OPINION

Democratic contenders are so busy trying to demonstrate how un-Trump they are that they risk putting everyone to sleep.

OPINION

China’s national anthem celebrates “millions of hearts with one mind.” Hong Kong’s protesters are defending a society comfortable with many different minds.

Opinion

Rep.-elect Dan Bishop didn’t just overcome his Democrat opponent’s two-year head start and millions of dollars in out-of-state money. He also outperformed the GOP candidate’s 2018 efforts by 2 points — quite a different narrative from what the cable news pundits want voters to believe and great news for Republican prospects next year.

OPINION

For many Afghans like Zohra Atifi, whose husband was killed under Taliban rule, the American invasion in 2001 marked a chance to start over after living under an oppressive regime. But 18 years later, the Taliban are growing more confident of returning to power.

OPINION

Smoking kills. It always has. And no cartoon face or minty-fresh flavoring can mask that macabre reality.

OPINION

The elephantine approach of an all-out ban, which the president apparently prefers, would blunt the potential good that comes from the product and potentially even hurting the anti-tobacco cause.

OPINION

The Democratic presidential front-runners needed to avoid mistakes and the lesser-knowns needed to distinguish themselves and reassure the supporters they already have. Overall, the 2020 campaign moved sideways in Thursday’s debate.

OPINION

When Trump won Ohio and the presidency, Sen. Rob Portman was faced with adjusting to a new political reality. It was a world far removed from the safe and familiar territory of presidents named Bush.

OPINION

One four-star general recalls that Trump would sometimes ask Dunford if he liked a particular policy option. “I’m not in love with any of them,” Dunford would answer. “My job is to give you choices.”

OPINION

One of the most striking things about current U.S. politics is a renewed interest in industrial policy — on the left as a way to help the working class, on the right as a means of making America great again. There are reasons to be cautious about this bipartisan enthusiasm.

OPINION

Three Scottish judges just lobbed a constitutional grenade onto an already bloody Brexit battlefield by ruling that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Britain’s parliament is unlawful. If Queen Elizabeth II has so far largely succeeded in staying out of matters Brexit, it will be much harder now.

OPINION

Beijing’s consistently sinister behavior reveals a determination to incrementally nullify “one nation, two systems” by reducing Hong Kong to just another jurisdiction wholly subservient to China’s deepening tyranny.

OPINION

For decades, he has been consistent in his contempt for the leaders in Iran and not shy about the need to spill innocent blood sometimes to reach what he perceived to be U.S. strategic goals.

OPINION

The Social Security payroll tax is probably the largest tax you pay each year and that Social Security is the largest single source of income for the elderly — and we all aspire one day to be elderly.

OPINION

Most insurgencies end not on a battlefield or at a formal surrender but in a negotiation. There is still time to avoid a Vietnam-like outcome.

OPINION

We know politicians are constantly measuring the things they say and that they aren’t supposed to swear publicly. So when they do curse, it’s difficult not to at least think it might be calculated.

OPINION

If today we turn these people away, or reduce the numbers who are allowed entry, it will be extremely difficult to ask others to assist us in the future.

Opinion

Relations between Japan and South Korea are currently strained due to a dispute over former civilian workers from the Korean Peninsula during World War II. The heart of the problem is whether the promises made between our two sovereign states when they decided to normalize their relations in 1965 will be kept or not.

Opinion

President Donald Trump has never held back when slamming Barack Obama on mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, as the White House prepares to announce a U.S. deal with the Taliban, Trump seems poised to mimic his predecessor.

OPINION

His victory in 2016 had more to do with Hillary Clinton underperforming what should be expected of an average Democratic candidate than it did any magic Trump brought to the race. Only a fatally flawed candidate next year could repeat that set of circumstances.

OPINION

Lawmakers have chipped away at the margins — say, by limiting ammunition capacity. But even 10 highly lethal rounds are an awful lot.

OPINION

America’s fentanyl problem is far deadlier than past crises with other illegal drugs. It also has a fundamentally different character.

OPINION

No democracy can survive if its citizens do not believe that democracy is worth having.

OPINION

There are lively and necessary debates underway on many critical issues in the United States, but when a small group of executives at the largest internet companies in Silicon Valley tries to impose its moral framework on America, something has gone seriously and dangerously awry.

OPINION

Recently, sales of adult diapers outnumbered sales of baby diapers here for the first time, another harbinger of the demographic collapse that has left the country a pale shadow of the economic powerhouse that made Americans paranoid a generation ago.

OPINION

While they go to work defending our country, thousands of parents in the military trust the welfare of their kids to child-care centers on base. It's one of the things that the military usually does really well — except for now.

“Mom! Where did you put the cups for my smoothie maker?!” my daughter, Anna, yelled from our basement last week while packing for her last year of college. An artsy fashion design major who considers orderliness boring, Anna was infamous in our family for losing things and accusing others of taking them.

OPINION

In a sense, this agreement to end a war is actually a diplomatic mechanism that gives the president the option to continue fighting it.

But Democrats shouldn’t avoid talking about the economy. For decades, economic opportunity, financial security and even access to education have become more difficult for most families to achieve.

OPINION

Encouraging more Americans to serve their country is good politics and good policy. But we don’t need a massive mandatory national program to do it.

OPINION

For me, and so many Americans with hearing loss, there is simply no substitute for Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service.

OPINION

There’s a saying in American infantry battalions, usually directed by furious sergeants at slow-moving privates: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

OPINION

The criteria for a promising protest candidate are thus not especially stringent. Surely in this great and large nation, anti-Trump Republicans can find someone who meets them.

