The Lamest Holiday on the Calendar
Presidents’ Day is the lamest holiday on the calendar. We should go back to the older practice of celebrating both Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays as national holidays. Both of these men stand for...
View ArticleCan Iran Hold Together Long Term?
The New York Times offers a telling snapshot of Ahvaz, a majority Arab Iranian city near the Iraqi border, where a growing protest movement has lately been shut down by security forces: Days of...
View ArticleNYT Botches Mexico City’s Sinking Story
Mexico’s capital is sinking, slowly but very surely. That’s the story the New York Times told this past Friday, though it repackaged its examination of Mexico City’s varied and increasingly dire...
View ArticleRetirement Challenges Are Worse Than People Thought
Two out of every three Americans don’t put away any money in their 401(k) accounts, according to the U.S. Census bureau. Bloomberg has the story: Census researchers Michael Gideon and Joshua Mitchell...
View ArticleMexican Foreign Minister: We Do Not Accept Trump Refugee Plan
Mexico may not take back illegal immigrants expelled under the Trump Administration’s new policies, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray has suggested. The Guardian reports: Luis Videgaray, Mexico’s...
View ArticleTrump Isn’t Sounding Like a Russian Mole
With his latest effusive remarks to Reuters on the importance of expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal, President Donald Trump has sent the press into a panic once again.What the press has largely ignored...
View ArticleThe Real Trade Challenge Is Germany, Not China
Berlin may be hoping that President Trump didn’t read the Wall Street Journal this weekend—because if he did, he might conclude that the greatest threat to U.S. trade interests comes not from China but...
View ArticleThe EU Has a New Enemy
A bitter dispute between Turkey and the European Union is spreading across the continent this week, following decisions by the German and Dutch governments to cancel Turkish diaspora rallies in...
View ArticleElite Moral Decline Affecting Military
The Washington Post reports on a case of military malfeasance that, despite its amusing sobriquet, speaks to a genuinely appalling collapse of ethical standards: The Justice Department unsealed a fresh...
View ArticleNYT Worries: Babies from Poor Mothers Are Expensive
The New York Times has written an entire piece bemoaning the fact that reducing federal subsidies for birth control would lead to poor women having more children, which would lead to higher Medicaid...
View ArticleThe Grey Lady Soft Pedals Richard Falk
The United Nations has released a report accusing Israel of practicing “apartheid”, the The New York Times reports: The report was published by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia,...
View ArticleNo More “Strategic Patience” on North Korea
Speaking in Seoul, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared an end to America’s policy of “strategic patience” toward North Korea, ruling out new negotiations while raising the implicit threat of a...
View ArticleEurope Is Eroding from the South
Writing in the Financial Times, Tony Barber puts his finger on the pulse of Italian disenchantment with Brussels: In a Eurobarometer poll published in December, 47 per cent called the euro “a bad...
View ArticleGOP Tax Cut Shows Why Administrative State Needs Pruning
The Wall Street Journal reports on one unexpected market adjustment to the GOP’s promised corporate tax cut: The possibility of a tax-code overhaul is casting a shadow over the $10 billion...
View ArticleIsrael Strikes Again in Syria
Israel has struck back in Syria, conducting air strikes against the Assad regime and Hezbollah. The Long War Journal has more: In the wake of threats by Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, the...
View ArticleThe Cuban Revolution Is Over
The Cuban revolution may be over, but the dictatorship lives on. A new survey explored in the New York Times offers a telling look at the gap between the hopes of average Cubans and the priorities of...
View ArticleOn Healthcare, GOP Should Think Long-Term
The GOP congressional caucus is in chaos as it tries to ram through the Obamacare repeal it has been promising for seven years but never really thought through. The Washington Post reports: The...
View ArticleHow Will Trump Respond to Failure?
The New York Times reports on the President’s changing emotional state as the healthcare battle rages on Capitol Hill: President Trump, the author of “The Art of the Deal,” has been projecting his...
View ArticleThe Putinocracy’s Corruption Problem
The weekend’s impressive protests across Russia have shown that Putinocracy has weak legs. Putin’s Russia is a personalistic regime: Putin is its only program, and the maintenance of power is its only...
View ArticleStubborn Germany Rejects Trade Criticism
With German trade policies coming under attack from the Trump administration, Berlin is mounting a full-throated defense of its high trade surplus. The Wall Street Journal offers a look at how Germany...
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