From the Left
/Politics
Trump the Dude? Not Quite
"Stormy Daniels Put Trump's Toxic Horniness on Full Display," read a Daily Beast headline. What has really been put on display is Donald Trump's desperate need to portray himself as a hunk with an awesome sex drive. He's done that his entire adult life. Now that he's an obese man of 77, the urgency to come off as a young buck has never been ...Read more
America Needs More Schools Like De La Salle Academy
Here we are in Times Square. Maniac lights flash across all horizons. Minnie Mouse and Spider-Man are making the rounds. Packed tour buses inch below the scary headlines orbiting the ABC News building.
And it's only 9:30 on a Monday morning.
But on West 43rd Street, about a block from the heart of chaos, the school day has started on an ...Read more
We Are Entering a New World of Caregiving
Is it fair to ask teenagers to give up sports and parties to care for parents or other older relatives? That's an important question these days, because so many now do.
The Wall Street Journal reported on a 15-year-old high school kid, Leo Remis, who is helping his disabled mother. Leo flexes her muscles to prevent blood clots. When her hands...Read more
Children in Charge on College Campuses
A favorite quote from the recent campus conflicts comes from Adam Young, a freshman at the New School in New York. After student trespassers were arrested and hauled to police headquarters, he complained, "This is not OK ... We're 18 years old."
Adam, there are 17-year-old Marines.
The pro-Palestinian protestors have every right to rail ...Read more
Banning Menthol Cigarettes Was Always a Bad Idea
The Biden administration recently stopped a plan to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes. The excellent arguments for why they are dangerous were overcome by good arguments for why making them illegal didn't make sense.
In a world of optimal health, no one would be smoking menthol cigarettes or any cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration ...Read more
Protests, Privilege and Hypocrisy
This is not directly about the issues animating the "pro-Palestinian" demonstrations at many colleges. Rather it's about the air of privilege filling the sails of hypocrisy on which many ride.
Start with the masks that protestors use to hide their identities. And from whom? In many cases from future employers who may object to their singling ...Read more
The People Have a Right to Enjoy Their Parks
Public parks belong to the public, right? A billionaire can't cordon off an acre of Golden Gate Park for his private party. But can a poor person -- or anyone who claims they can't afford a home -- take over public spaces where children play and families experience nature?
That is the question now before the Supreme Court case, Grants Pass v....Read more
Did Legalized Abortion Lead to Lower Crime Rates?
Growing restrictions on the right to an abortion have revived talk of what many still regard as a highly controversial theory. It holds that the legalization of abortion in 1973 reduced the number of unwanted children, who might have been at higher risk of committing serious crimes. And that explained the sharp drop in the crime rate that ...Read more
As Nebraska Goes, So Could Go Maine
Every state is different. Nebraska is quite different. It is one of only two states that doesn't use the winner-take-all system in presidential elections. Along with Maine, it allocates its Electoral College votes to reflect the results in each of its congressional districts.
In 2020, Donald Trump lost the Omaha-based congressional district ...Read more
The Anti-Abortion Right Is Not Into Compromise
Getting rid of Roe v. Wade was sold as a sensible and mollifying approach to the abortion controversy. It would let each state ban or codify a right to abortion in accordance with local culture.
This assumed that the end of a constitutional right to abortion was the victory after which "pro-life" conservatives could go home. Not so. Anti-...Read more
Biden Needs Haley's Voters More Than Bernie's
Barack Obama got it right. He refused to be held captive to his party's left wing. He adopted a strenuous policy of border enforcement, even as some Latino activists threatened to withhold their support for him. He had tense relations with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, but when anti-Israel protesters interrupted a Biden fundraiser over ...Read more
Hillary Was Right the First Time
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton was criticized for her use of the word "superpredators" back in 1996. Some on the left laid into her, accusing Clinton of racism.
Meanwhile, her opponent, Donald Trump, trying to sucker leftist Bernie Sanders voters into not voting for her, piped in, saying yes, she was smearing African ...Read more
For the Beneficiaries, Losing Obamacare Would Truly Suck
Donald Trump last week posted an item on Truth Social that broke new ground for incoherence. What got his fingers fumbling on the keyboard was Joe Biden's being out in the country warning Americans that another presidential term for Trump would cost them their health care.
Trump wrote, "I'm not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE ...Read more
On Exactly What Team Was Ronna McDaniel Playing?
Ronna McDaniel's conduct following the 2020 election was shocking enough, but NBC's decision to hire her as a paid political analyst almost topped it. The blowback from the company's own commentators prompted the executives to turn around and send McDaniel packing.
The problem for NBC and its decidedly liberal MSNBC news channel wasn't that ...Read more
There Is No Shame in a Cancer Diagnosis
News that Catherine, Princess of Wales, has been diagnosed with cancer set off a pointless argument. One side complained that the royal family had not been forthcoming with the truth behind her long hospitalization. The other held that Catherine has a right to privacy and is under no obligation to make her medical condition public.
Both ...Read more
Arguing Over Culture Is Often Futile
Not a month goes by, it seems, when the country doesn't have some minor cultural trend to spar over. These "debates" can be fun or not. But in almost every case, fights over these passing fixations are futile.
OK. Let's get specific. There's that recent skirmish over something called "bookshelf wealth."
Never heard of it? Well, Architectural...Read more
Are These Republicans Mocking Social Conservatives?
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace was in Washington telling a story about how her "fiance" wanted more action in bed earlier that day. "And I was like, 'No baby, we don't got time for that this morning.'" To which she added, "He can wait. I'll see him later tonight."
The occasion was a Christian prayer breakfast attended by evangelicals.
...Read more
Build Anything Anywhere Threatens Communities
YIMBY sounds nice. YIMBY stands for "Yes in My Backyard." It's a positive-sounding rejoinder to NIMBY, "Not in My Backyard." The NIMBY label is being used to stigmatize defenders of zoning laws, with the goal of bulldozing the rules.
Needless to say, real estate developers are all for YIMBY -- though not necessarily where they themselves live...Read more
Iris Apfel Was a Peacock Among the Swans
Iris Apfel was that 102-year-old lady with those big round glasses and that big red smile. She'd wear plastic bangles found on street carts with vintage couturier jackets and pile on clouds of feathers. Her socks might be blue, her pants perforated red leather and her handbag made of tin.
And it all seemed to work for her. Fresh-faced "...Read more
Yes, You Can Haul Your Butt to an Early Meeting
The Wall Street Journal ran a curious piece titled, "Is It Ever OK to Have an 8 a.m. Meeting?" It contained two dubious assumptions: (1) That 8 a.m. is very early in the morning, and (2) Employees have a right to rebel against a company policy that interferes with drop-off time for kids at school -- or forces them to alter their workout ...Read more