My sainted mother was a public school teacher until she married my father and immediately, as a married woman, was forced by local Massachusetts rules then in force to leave the classroom. (My own grade school teachers included Miss Galvin, Miss Harrington, Miss Donahue, Miss Keohane, Miss C…
The coronavirus epidemic that’s crashing the U.S. economy, putting lives at risk and derailing our entire way of life should serve as a wake-up call that the U.S. government must stop being reliant on China and other foreign nations for prescription drugs, medical supplies or any supply chai…
The social and political response to major catastrophes often proceeds in stages. Stage 1 is denial. Thankfully, this stage is largely over for the coronavirus crisis. Not counting a few poltroons and conspiracy theorists, nobody is saying it’s all hype or no big deal.
My, these aging men with their bright ideas.
Countries have experienced economic depressions before, but not usually as a matter of choice.
Milan is the V-8 engine of Italy’s economy. Known as an industrial and financial powerhouse, Milan is also famous for its foul air. Now the city and its region, Lombardy, have become the epicenter of Europe’s coronavirus pandemic. To stop the virus’ spread, factories, offices, restaurants an…
WASHINGTON — Not since 9/11 has the importance of eloquence been so apparent.
“We don’t have any...!” Fill in the blank.
As the saying goes, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” I would add, “and anti-price gouging legislation in times of crisis.” Yet price increases in the face of sudden shortages are an important impetus to restore supply and demand market conditions that are closer to normal.
If there’s one thing worth knowing about China — in terms of geopolitics and American national security at least — it’s that its rulers are almost as afraid of the people as the people are afraid of them.
We are facing one discrete problem in the mass of chaos surrounding this pandemic that we can and must address immediately — the security of November’s election.
A favorite book I try never to be without is by the late Irish poet and priest John O’Donohue. It’s on my bedside table, on my Kindle and on the Kindle app on my phone.
What happens when the supposed dictator won’t dictate? This is the conundrum confronted by the harshest critics of President Donald Trump who have gone from warning he is a budding despot to complaining he hasn’t done enough to impose his will during the coronavirus crisis.
If Bernie Sanders were amassing a nearly insurmountable lead in the delegate counts, I have little doubt that he would be saying to Joe Biden: “Democrats have spoken. Time to drop out and help the team.”
WASHINGTON — Two threads of interest have emerged from the coronavirus “crisis:” One is an apparent generational divide related to relative worry; the other is the degree to which the media are contributing to the virus’ propagation.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and just about the only official in the Trump administration trusted to tell the truth about the coronavirus, said last Thursday: “The system does not, is not really geared to what we need right now. ...…
Freelance jobs are “feudalism,” says California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez.
We’re traveling in a crowded subway car somewhere under Manhattan when, without warning, the car comes to an abrupt halt in a tunnel in between stations. The subway car is plunged into darkness, and our own growing anxiety, along with that of our fellow passengers, is almost palpable. After …
It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week for the president.
Here’s the bad news: America is at war.
“Let’s blow it all up.” That was the sentiment that animated any number of Republican primary voters in 2016. The “it” was (take your pick) the Republican Party, the “establishment,” the country. There were many good reasons for voters to be dissatisfied with the state of things in 2016. The…
When is the last time someone told you to calm down, and it worked?
The coronavirus outbreak is the first pandemic of the woke era, and as such it’s not surprising that there is a fierce debate over how to refer to it without offending against social justice.
Was being a woman Elizabeth Warren’s problem? That’s the wrong question. Here’s a better question: Was playing the protector of all damsels from that infamous rake, Mike Bloomberg, her problem? It was one of them, for certain.
Hollywood is one leg of the Axis of Indoctrination, with media and academia completing the trifecta.
When middle-aged and older people feel unsafe, they run to the familiar and reliable, even if it’s deadly dull. Younger people who feel threatened are more likely to take risks in hopes of finding something better.
South Carolina mom Debra Harrell worked at McDonald’s. She couldn’t afford day care for Regina, her 9-year-old daughter, so she took her to work.
