Editorial

It has been a year since coronavirus became a household word, and in long months that seem like years, more than 500,000 of our fellow Americans succumbed to the virus, more than American civilian and military losses in World War II. Many of us lost friends and relatives, whose final moments were spent in a sterile hospital room without family and friends, but hopefully with a sympathetic nurse at the bedside for comfort. Many of us who stayed healthy, adapted to a world in hibernation and the indistinguishable blurring of work and … [Read more...] about Coronavirus tested our humanity, but didn’t defeat it

Throughout the pandemic, the press has been excoriatingly harsh on a governor who was slow to act, unnecessarily endangered the lives of the elderly, alienated experts and cooked the numbers. It just thought the governor in question was Florida’s Ron DeSantis rather than New York’s Andrew Cuomo. After it has become clear that Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic was not just criminal in the metaphorical sense, but perhaps in the literal sense, the press has begun, only reluctantly and belatedly, to abandon its long-running Cuomo … [Read more...] about Press swapped the script on Cuomo vs. DeSantis

By LEE H. HAMILTON As the events of the past few months have unfolded, I have often found myself wondering what our Founders would have made of it all. Impossible to know, of course, but they had plenty of insight to offer. In particular, I keep returning to these lines from James Madison. He delivered them during the Virginia convention to ratify the Constitution, arguing that the surest safeguard against legislators and a government bent on malfeasance is the people themselves. “I go on this great republican principle, that … [Read more...] about Our country rests on people doing the right thing

There’s a word for the great pleasure derived from someone else’s misfortune: schadenfreude. Ted Cruz, normally known as a royal pain, is once again winning the contest for schadenfreude poster boy. He is ... well, let’s call on his famous associates to describe him: Former Speaker of the House John Boehner said Ted Cruz is “Lucifer in the flesh.” Boehner spit out those words sometime after freshman Sen. Cruz had pretty much singlehandedly caused the government shutdown in 2013 over his plan to get the White House to strip funding … [Read more...] about Cruz control

News that Nestlé Waters North America would have new owners — One Rock Capital Partners and Metropoulos & Co. — made waves, at first. Environmental advocates and plain old Michiganders alike excitedly pondered the possibilities. Could our state finally pull the plug on its unfathomable “deal” that allows the water bottling company to suck up and sell state water for millions of dollars a year in return for a measly $200 paperwork fee? But state officials snuffed hope under a wet bureaucratic blanket. The permit “is … [Read more...] about Time to re-examine the Nestle’ arrangement

It’s been 13 months since China shut down a region of 18 million people because of the rapid human-to-human transfer of a new strain of coronavirus. It’s been a year since the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency because of the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes. It’s been 11 months since Gavin Newsom became the first governor to order a statewide lockdown. It’s been eight months since the U.S. recorded its first 100,000 deaths from the pandemic. And it’s been four months since Dr. … [Read more...] about We knew vaccines were coming four months ago. Why wasn’t America ready to quickly give them out?

President Joe Biden has proved that, if nothing else, he has a pen and a phone. According to The Economist, he signed more executive orders in his first two days than President Donald Trump signed in nearly his first two months. And he was just getting started. Republicans have no standing to complain about Biden’s spate of unilateral measures, given they were fine with Trump using exactly the same means. But that presidents of both parties govern this way doesn’t make it better — it makes it worse. Some executive actions … [Read more...] about Congress bows to the pen and the phone

There’s one overriding reason I favor going ahead with the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump: We cannot allow these violent fanatics on the extreme right to intimidate us. These insane hooligans have threatened deadly mayhem again if the Senate goes ahead with the trial, and they need to be crushed if they try. In all probability they won’t. It’s probably another terrorist scare tactic, but it’s working to the extent that the presence of thousands of National Guard troops is turning Washington into an armed camp. … [Read more...] about The Trumpster waste