Thumbs
UP: The purchase of flood-prone properties has changed the landscape along the Blanchard River over the past decade.
Category Archives: Opinion
Gregg Jarrett Ginsburg must disqualify herself in travel ban case
Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote that a judge should extinguish all politics in public comments when elevated to the Bench. Because Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg failed to heed those words, she should disqualify herself from the U.S. Supreme Court's review of President Trump's revised travel ban.
The bear in the woods
Moscow's favorite: That used to be us Democrats. We were the ones who had to worry - and we did, every four years - about being tagged as "soft on Communism" and paying for it at the polls.
Another Trump environmental outrage that was under the radar | Editorial
Even before he pulled the plug on the Paris Climate accord, there was an equally chilling assault on science waged by President Trump. It was orchestrated by Scott Pruitt, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency who recently decided that the agency responsible for protecting the environment and human health should be recast as a steward for the fossil fuel and chemical industries.
Charles Lane: The strong argument for Medicare cuts
President Donald Trump's proposed budget for fiscal 2018 is being condemned, right and left, for the cuts it imposes on various federal programs. Medicare covers physician services, hospitalization and prescription drugs for seniors over 65 ; in 2015, its total cost was $646.2 billion.
Editorial: The necessity of openness
The White House on Wednesday disclosed information on 14 waivers it has granted to exempt 17 appointees from government ethics standards.
The class of 2017: They must work to stanch the anger that has thrown up leaders like Trump
I was in the US last week for Commencement Week - when students receive their degrees. The tradition is to surround this occasion with speeches by luminaries, faculty and staff, and to have much revelry.
Hicks column: An uneven political playing field ultimately hurts everyone
People should show up at the Statehouse to demand an independent commission to draw congressional and legislative districts. File/Maya T. Prabhu/Staff People should show up at the Statehouse to demand an independent commission to draw congressional and legislative districts.
The coming Democratic civil war: Joel Kotkin
Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W. Va., greets miners before a town hall in Matewan, W.Va.
National View: Trump just betrayed the world. Now the world will fight back.
President Donald Trump has made a colossal mistake in deciding to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. There is simply no case for withdrawal, other than a desire to double down on an ill-informed campaign promise, while the case for staying in is overwhelming.
Bloomberg View: If Trump tries to silence Comey, expect a fight
Can President Donald Trump block former FBI Director James Comey from testifying before Congress by invoking executive privilege? The answer turns out to be surprisingly tricky, despite the precedent of U.S. v. Nixon, in which the Supreme Court made President Richard Nixon hand over the Watergate tapes to a federal judge.
Millennial View: Catherine Rampell – Trump’s snowflakery is infecting the GOP
Perhaps the worst sports in America, White House officials refuse to accept that their health-care plan is a huge, stinking, hopeless failure. A month ago, House Republicans - at the White House's urging - shoved a terrible health-care bill through to a vote.
National View: David Ignatius – As Trump disrupts, Moscow celebrates
When Russian officials and analysts here in Moscow talk about the U.S. investigation of their alleged hacking of the 2016 campaign, two themes predominate: They're flattered that their country is seen as such a powerful threat, and also amazed that America is so preoccupied with the scandal. This is the official line, to be sure, but it was also expressed by several critics of the regime I interviewed this week.
Conservative View: Jennifer Rubin – What is Trump’s possible…
The Washington Post reports: "The Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland's Eastern Shore, that its officials were ejected from in late December as punishment for Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential election."
National View: MIchael Gerson – Caught in a maelstrom, Trump has two options
First, the Russian-influence scandal is consuming Donald Trump, and this is likely to get worse as the special counsel's investigation moves forward. Associates describe the president as obsessed by coverage of the scandal - an impression reinforced by tweets that seem to emerge involuntarily, like myoclonic jerks.
Letter: Trump can’t do anything right
However he achieved it is still in question, but for the time being he still has the title of "president." Besides trying to explain his connection with Russia, he is now going to have to justify taking Meals on Wheels away from the elderly and poor, and making cuts in Medicaid, SS Disability, and funding to urban and rural communities.  We have almost 10,000 children living in poverty right here in Massachusetts now.
Pat Rice: Both parties losing out to a NPAa
Volusia County recently crossed a political line that's worth dissecting. The county - probably for the first time ever - now has more voters registered as Republicans than Democrats.
Steve Chapman: Trump forgets the past and blights the future
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." Donald Trump's chief argument for withdrawing from the Paris climate accord is that it would destroy jobs, stifle growth, cause electricity blackouts and raise energy prices to ruinous levels.
Other editors: SPLC lawsuit against the state ill-founded
There's no doubt, as a lawsuit filed against the state of Mississippi alleges, that public education creates unequal opportunities and unequal outcomes. The Southern Poverty Law Center's case, filed on behalf of four black mothers with children in public elementary schools, claims that Mississippi has for more than a century violated an 1870 federal law that allowed the state to rejoin the Union.
Dr. Zhivago, Hamilton Park, Beto O’Rourke, JFK, Public Utility Commission
What a wonderful story! I first saw Doctor Zhivago as a teenager in the 1960s. It inspired me to read the book and then to learn the Russian language in college under the auspices of University of Texas at Arlington professors Charles McDowell, James Wilmeth and Rima Palangian.