Opinion

Cartoon of the Day

Trump imposes political correctness on NFL

In calling on NFL owners and fans to punish athletes who engage in political protests, President Donald Trump has become a Super Bowl champion of something he purports to oppose: political correctness.

Trump must avoid Carter’s timidity on threats

No one wants what may be necessary. But eliminating this menace might be the only way out of the “valley of the shadow.”

4 approaches that could cut back violent crime in US

What can be done to make the U.S. a safer country?

OPINION

Debate over Iran deal is utterly perplexing

Iran today is encumbered by economic pressures and a decade of tough nuclear constraints. It would be senseless to squander our international influence and give Iran an early release.

OPINION

Celebs wade into politics and people listen

The reason many of us tolerate celebrity engagement in policy is because we know that behind their public images celebrities are real people with a right to be in on this conversation.

OPINION

NAFTA’s ‘rules of origin’ kill US jobs

While NAFTA has achieved its goal of increasing three-way trade in absolute terms, American workers and businesses are not benefiting in a way that is fair and reciprocal.

OPINION

Credit reporting protections are backward

The presumption should be that consumers’ financial information is protected unless and until they expressly request that a party be given access to it.

OPINION

Mismanagement keeps the home fires burning

The crisis in the West is not water; it’s fire. It has spread rapidly and with increasing intensity while the nation’s attention has been elsewhere. It’s time we modernize federal regulations to address the problem.

OPINION

Cassidy-Graham: Attractive in theory, but flawed

The only way to achieve truly patient-centered reforms is to put patients back in control of the health care dollars that Washington spends on their behalf.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, attends a ceremony in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017. <br>Ali Unal/AP

OPINION

How Iraq’s Kurds are threatening Turkey

Erdogan’s sharp turns on the Kurdish issue — first by legitimizing the PKK and then by jailing Kurdish lawmakers — have produced a disjointed policy and disoriented electorate.

OPINION

Multicultural Canada stymied by monocultural Quebec

The problems, hypocrisies and paradoxes surrounding les Québécois may be a uniquely Canadian issue, but analogies can be found in most Western democracies these days.

military update

Pay raise, Tricare fees, couples' BAH might take months to set

The fate of these key elements of compensation is uncertain because the Senate and the House treat them differently in separate versions of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (HR 2810) bill.

OPINION

Mexico needs help now. Can Trump provide it?

Nativist prejudice should find its limits in sudden human suffering.

OPINION

Trump hit good conservative notes at UN

Trump put himself squarely on the side of morality in foreign policy and explicitly stood with those seeking freedom around the world.
OPINION

What Vietnam tells us about Trump voters

The baby boomers have seen their elites break faith again and again.
OPINION

Trump’s welcome 1st flirtation with the UN

The U.N. speech, especially its repeated emphasis on the U.N. itself, struck me as the international version of his rebranding.
OPINION

Speech to the UN was a disastrous, nationalistic flop

Trump gave a speech that may have shocked the world but could not have surprised a single American who has watched his narcissistic caveman routine for the past two years.
OPINION

Presidential pardon power is not absolute

It strains logic to suggest that although a president can be removed from office for an unconstitutional pardon the pardon itself must be judicially enforced.
OPINION

Did Comey give Trump a victory? Data don’t show it

Based on the evidence at hand, we see no reason to conclude that the Comey letter produced shifts in Clinton’s support that were sizable, persistent or consequential.
OPINION

Van Houten has paid dearly. Let her out

The woman I’ve gotten to know in recent months seems nothing like the girl once controlled by Manson’s brainwashing and hallucinatory drugs.
OPINION

An infrastructure deal should be easy, but it isn’t

Although Trump made big promises during the campaign and in his first days in the White House, the administration’s initial plan is for a meager $200 billion spread out over a decade and is reliant on private partnerships.
OPINION

‘Prosecution from the lectern’ cause for concern

It’s probably a sign of the times that it doesn’t even seem particularly surprising. But it should be deeply disturbing.
OPINION

Clinton still doesn’t get ‘what happened’ in election

Clinton says she is done with electoral politics, so it really does not matter if she understands “what happened.” But there is little sign that Democrats today understand, much less are doing what is necessary to win back these working-class voters in the heartland.
OPINION

The Russian fear behind the Zapad exercise

The storyline of the Zapad exercise means the Kremlin considered a more forceful U.S. response to Russian interference in Ukraine a possibility, though perhaps a remote one. In the same way, it’s a possibility to Putin with regard to Belarus.
OPINION

Trump will have to continue working with Democrats

Forming additional bipartisan majorities like Trump and the Democrats created this month won’t be easy. It will require cooperation from GOP leaders, who control the calendar in both houses.
OPINION

Who will challenge Trump in ’20 primaries?

