Editorial

Once upon a time, Joe Biden’s spending proposals would have launched mass demonstrations in opposition. Little else would have been talked about in conservative media, and ambitious Republican politicians would have competed with one another to demonstrate the most intense resistance, up to and perhaps including chaining themselves to the U.S. Treasury building in protest. In 2009, President Barack Obama created a spontaneous, hugely influential conservative grassroots movement on the basis of an $800 billion stimulus bill and a … [Read more...] about Republicans no longer fazed by big spending

“America is not a racist country.” That was Sen. Tim Scott giving the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress, calling on the nation to “root out systemic racism that plagues America.” Scott is the only Black GOP member of the Senate at this time. Joe Biden is not the only white Democrat, but the two of them pretty much said the same thing. However, it was Scott who suffered far more abuse as a token of a party that is now home to almost all bigots. He was quickly hashtagged “Uncle … [Read more...] about Racist country?

By LEE H. HAMILTON I’ve always been impressed that the preamble to the Constitution begins, “We the People of the United States.” We’ve heard the phrase so often that we don’t even stop to think about it. But as the proposed constitution was being debated in 1787, there were people who did—notably, Patrick Henry, who in a famous speech to the Virginia ratifying convention asked why the drafters hadn’t said, “We, the states.” By their phrasing, the founders made clear that they were creating a government, as Lincoln later put it, … [Read more...] about What do we mean when we talk about the ‘common good’?

We shook our heads in sadness to read in recent weeks of not one but two state lawmakers charged with drunken driving. First, police in early April in Livingston County arrested state Rep. Jewell Jones, a Democrat from Inkster, for allegedly driving drunk, resisting arrest, and illegally carrying a weapon. Then, on April 30, Grand Rapids-area police arrested state Rep. Bryan Posthumus, a Republican from that area, also for allegedly driving drunk after he rolled his vehicle in a crash. Drunk driving endangers the lives not … [Read more...] about Elected officials, your bar is higher

From the beginning, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's explanation of the trip she took to Florida this spring to visit her ostensibly ailing father hasn't rang quite true. After it was learned Whitmer left the state, apparently while COVID-19 cases were spiking in Michigan and her administration was advising others not to travel, she offered bare bones details of her journey. The governor said she made a two-day visit to her father, former Blue Cross CEO Richard Whitmer, whom she said was suffering from a chronic illness. Whitmer could … [Read more...] about Whitmer must come clean, and clean house

There’s believing your own press releases. And then, there’s believing your own delusions of grandeur. Joe Biden should look at the mirror every day and see a president elected on the basis of the unpopularity of his predecessor at a time when the country was slammed by a once-in-100-years pandemic. Instead, by every account, he sees a transformative leader with a mandate to change America as rapidly and irreversibly as possible. As the news site Axios noted, Biden wants his next 100 days to be “more audacious” than his first … [Read more...] about Joe Biden’s radical gambit

Before we get too immersed in the news that caused national self-congratulations, let’s remember why it was news at all. A Minneapolis jury convicted policeman Derek Chauvin of three murder charges nearly a year after he killed George Floyd. The jury simply could not ignore the fact that Chauvin kept his knee on George’s neck for almost nine and a half minutes, squeezing the life out of a struggling-against-arrest man who had repeatedly screamed, “I can’t breathe!” Not only that, but Chauvin, a veteran of the force, was almost … [Read more...] about Race, the dark reality

President Joe Biden marked his first 100 days in office this week by laying out a massive spending plan, as well as massive tax increases that would only partially cover the costs while inflicting significant damage to the economy. His plan would also harm those the president purports to help: families. In his first address to Congress Wednesday, Biden further distanced himself from his campaign promises of bringing the country together. By adding on trillions of new spending and slapping businesses and successful Americans with … [Read more...] about Biden spending spree bad for economy

It’s not 2007 again. But apparently no one has told George W. Bush. To coincide with the release of a book of his paintings of immigrants, “Out of Many, One,” the former Republican president wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post plugging the sort of immigration package that went down to defeat in both his administration and in the administration of his successor, Barack Obama. Bush is an unusually sincere, earnest politician whose views on immigration are deeply felt and honestly come by — they are just anachronistic, or should … [Read more...] about Back to the future on immigration

Could it be that Donald Trump is losing his touch? “Who?” you ask, and that’s exactly the point. With the Trumpster sliding from the main stage to lounge act, we may soon imagine a world where he’s traveling from small town to small town in a rickety old bus, playing before a handful of seats in a shabby motel with a dwindling number of old white guys as an audience, all that’s left of his massive base. The rest will have turned their attention elsewhere, died off or be among the white supremacists still in prison for their crimes … [Read more...] about Donald Trump’s future