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Category: Opinion
The Pence Oath
News that Vice President-elect Pence will be sworn into office by Justice Clarence Thomas strikes us as a missed opportunity. Not that we lack for regard for either of them; we endorsed Mr. Pence and have backed Justice Thomas through every one of his heroic struggles.
Cheers and Jeers
Cheers to the proposed use of a $1 million gaming grant to help Berskshire Hathaway GUARD Insurance expand its Wilkes-Barre operations by building on the site of the former Hotel Sterling. The money would be well spent on retaining a growing, nationally known company in the city and developing a vacant piece of prime real estate.
Biden’s honor richly deserved
SUSAN WALSH / ASSOCIATED PRESS President Barack Obama honors Vice President Joe Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington on Thursday. Vice President Joe Biden has been highly effective at the highest levels of the federal government since he was 30. He has been chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees and, for the last eight years, President Barack Obama’s right hand.
House editorial: Farewell to Idaho – native son’ Sen. John Hansen
In April 1994, then-Gov. Cecil D. Andrus vetoed a $127 million property tax cut. The tax cut would have left education budgets to fall short for two years while educators crossed their fingers for state economic growth to make up the difference in funding losses.
National View: David Ignatius – To protect our democracy, we…
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” mutters Marcellus as ghosts and mad spirits haunt Elsinore Castle in the first act of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” After this past week of salacious leaks about foreign espionage plots and indignant denials, people must be wondering if something is rotten in the state of our democracy.
National View: Economic brinkmanship
On March 4, 1933, at the bottom of the worst financial and economic crisis to afflict the United States since the Civil War, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as president. Two days later, Roosevelt acted to stanch the collapse by suspending gold payments, imposing a four-day “bank holiday” and arranging emergency assistance for banks when they reopened.
COMMENTARY: Donald Trump and a comprehensive plan to end the country’s illegal immigration problem
Democrats are screaming hysterical predictions about the next four years. They believe Donald Trump will deport millions, uproot and separate families and send children to a country they’ve never been to.
Who will Democrats pick to run for governor in 2018?
Nevada’s next election is a long way off on the calendar, but nearing quickly for politicians planning to run for governor. On the Republican side, Attorney General Adam Laxalt is clearing the field: U.S. Sen. Dean Heller is going to run for re-election, and Lt.
Reporters shouldn’t gripe and belly-ache about Donald Trump
Tired of reporters’ complaints, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, said…”If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed.
Lessons From Past Urban Renewal Projects Can Be Used As Guidelines Today
Whether that path was a good one to take is still open to debate. As we have learned from the yearly gatherings of the Lost Neighborhood – which ended this year after nearly a decade of observances – the process was hard on the neighborhood that once called Brooklyn Square home.
Jeff Sadow: Medicaid expansion becomes an obsession
If you agree with the agenda of Medicaid reformers taking power in Washington, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards and his intemperate chief health bureaucrat say you’re the bad guy. With a mixture of conceit and high dudgeon, Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Rebekah Gee declared efforts to repeal Medicaid expansion “irresponsible, inhumane and ill-advised.”
Editorial Roundup: Excerpts from recent editorials
On Jan. 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural address, threw out a challenge to a generation of young Americans: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
For Trump, the enemy within is US intelligence
Being obliged to no-one, the president-elect can shake up the spooks, the ‘bogeyman’ of all presidents, writes Stuart Alan Becker Outgoing CIA director John Brennan at a forum at the University of Chicago last week. President-elect Donald Trump has been widely critical of US intelligence services.a If you look at the fireworks between President-elect Donald Trump and the American intelligence community under Barack Obama — about whether the Russians hacked the US election in favour of Mr Trump — it’s helpful to research history for clues that may explain how a president-elect could have become so hostile to America’s own spy agency.
Today in History
On Jan. 14, 1967, the Sixties’ “Summer of Love” unofficially began with a “Human Be-In,” a gathering of tens of thousands of young people for a counterculture event at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. In 1784, the United States ratified the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War; Britain followed suit in April 1784.
Trump needs to owe up to coal mining promise
Many West Virginians and Ohioans are people counting on President-elect Donald Trump to end the Obama administration’s war on coal and affordable electricity. But merely slamming on the brakes is not enough.
Reviewing the other night’s travesties
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan reads from a list of states with increasing health insurance premiums during his weekly news conference in the Capitol Visitors Center at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 12, 2017 in Washington, DC. Yesterday, January 12, was a shameful day for us in Colorado.
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Though he says it’s not a tooth-and-nail sibling rivalry, Sen. Mike Lee does see one advantage in getting the U.S. Supreme Court nomination over his older brother. If picked for a high-court post by President-elect Donald Trump, he’d be in a position to overrule decisions made by his brother, Thomas Lee, associate chief justice on the Utah Supreme Court.
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Though he says it’s not a tooth-and-nail sibling rivalry, Sen. Mike Lee does see one advantage in getting the U.S. Supreme Court nomination over his older brother. If picked for a high-court post by President-elect Donald Trump, he’d be in a position to overrule decisions made by his brother, Thomas Lee, associate chief justice on the Utah Supreme Court.
To protect our democracy, we need to root out the truth on Russia: David Ignatius
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” mutters Marcellus as ghosts and mad spirits haunt Elsinore Castle in the first act of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” After this past week of salacious leaks about foreign espionage plots and indignant denials, people must be wondering if something is rotten in the state of our democracy.