The long odds may not deter potential challengers. We sometimes forget that politicians run for president for many reasons.
OPINION

Peril in involving India, Pakistan in Afghanistan effort

It is doubtful that creating a viable democratic Afghanistan is something the U.S. can achieve.
OPINION

‘Mother’ Merkel poised to be more powerful

Merkel and Macron — or M&M, as they are often labeled in the European press — is now a new power duo that, at least in theory, could reinvigorate the European Union and European defense efforts.
Military Update

Congress can’t be shamed into stabilizing military budgets

“And get a grip on reality,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis scolded the Senate Armed Services Committee last June after some senators whined they won’t be able again this year to pass a defense authorization bill on time. “It’s like we’re all walking around as if we’re victims,” said Mattis, not hiding his disgust.
OPINION

An elementary lesson on the burdens of progressivism

Convinced that people, like the planet, are frightfully fragile — vulnerable to ingesting refined flour and countless other dangers — it’s no wonder progressives want a caring government to superintend our lives.
OPINION

NASA must learn to do its moonshots on a budget

NASA’s planning process — historically dominated by science — must become more sensitive to budget concerns.
OPINION

US official visits Moscow to talk N. Korea

The State Department’s top official dealing with North Korea made a quiet trip to Moscow on Monday to urge Russia to support new United Nations sanctions on North Korea. But though Russia agreed to a watered-down measure, the two countries are still far apart on how to resolve the crisis.
OPINION

Clinton’s tome won’t help her party rebound

Here’s the pity: She could have written a different book — a book that briskly summarized the lessons of her loss and suggested a path forward for the causes she loves. It wouldn’t have been a best-seller, but it might have been more useful.
OPINION

What Trump’s turn toward Dems could bring

For now, it’s produced the most compelling national political stories in recent memory, a golden gift to the media that Trump the protagonist loves and hates.
OPINION

US Senate sits idle during ISIS’ reign of terror in Iraq

In the wake of Islamic State’s genocidal practices in Iraq, the plight of religious minorities on the plain of Nineveh continues unabated.
OPINION

The deadliest period of a hurricane? After it’s over.

Many fatalities happen when victims chose to leave safe shelter after a storm.
OPINION

Francis mixes his messages in Latin America

Within the tradition-laden confines of his mission, Pope Francis has done a great deal to bring the symbolic weight of his pastoral office to bear on some of the most urgent questions of his time.
OPINION

Will Congress be stirred from its slumber?

The president’s manifest and manifold inadequacies might awaken a slumbering Congress to the existence of its Article I powers and responsibilities.
OPINION

Trump struggles with empathy – so what?

At some point, almost certainly since the beginning of the TV age, how a president does something became more important than the thing the president is doing.
OPINION

Devil’s bargain on immigration shouldn’t catch fire

It appears likely that Republicans will attempt to use the fate of DACA recipients as leverage for comprehensive reform — a bringing-to-life of Trump’s immigration platform.
OPINION

Houston’s inspiring ‘Dunkirk moment’

The Texas flotilla was an American Dunkirk, minus the aerial bombardment. So just for a moment, can we celebrate the human spirit that we all watched play out in the Lone Star State?
OPINION

Fellow conservatives, protect medical pot

I should not need to remind our chief law enforcement officer nor my fellow Republicans that our system of federalism, also known as states’ rights, was designed to resolve just such a fractious issue.
OPINION

Muslim assimilation actually high in Europe

Debates over immigration are fraught with misconceptions. One of the most common is that the integration of Muslims into societies in Western Europe has gone very badly, in large part because terrorism attacks loom so large in the news.
OPINION

Power of ex-militants to dissuade others is dubious

A close examination of the stories told by reformed militants reveals that in common with other kinds of “defector narratives” (from ex-cons, former cultists or reformed addicts), they are often exercises in self-justification.
OPINION

