressure from the president and his allies in Congress. He has yielded to demands from the most rabid opponents of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe in a way…
Posted: 24 April 2018 [07:50 PM] In 1982, when Donald Trump was 36, he began an annual ritual of lobbying Forbes magazine to include him on its list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. Forbes debuted the list that year, and Trump pursued his inclusion with gusto…