Historically, we Americans have been among the world’s most optimistic people. Why? One reason could be that every American, with the exception of those whose ancestors were already here when Columbus arrived or those whose ancestors were brought here in chains, is either herself an immigran…
People really seem to struggle with the word “coup.”
Sweet relief. Super Tuesday was the worst setback for left-wing populism since Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party crashed and burned. But while the voters have handed Joe Biden another chance, it’s important to recognize why they’ve had doubts.
Last week, I sat on a stage in front of more than 200 women in Columbus, Ohio, and tried to answer a simple question.
Once upon a time, Bernie Sanders would have had another political vulnerability besides his socialism — namely, his atheism.
I know this is an outlier story. It’s about Brooklyn brownstone couples who pay over $2,000 for professionals to choose and care for their houseplants. Houseplant designing is actually a service being offered to the urban and suburban gentry. One such “Plant Doctor & Stylist” charges an …
After Richard Nixon’s landslide 1972 victory over Democratic opponent George McGovern, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael gave a speech in which she said: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But …
Last week the U.S. stock market suffered its largest weekly loss since 2008. A health crisis is rapidly morphing into an economic crisis.
Good for Mike Bloomberg.
First, a confession: I really like presidential debates. Why, you ask? Because these debates give us voters the chance to watch and evaluate the candidates while they stand shoulder-to-shoulder and have to answer the same questions. Away from their carefully orchestrated campaign events, wit…
In “Jaws 2,” Roy Scheider reprises his role as Police Chief Brody, the landlubber lawman forced to battle a great white shark. He’s convinced there’s another beast out there, but he can’t persuade anyone who matters. “Look at this. That’s a shark,” says Brody, waving a grainy underwater phot…
According to CNN, Bernie Sanders “has been consistent for 40 years.” Some find this reassuring. Sanders is not a finger-in-the-wind politician who tacks this way or that depending upon what’s popular. On the other hand, if someone has never changed his mind throughout 78 years of life, it su…
At one point during Donald Trump’s impeachment trial last month, I ended up sitting in the family gallery next to Jane Sullivan Roberts, wife of Chief Justice John Roberts.
Bernie Sanders may be on the verge of gaining an insurmountable lead in the Democratic nomination fight, but he’s not letting that get in the way of his socialist principles.
In 2016, candidate Donald Trump promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with “something terrific.” The replacement never materialized. The repeal, however, had been making progress in a piece-by-piece fashion. President Trump has made a frontal assault on the Affordable Care Act by askin…
As for America’s annual Black History Month, actor Morgan Freeman spoke for many during this 2005 exchange with CBS’s Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes”:
In last week’s Democratic debate, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg charged that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ policy proposals would cost $50 trillion. Holy Indiana.
Bernie Sanders leads the race for the Democratic nomination.
In the seven presidential elections since 1992, the Republican presidential nominee has won the popular vote exactly once. The lone GOP candidate to receive a majority of the national vote was George W. Bush in 2004. Bush’s election-day victory over Democrat John Kerry, who had, in most obse…
The Bloomberg-Bernie battle is almost like a comic book come to life. The two combatants cover almost every cliche on the right-wing scorecard.
Irving Kristol, a New York intellectual and youthful communist who became a guru of the American right, once defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality." Thanks to Donald Trump, we have a new definition of a criminal justice reformer: a rich person who is shocked …
The Democratic Party could soon be taken over by a leftist who has never formally been a member.
Like all candidates, Democrats focus their campaigns on what they will do if elected. Progressives often accuse Joe Biden in particular of wanting to take America back to the Barack Obama years. And it’s true that Biden often portrays his candidacy as a restoration of the era in which he ser…
Workers at Coleman Knitting Mills, an Ogden company that usually manufactures cheerleading uniforms, lettermen’s jackets, and school sweaters, has shifted gears to make surgical masks and medical gowns to answer huge demands for the supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic.