Dems left us vulnerable to N. Korea’s nukes

For more than three decades, Democrats have done everything in their power to prevent, obstruct or delay the deployment of ballistic missile defense.
OPINION

How history remembers Trump’s leadership wins

Trump, who loved to tell his campaign crowds they’d soon become tired of winning, hasn’t successfully persuaded his all-Republican Congress to give him one significant policy win.
OPINION

Teddy Roosevelt’s template for help from top still in use

U.S. presidents for more than a century have developed this tradition as a leadership test.
OPINION

Why presidential visits after disasters matter

For all the human hurt in these disasters, from a political point of view they do present a golden opportunity for government officials to shine.
OPINION

Russia’s role in N. Korea nuclear crisis is growing

If Russia can insert itself as an important player on North Korea, it could use that as a bargaining chip in other areas.
OPINION

How fog of uncertainty can lead to war

History teaches that wars often result from bellicose rhetoric and bad information.
OPINION

What about ‘dreamers’ already in uniform?

Today, there are several hundred DACA recipients in the Army; if DACA is ended, these soldiers could face immediate deportation.
OPINION

Trump hurts his presidency by choosing to go it alone

We know from experience that cooperation — between branches of government and between parties — can be frustrating and tedious, with no guarantee of success. But a democracy such as ours depends on principled compromise.
OPINION

Experience shows the US can weather the storm

Research tells us, about storms and their costs, that recovery and resilience are often stronger forces than we expect.
OPINION

Americans are a bit too relaxed about nukes

North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons program isn’t the only news to unnerve arms-control experts this summer. A new survey has revealed that Americans are surprisingly willing to make a first nuclear strike — and kill millions of civilians abroad.
OPINION

Speaking English no threat to German culture

People understand that English is the lingua franca of our day. This is especially true in Germany, which welcomes tourists from around the globe and is where countless companies produce high-quality products for world markets.
OPINION

US lacked will to reduce cost of floods

The sheer scale of the crisis might finally be enough to force politicians and policymakers not to stick to what hasn’t worked in the past.
OPINION

Football’s enjoyment is on a fade pattern

As disturbing scientific evidence accumulates, NFL franchise values soar and annual revenues reach $14 billion.
OPINION

When an America First nation needs the world’s help

Questioning the world’s appetite to help Donald Trump’s America at this moment is a serious question.
OPINION

Tragedy showcased an America that endures

South Texas has reminded the world about all that really remains strong and good in America’s core.
OPINION

Congress must modernize foreign affairs programs

America’s foreign policy is much more than military capabilities. A balanced strategy requires Congress to ensure that diplomacy, aid, trade, travel and other programs are also well-suited for the modern world and our place in it.
OPINION

Should US keep GIs in post-ISIS Syria?

The dilemma is eerily like what President Barack Obama faced in Iraq in 2011, and the risks and benefits are similar.
OPINION

Yes, antifa is the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis

I see little moral distinction between the swastika and the hammer and sickle. Both are evil, and their modern adherents need to be condemned — especially when they dare to commit acts of violence in our midst to advance their hateful visions.
OPINION

Keep US’ N. Korean human rights post

If Trump’s team could see human rights advocacy as a strategic asset, rather than a liability, the U.S. could strengthen its hand diplomatically and maybe even alleviate the suffering of millions of innocents.
OPINION

There is no war in Afghanistan

In announcing last week that more U.S. forces were headed to Afghanistan, President Donald Trump remarked that "the American people are weary of war without victory." He's right about the weariness. But that very weariness is encouraged by the widespread belief that Afghanistan is the kind of war in which there is going to be a moment of victory, if only the American people support the war a little longer. And that is to misunderstand the nature of the conflict in Afghanistan.
OPINION

Why so many people still support Trump

Those who scorn Trump’s supporters might argue that none of their opinions are in fact intelligible or legitimate. In fact, this automatic attribution of stupidity and bad faith is just another kind of bigotry.
OPINION

Trump is loved and hated too intensely to unite

Supporters claim Trump needs to energize his base with anger. But rain or shine, his fans have shown no proclivity to flee.
OPINION

Pardons have lost their true purpose

Pardoning in today’s federal system has all but ceased to play the role the framers intended of advancing fairness and proportionality.
OPINION

