WASHINGTON — Just two weeks ago, President Trump’s acting budget director stood in the White House briefing room and proclaimed that the spreading coronavirus hadn’t clouded the administration’s rosy economic outlook.
Valentine’s Day is a befuddling time — bewildering, confusing.
Americans loathe the pharmaceutical industry. It ranks dead last in a recent Gallup poll that tracks the public’s opinion of 25 different sectors.
“The Constitution,” Alan Dershowitz claims, “allocates to the president sole authority over foreign policy (short of declaring war or signing a treaty).”
Thanksgiving is here. Along with turkey and mashed potatoes, one thing can be counted on: Awkward dinner table conversations. And unfortunately, this year the main course is a political matter.
Is government-facilitated re-importation of prescription medicines from Canada — a policy now supported by politicians as diverse as President Donald Trump and Senator Bernard Sanders – an issue of free trade, or a backdoor method of imposing price controls? That’s the way the question is usually framed in policy debates, but the great Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman took a third view.
WASHINGTON — President Trump has proved to the 21st century that Lord Acton’s 19th-century maxim still holds: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump, an ongoing eruption of self-refuting statements (“I’m a very stable genius” with “a very good brain”), is adding self-impeachment to his repertoire.
WASHINGTON -- There are many things to fear about the Trump presidency. Scariest of all may be those things we don't even know we have to worry about -- such as President Trump preparing to surrender to the Taliban at Camp David on the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
HONG KONG -- The masked men who recently tossed firebombs at Jimmy Lai's home targeted one of this city's foremost democracy advocates. Lai, a 71-year-old media billionaire, calls this summer's ongoing protest "a martyrdom movement" and "a last-straw movement." It has an intensity and dynamic that bewilders the protesters' opponents in Beijing and in Hong Kong's Beijing-obedient city administration.
WASHINGTON — Sticks and stones may break his bones, but poor Mitch McConnell thinks words hurt him, too.
WASHINGTON — Nestled on the Front Range of the Rockies, the city of Crystal was a largely upper-middle-class paradise, chock full of health-conscious and socially conscious — meaning, of course, impeccably progressive — Coloradans. Then in slithered a serpent in the form of a proposal for a new school, to be called "Crystal Academy," for "accelerated and exceptional learners." Suddenly it was paradise lost.
WASHINGTON — Airports are places of joy, someone said to me a number of months ago — which actually startled me. I was asking him about joy in the world, and “airports” was about the last thing I expected him to come back with. Sometimes when I’m in an airport, I’m overwhelmed by how transitory so many of us seem. And how casual we are about it.
WASHINGTON — One of the most persistent and pernicious myths in American politics is that immigrants should be excluded because they “steal” jobs from native-born Americans. President Trump has often embraced that falsehood, as he did during a campaign appearance in Phoenix: “They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing jobs. They’re taking our money. They’re killing us.”
WASHINGTON — There is no surer way to convince people you are going nuts than to stand in front of a crowd and announce that you are not going nuts.
WASHINGTON — This is no time to be on the sidelines.
WASHINGTON — So far, five Democratic presidential candidates — Kirsten Gillibrand, Eric Swalwell, John Hickenlooper, Seth Moulton and Jay Inslee — have dropped out of the 2020 race. What is amazing is that the number is only five, and that 20 Democrats are still running.
WASHINGTON — In a trade war, as in a real one, people are wounded by friendly fire from their side. Consider some casualties in Donald Trump's "easy to win" — his promise — trade war. Begin with the company whose green machines bear the name of the blacksmith who, in the 1830s in Grand Detour, Illinois, invented a self-scouring plow that could turn the Midwest's heavy black topsoil.
WASHINGTON — The Amazon is burning, a trade war is escalating, and the world economy is deteriorating.