Stephanie Grace: Bobby Jindal’s side won the election. Could John Bel …
Advocate staff photo by PATRICK DENNIS. Governor Bobby Jindal speaks about his reelection Saturday and new staff personnel.
Too many U.S. presidents and far too many tweets
It is the first time in the 240 years of American history that the United States seems to have two presidents at once – Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Mind you, one is for real, the other is not yet.
National View: Kellyanne Conway’s laughable ‘look at what’s in his heart’ defense of Donald Trump
Kellyanne Conway has a prescription for what ails the media’s relationship with President-elect Donald Trump. In defending Trump’s months-old mocking of a disabled reporter, Trump’s senior adviser said we need to look into Trump’s heart.
Police reformers are pro-cop
At his confirmation hearing, U.S. attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions expressed sympathy for the nation’s police officers. They feel unfairly “blamed” and their “morale has suffered.”
Growing food-stamp program welcomed at drive-throughs, farmersa markets and Amazon
The federal program that used to be known as “food stamps” is now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, except in California, where it’s called CalFresh. In 1969, there were about 2.8 million people on the program.
That time Arlen Specter said he regretted not making Jeff Sessions a judge
As you read this, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is in the proverbial hot seat in Washington D.C., taking questions from his colleagues over his nomination to become America’s next attorney general. One issue that’s emerged since President-elect Donald Trump tapped the Alabaman for the job is a 1980s Senate vote denying Sessions a lifetime appointment to the federal bench — partly over his poor record on race-relations.
After Obamacare, what’s next?
Let’s try to get this straight. Donald Trump campaigned as the champion of lower-paid working people who deserve better than they have.
Editorial: Toughen laws involving guns, mentally disturbed
Law enforcement personnel tell people to take cover during last week’s shootings at the Fort Lauderdale airport. The incident was a preventable tragedy and requires a review of laws addressing the mentally disturbed and their access to firearms.
Grace Notes: Bobby Jindal’s attempt to get back into health care debate typically tone deaf
One of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ most significant first-year accomplishments was the expansion of Medicaid, which has provided health insurance to upwards of 370,000 working poor Louisianans to date. But it’s worth remembering that the three major Republicans who ran against him all suggested they’d accept the largely federally-funded expansion as well.
One person, one vote in jeopardy
For the second time in 16 years, the candidate who lost the popular vote has won the presidency. Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by almost 3 million votes, the biggest deficit for an incoming president since the 19th century.
For better schools, abolish the politicized Department of Education…
President Bush spends time with students at Pierre Laclede elementary school in St. Louis on Jan. 5, 2004, as part of a celebration of the two year anniversary of the “No Child Left Behind Act.” President Bush spends time with students at Pierre Laclede elementary school in St. Louis on Jan. 5, 2004, as part of a celebration of the two year anniversary of the “No Child Left Behind Act.”
Goldman: Some things you just can’t make up
The first order of business from the power-hungry Republican members of the US House of Representatives in 2017 turned out to be not their pledge to end Obamacare or to defund Planned Parenthood, but instead their first action taken in the dark of night on January 2 was to gut their own long-standing independent ethics oversight panel! During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump announced that he had a ‘secret plan’ which would “end the violence in Chicago within 5 days of his taking office”.
Hillary Clinton not a saint
First, let me commend you on urging everyone to get behind President Elect Donald Trump. Love him or loath him, he will be our next President and we had all better hope and pray that he is successful.
Editorial cartoons for Jan. 8, 2017: Trump and Russia, Obamacare repeal, goodbye 2016
The back and forth between President-elect Donald Trump and the intelligence community over alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election dominated the headlines and the cartoons this week.
Obamacare is no legacy; it’s a failing law that needs a fix
It shouldn’t have come to this — a repeal battle over President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act — but it has. Republicans are in a dominant position in Congress to dismantle the law, passed in 2009 when Democrats controlled both legislative branches and the White House.
Letters: Evaluating Obama’s legacy
Re: “How do you assess Obama’s legacy?” [Opinion, Jan. 3]: It’s become clear that President Obama is very concerned about his place in history, and his actions in office will define that legacy. His administration has given us inedible school lunches, unaffordable insurance and made police lives unimportant.
Column’s ‘weak’ points were obvious
I was reading the New Year’s Day commentary by Michael Goldman. It was pretty good.
Kathleen Parker: President-elect Trumpschenko
First, a history refresher: For the past nine years, a smattering of Americans, most recently led by our now president-elect, have insisted that Barack Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya. For years, Donald Trump was unrelenting in his insistence that Obama prove beyond existing proof that he was born in Hawaii and not in the African country of his biological father.
Editorial, Jan. 8, 2017: Reform, dona t repeal, Obamacare
If Republican’s can’t convince Americans they have a replacement that’s better than the Affordable Care Act, then they’ll own the results. Which leads to the sneaking suspicion they don’t have an alternative that will provide equal or better coverage for about 20 million Americans who were able to obtain health insurance through Obamacare.
2017: The year a cold war turns into a warm embrace?
Vienna, 1961. The summit between newly elected US president John F. Kennedy and Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev was billed as the first attempt at detente between the two superpowers.