Leakers are vilified, but they are part of democracy

Most citizens, including those who serve in Congress, realize the importance of preserving a free press and their own ability to speak (and yes, sometimes leak) freely.
OPINION

PACOM chief Adm. Harry Harris reportedly under consideration for Australia envoy

The Trump White House is considering naming America's top military commander in the Asia-Pacific region to be ambassador to Australia, a key diplomatic post in a time of high regional tension. The move would reassure a key ally and strengthen the administration's Asia team, which remains full of vacancies.
OPINION

Process not main problem with Arpaio’s pardon

We should talk about why, of all the people with criminal records in this country, Trump chose to make Arpaio his first pardonee.
OPINION

Trump is shedding all sorts of supporters

It’s true that most of Trump’s most fervent supporters are still committed to him. But his less fervent supporters — let’s call them “soft Trump voters” — are drifting away.
OPINION

North vs. South: Who’s still keeping score?

You know we’ve reached a point of — something — when a sports announcer named Robert Lee is reassigned from calling a University of Virginia football game because of his contemporaneously unfortunate name.
OPINION

Militancy on left is last thing Democrats need

On the surface, President Donald Trump’s self-inflicted troubles would seem a harbinger of future Democratic successes. But beyond the headlines, signs abound that the opposition party is facing its own internal problems.
OPINION

Nation-building is the answer in Afghanistan

This is not about charity. It’s about strategy.
OPINION

Will pro-Trump media go after Kelly?

As Kelly tries to filter out articles from the likes of Breitbart, Infowars, GotNews and the Gateway Pundit, those websites will likely try to erode his standing in their readers’ — and the president’s — eyes.
OPINION

Trump sullying Republican Party’s good name

His message is, “You are not one of us,” the opposite of “e pluribus unum.”
OPINION

War is no shortcut to presidential boosts

The obvious danger of foreign military action is that no one can ever guarantee it will go that well, and if it doesn’t it can be poisonous to a presidency.
OPINION

Anti-media tirades could inspire violence

I am convinced that even this out-of-control bully-at-the-presidential-sealed-pulpit doesn’t fathom the inevitable sinister consequences of his own words.
OPINION

Fight fair within the bounds of political process

Why should anyone believe that people who have been committed to political violence will change their minds and recommit to peaceful forms of litigating conflicts?
OPINION

VA’s telehealth effort increases access to care

If a veteran is in crisis and there is a shortage of mental health providers in his or her community, we will be able to connect them to experts in other parts of the country, allowing them to get the care they need right away.
OPINION

The generals have Trump surrounded

In a healthy democracy, political stability does not hinge on an indispensable general. In Donald Trump’s America, it might.
OPINION

When all must live in fear of online mobs

Over time more and more people have suffered national stigma that outlasts their 15 minutes of fame.
OPINION

Develop Trump’s themes to improve Afghanistan outlook

The key elements of President Donald Trump’s strategy are broadly correct. A narrow focus on the “art of the possible” is critical, given the significant fatigue of both the U.S. and the international security/donor community over the problem of corruption in Afghanistan.
OPINION

Trump doesn’t want stain of Afghan defeat

The best argument for Trump’s Afghanistan policy is that it avoids losing, and at relatively low cost.
OPINION

Trump undercuts troop unity he praises

Trump’s own words last month undercut his broader point on Monday: that shared patriotism and common desire to defend the country would unite soldiers, sailors and airmen in a way that we might all emulate.
OPINION

Extremists’ violence grew as warnings politicized

Right-wing terrorism has become the national security threat that many government leaders have yet to acknowledge.
OPINION

The new weapons we need to respond to new threats

There is every reason not to limit our ability to bring dangerous nations to heel, not least because new technologies give the U.S. and its allies an opportunity to pre-empt looming threats or respond quickly with proportional force in a crisis.
OPINION

Campaign against Qatar ignores its good deeds

Unlike the ruling family in Saudi Arabia constrained by its alliance with Wahhabi clerics, Qatari rulers have determinedly pushed their traditional society toward globalization and westernization.
OPINION

Why Confederate monuments should remain

Destroying or removing monuments is the easy way out of our obligation to understand our past and improve our future.
OPINION

Working long hours pointless if not productive

If U.S. workers are wasting more office time on social media, it could mean that productivity gains from new technology are being frittered away on a low-grade form of pseudo-leisure.
OPINION

