In the past year, more scientists got political, heading into Washington, D.C., to advance projects to make the world better.
For me, the most disturbing thing about the Trump presidency is the way each week, like a steady drip of acid, Donald Trump tries to erode the thing that truly makes us great as a country and the envy of so many around the world — the independence and nonpartisan character of our courts, our…
Old year or new year?
The Dunning-Krueger effect is not a disease, syndrome or mental illness — it is present in everybody to some extent.
It’s a matter of time
What’s going to happen with Brexit? A second referendum? A disorderly hard exit? A new offer from the European Union that isn’t as offensive as the deal that just got rejected? God knows, and even He may be uncertain.
This editorial is based on two current journalistic pieces that relate to climate change.
Inquiring minds
The government has been shut down for over two weeks and is on track to become the longest shutdown in U.S. history. As for how long the current standoff between the Trump administration and the Democratic congress is going to last, your guess is as good as mine. It’s a gamble for both sides…
A ‘Republican tradition’
In an article written by John Cox, appearing in The Bakersfield Californian, he cited a variety of ways the nation’s shutdown is causing detrimental situations in Kern County.
Hotel, restaurant and farm losses have not yet been totted up, but probably measure in the millions of dollars.
Well, duh
President Donald Trump is playing with the idea of declaring a national emergency to build a border fence despite congressional opposition.
Change’s 4, a lunar mission that achieved a soft landing on the far side of the moon on Jan. 2, is sending great photos and a signal back to Earth that China is surging ahead in the latest space race.
Russian prediction
Seattle is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the United States — by one reckoning, the most bicycle-friendly. It’s also a city in which bike commuting is rapidly losing its appeal. In 2017, according to recent Census Bureau data, a mere 2.8% of Seattle’s workforce commuted to work b…
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has written one of the most upbeat articles of the year.
No hurt feelings
Ten states and Washington, D.C., have now legalized adult use of marijuana.
Although no man is an island, President Trump plays one in the White House, where he could add to his fortune by renting out empty desks.
There were a lot of lessons from the fall election campaign whose results only recently became completely final, including these: President Trump has no clout beyond his vocal base, women voters can swing control of one or both houses of Congress, unpopular taxes can survive even if they wer…
In reference to efforts to teach black children, the president of the St. Petersburg, Florida, chapter of the NAACP, Maria Scruggs, said: “The (school) district has shown they just can’t do it. … Now it’s time for the community to step in.” That’s a recognition that politicians and the educa…
The shutdown is a great time for identity thieves
When people visit a doctor, they may have temperature, heart rate and blood pressure measured. But there’s no stethoscope for pain.
She agrees
Back in 2007, I wrote a column calling for a “Green New Deal,” and I later expanded on the idea in a book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded.” Barack Obama picked up the theme and made a Green New Deal part of his 2008 platform, but the idea just never took off. So I’m excited that the new Democratic C…
The dozens of people investigating illicit connections between the United States and Russia scored twice early in the week. Here are the revelatory stories:
An A for effort
‘Government,’ declared Ronald Reagan in his first Inaugural Address, “is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Republicans have echoed his rhetoric ever since. Somehow, though, they’ve never followed through on the radical downsizing of government their ideology calls for.
The 40th governor of California, Gavin Newsom, was sworn in, Jan. 7.
Missed opportunity
We were told that “trade wars are good and easy to win.” Yet nine months into this trade war with China and many of our close allies, we haven’t won, and many Americans are shouldering its costs.
Destroying America
For generations, pot was illegal.
Until damages and liabilities from wildfires rose from mere hundreds of millions into the multi-billion-dollar range over the last 18 months, California’s big private utilities had no greater fear than the steady expansion of a phenomenon best known by the initials CCA.
Despite a wildly gyrating stock market, employers added 312,000 jobs to America’s employment statistics in December — about twice the number the experts expected.
Using his ‘magnificent brain’
It’s a wonder that Democrats haven’t staked out a negotiating position demanding the destruction of already-existing barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Here’s a resolution
The Wall Street Journal is often more supportive of Donald Trump than most publications, but on Friday their editorial board was sharply critical of his lack of knowledge about history. Here are some quotes:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts became the first 2020 Democratic White House challenger to announce her “exploratory committee,” a legal device that allows candidates to receive donations and to hire staff in preparation for a full-fledged presidential candidacy. Make no mistake; pres…
Frustration at the DMV
’Tis not the season to be jolly, thanks to Donald Trump.
Malcolm X was a Muslim minister and human rights activist. Born in 1925, he met his death at the hands of an assassin in 1965. Malcolm X was a courageous advocate for black civil rights, but unlike Martin Luther King, he was not that forgiving of whites for their crimes against black America…
The same sort of panic that hit California’s Latinos after the 1994 passage of the anti-illegal immigrant Proposition 187 is now hitting many of this state’s almost 6 million ethnic-Asian residents.
This is not our first partial government shutdown. Somehow, someway, from 1976 through 2017, the nation has survived 18 shutdowns, the longest lasting 21 days.
For the Democrats, Jan. 3 was a huge kettle of eggnog, flavored with the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.
For years, I’ve heard American leftists say Sweden is proof that socialism works, that it doesn’t have to turn out as badly as the Soviet Union or Cuba or Venezuela did.
The next presidential election will be held in November 2020, nearly two years from now, but the Democrats are sprinting toward the starting blocks already.
The 2017 tax cut has received pretty bad press, and rightly so. Its proponents made big promises about soaring investment and wages, and also assured everyone that it would pay for itself; none of that has happened.
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