EDITORIAL: Closing ranks to repeal and replace
There's "a time to break down," the Bible teaches, "and a time to build up." This is the moment for both, and the moment is called "repeal and replace."
Category Archives: Opinion
Marin IJ Readersa Forum for March 7
We are researching the topic of public engagement and want to hear your views of how well your city and the county of Marin engage with you. Public engagement is a range of methods through which government agencies provide the public with more and better information about their decisions and meaningful opportunities to influence those decisions.
Marin IJ Editorial: Marin offers humanitarian aid in a time of fear
It's a sign of the times, but still disturbing - hundreds of people in Marin are apparently forgoing their usual visits to food pantries out of fear they'll be detained in an immigration sweep. The drop-off has been so noticeable, the nonprofit San Francisco-Marin Food Bank has begun posting fliers in four different languages at all 253 of its food pantries to reassure clients it is not a governmental agency, does not share information with the government and does not collect or share information about individuals' immigration status.
Trump’s revised travel ban is no less misguided and self-defeating than his previous version
Women wearing head scarves protest the immigration ban of President Donald J. Trump during a rally at Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX on Feb. 4. Women wearing head scarves protest the immigration ban of President Donald J. Trump during a rally at Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX on Feb. 4. The new travel ban President Trump signed Monday is no less misguided and damaging to those trying to travel to the U.S., or to those seeking refuge from war-torn regions of the world, than the original. The two new executive orders implementing the ban also show that Trump learned little from the policy debacle of the first go-around.
Trump offers outline for reforming Obamacare
Implacable critics of President Donald Trump dismissed his speech to Congress last week as full of platitudes and short on substance. One can only wonder whether they dozed off during much of the address.
Opinion: If Donald Trump’s trying to deflect attention from…
US President Donald Trump's claim that he was spied on comes amid a storm over his administration's Russia links. His latest lash-out - a Twitter blitzkrieg early on Saturday, in which he accuses presidential predecessor Barack Obama of a "Nixon/Watergate" plot to tap the phones at the Trump Tower headquarters in New York in the run-up to last year's election - featured a succession of five similarly-worded tweets, belted out between 3.32am and 4.02am.
Printed Letters: March 5, 2017
Council must clear a path to broadband I am an engineer with a business for which I work from home. The best internet option I can find that sufficiently serves my needs is $800 a month.
BLM planning rule gives locals a voice
Late last year, the federal Bureau of Land Management issued a new and long overdue rule - called Planning 2.0 - that gave a wider range of voices the opportunity to weigh in on how federal lands can be used and developed for decades to come. Planning 2.0 was grounded by an idea at the heart of American democracy: that people most affected by public policy decisions deserve to be heard.
Our View: Focus on statea s needs
Money and ambition always play leading roles when the Florida Legislature is meeting. And the 2017 session, which is set to open Tuesday, promises to be scrappier than usual - with skirmishes breaking out even as the ceremonial opening-day speeches and traditional displays of unity still ring in the air.
Otters are sweet relief from witless war on EPA
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan joins Senate colleagues and President Donald Trump at the White House for the signing of an executive order requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to revise its "waters of the U.S." regulation. Feb. 28, 2017.
Your View: Lawyers should fight for and live by standards of propriety
Shakespeare famously said it, leaving others to debate its meaning. Many insist that it was intended not as condemnation of corrupt lawyers, but rather was meant to illustrate the critical importance of lawyers as a barrier to tyranny.
Letter: Legal immigration needs protection; illegal needs to end
But to be honest, the question should be, "How do you feel about illegal immigration? Because isn't that what's really being asked? I have never known a person that's against legal immigration, but my goodness do I know a whole lot a folks that speak about illegal immigration. So to answer the question, immigration is good; illegal immigration is not only bad, but it's against the U.S. visa law.
The exorcist and the swamp
Idiot wind/ Blowing through the buttons of our coats/ Blowing through the letters that we wrote/ Idiot wind/ Blowing through the dust upon our shelves/ We are idiots, babe/ It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves. Bob Dylan.
Have Americans lost their civility?
When will all the discontented American peopleRepublicans and Democratsfinally accept the fact we are all travelers on this train to the future and no matter who is president, or which party has control of Congress, we're in this together. It will be a rough and bumpy ride if we don't find a way to compromise.
Washington Post Op-ed: Ayn Rand is dead. Liberals are going to miss her.
Ayn Rand is dead. It's been 35 years since hundreds of mourners filed by her coffin , but it has been only four months since she truly died as a force in American politics.
Washington Post Editorial: Sessions’ dodge on Russia
At the least, Attorney General Jeff Sessions misled Congress when he said this in his January confirmation hearings. The Post reported Wednesday night that Sessions had contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on at least two occasions - once after he spoke at a Heritage Foundation event at the Republican National Convention last July, and again in Sessions' Senate office in September.
Letter: Stop the perverse slaughter of wildlife
The U.S. Congress has voted to strip away protections for wolves, bears and other predators in national wildlife refuges in Alaska. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, argues the rule "illegally seized authority away from the state of Alaska."
From the Right: Charles Krauthammer – Revolt of the attorneys general
Among the many unintended legacies of Barack Obama, one has gone largely unnoticed: the emergence of a novel form of resistance to executive overreach, a check-and-balance improvised in reaction to his various presidential power grabs. It's the revolt of the state attorneys general, banding together to sue and curb the executive.
Sessions recusal was right a ” but is it enough?
When it was revealed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had not been honest under oath in his confirmation hearings with the U.S. Senate, he agreed to recuse himself from Justice Department investigations into alleged Russian manipulation of the 2016 election. It was the right decision, but let's pray that this scandal is not the tip of the iceberg for Sessions.
Deconstructing Trump’s Asia policy – it’s the border tax, stupid
President Donald Trump finally sounded presidential with his address to US Congress this week, after a tumultuous first month of sound and fury in tweets, executive orders and policy switches that left friends and foes around the world in total confusion. But those who watch President Trump's showmanship carefully will detect method to his erratic messages.