Shoot down lawmakers’ nuclear option on Russia

Russia’s violation of the INF Treaty is a serious matter. But a tit-for-tat response — developing our own new nuclear missile — won’t make us safer and will only make the problem worse.
OPINION

For N. Korean refugee, threat never ends

While Americans were spared this month from North Korea’s threats of nuclear war, she likely will never escape the risk of death at the hands of that regime.
OPINION

Set some nuclear ground rules for Kim Jong Un

While denuclearization should remain the international community’s formal goal, it is no longer a practical policy.
OPINION

Trump did some good this week on infrastructure

Trump’s executive order calls for tracking every major infrastructure project, with public disclosure of deadlines and of whether they have been met, alongside potential penalties for poor performance.
OPINION

Tillerson, Mattis and Dunford pulled US back from the nuclear brink

After threatening fire and fury, how does a superpower de-escalate? By scrambling its secretary of state, secretary of defense and military chief to reassure foreign leaders that President Donald Trump should be taken seriously, not literally.
OPINION

Trump took Palin model, improved it

His popularity is cultural, not political, resilient to the notions of truth and fiction and to Trump’s own failures.
OPINION

Good training, data would serve public, police well

Police departments suffer more than the public when facts can’t support what is probably the truth: By far, members of law enforcement carry out their job’s duties in a most commendable manner.
OPINION

Is Confederacy finally near the end?

Racists in Charlottesville may have unwittingly given America a truer image of the Confederacy than the 150-year fiction of the Lost Cause.
OPINION

Some good news for Trump in latest Russia leak

In this case, it appears that his senior advisers were appropriately alarmed by Papadopoulos’ suggestions and shot down the idea of setting up meetings.
OPINION

Time for Republicans to disown Trump

Republicans’ words are insufficient and, at this point, insufferable.

Opinion

Cartoon of the Day

Trump imposes political correctness on NFL

Trump must avoid Carter’s timidity on threats

4 approaches that could cut back violent crime in US

OPINION

Debate over Iran deal is utterly perplexing

OPINION

Celebs wade into politics and people listen

OPINION

NAFTA’s ‘rules of origin’ kill US jobs

OPINION

Credit reporting protections are backward

OPINION

Mismanagement keeps the home fires burning

OPINION

Cassidy-Graham: Attractive in theory, but flawed

OPINION

How Iraq’s Kurds are threatening Turkey

OPINION

Multicultural Canada stymied by monocultural Quebec

military update

Pay raise, Tricare fees, couples' BAH might take months to set

OPINION

Mexico needs help now. Can Trump provide it?

OPINION

Trump hit good conservative notes at UN

OPINION

What Vietnam tells us about Trump voters

OPINION

Trump’s welcome 1st flirtation with the UN

OPINION

Speech to the UN was a disastrous, nationalistic flop

OPINION

Presidential pardon power is not absolute

OPINION

Did Comey give Trump a victory? Data don’t show it

OPINION

Van Houten has paid dearly. Let her out

OPINION

An infrastructure deal should be easy, but it isn’t

OPINION

‘Prosecution from the lectern’ cause for concern

OPINION

Clinton still doesn’t get ‘what happened’ in election

OPINION

The Russian fear behind the Zapad exercise

OPINION

Trump will have to continue working with Democrats

OPINION

Who will challenge Trump in ’20 primaries?

OPINION

Peril in involving India, Pakistan in Afghanistan effort

OPINION

‘Mother’ Merkel poised to be more powerful

Military Update

Congress can’t be shamed into stabilizing military budgets

OPINION

An elementary lesson on the burdens of progressivism

OPINION

NASA must learn to do its moonshots on a budget

OPINION

US official visits Moscow to talk N. Korea

OPINION

Clinton’s tome won’t help her party rebound

OPINION

What Trump’s turn toward Dems could bring

OPINION

US Senate sits idle during ISIS’ reign of terror in Iraq

OPINION

The deadliest period of a hurricane? After it’s over.

OPINION

Francis mixes his messages in Latin America

OPINION

Will Congress be stirred from its slumber?

OPINION

Trump struggles with empathy – so what?

OPINION

Devil’s bargain on immigration shouldn’t catch fire

OPINION