OPINION

As Xi has threatened Hong Kong, Trump repeatedly and publicly sympathized with him. Even under pressure from his advisers, the best he could do was muse that a crackdown would make it politically difficult for him to strike a trade deal.

OPINION

If the Trump administration leaves space strategy in the hands of vested bureaucracies with little interest in understanding this radical new future, space may be less free, and the U.S. may be poorer and less free as a result.

OPINION

As part of any planning for a reduction in forces, the U.S. government has a responsibility to protect those who served the United States and who worked tirelessly at great personal risk to protect U.S. personnel and advance the U.S. mission.

OPINION

A successful policy of leverage comes from collective international pressure, the prospect that negotiations can offer credible economic gains and the threat of meaningful consequences for malign actions.

Opinion

Colorado Springs/Pikes Peak region hosts not only the Air Force Space Command and the Air Force Academy but also combines with the physical and intellectual assets of neighboring and contiguous operations at Peterson and Schriever Air Force Bases, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Northcom, NORAD, the National Cybersecurity Center, Space Foundation, the National Space Symposium and more.

Why do we name our babies before they are born? Before we know their character traits, individual personalities, propensities and proficiencies?

OPINION

Unchecked crimes of sexual abuse in the Protestant church include red flags and shrugged shoulders that kill the spirit of young believers and damage the cause of Christ.

OPINION

It’s almost impossible to overstate how much the fate of the next president rests on who controls the Senate.

OPINION

So far, the Democratic presidential field has ignored the country’s dire debt and deficit situation.

OPINION

A recent report showed that uncertainty over a spouse’s career is the number one financial obstacle that lessens the quality of life for military families.

OPINION

Trump likes to be his own spokesman. He certainly doesn’t mind being the center of attention either and relishes setting the media’s agenda around him.

OPINION

A presidential nominee’s first significant act is picking his running mate. Ditching one four years later would be an admission of error, which is why it rarely happens.

OPINION

Nevada’s Democratic-controlled House and Senate voted to join the National Popular Vote. Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, however, vetoed this because it would “diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests.”

OPINION

A veteran performer like Trump surely understands the Hollywood reality that today’s star becomes tomorrow’s has-been.

OPINION

Unlike Notre Dame, the Amazon isn’t a cathedral we built, but rather a cathedral we were gifted. Now we are watching it burn, together.

OPINION

“Apocalypse Now” accurately portrays the conflict between Special Forces and the conventional “straight leg” Army. Bureaucratic self-protection is a prime theme in the film, and was a terrible problem in Vietnam.

OPINION

To simply withdraw our forces from Afghanistan and abandon any responsibility in the fight against terrorism is to jeopardize our own security.

OPINION

A FiveThirtyEight survey shows that 12 out of 15 Democratic candidates want to cut U.S. defense spending. But Russia-related issues should serve as a litmus test of that anti-war stance.

OPINION

Just as Nixon, one of his era’s most vigorous anti-communists, used the credibility of his personal record and party label to undertake his startling initiatives, a Democrat — and only a Democrat — can lead the country fiscally where it desperately needs to go.

OPINION

The pushback to independent redistricting commissions in New Hampshire and other states shows the folly in Chief Justice John Roberts’ salvo that all is not lost because states can enact their own meaningful reforms to combat partisan gerrymandering.

OPINION

For a long period of time, an indefinite conflict in Afghanistan has been the quintessential bad investment, a war that has resulted in the deaths of over 3,500 U.S. and coalition troops at a cost of over $750 billion.

while for a moment it seemed Democrats and Republicans might be moving closer to a tentative truce on the issue, unfortunately the importance of seeking a more just “justice” is becoming, like so much else, another opportunity to disagree.

OPINION

These actions will reverberate in our government for years to come, even after the Trump administration is gone, in the form of policy decisions we make without the benefit of the best evidence available.

OPINION

He cannot be too outrageous, because shocking and offensive are spoon-fed to America as the norm, courtesy of both unscripted and scripted television.

OPINION

He’s still the front-runner, but his lead is far from commanding. If he stumbles, there’s still time for another moderate to move up in the polls.

OPINION

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss might welcome a narrow avenue to reverse a rank injustice and hand the administration a well-deserved comeuppance for an arrogant and fundamentally corrupt act of brass-knuckle politics.

OPINION

We cannot accept a deal that places America’s security in the hands of the Taliban.

OPINION

There’s a big problem with the government’s fraud claim: Fraud typically involves a defendant who intends to injure the victim and profit at the victim’s expense, but these defendants intended neither.

OPINION

The Taliban may very well make further gains following a U.S. withdrawal, but the myth that territorial safe havens provide great utility to terrorists planning transnational attacks should not continue to justify a war that America cannot win.

OPINION

When it comes time to defend his red wall along the Great Lakes, Trump is going to come face to face with the consequences of his Pentagon leadership’s failure to implement his oft-promised 355-ship Navy (up from 290 today).

OPINION

For Kuwait, Iraq is a giant market and investment opportunity at its doorstep. It is also an escape from other tensions in the Arabian Peninsula.

While Congress hashes out the details of President Donald Trump’s proposed “U.S. Space Force” — who will oversee it, how many personnel are needed, whether we can afford it, where will it be located — I am selfishly wondering what the future holds for the military spouse community after this sixth branch of the armed forces stands up.

OPINION

What’s the sound course, between the moral hazard of recklessly encouraging risk and the moral blindness of ignoring brave people fighting for their rights? The right answer is awkwardly somewhere in the middle.

OPINION

Democrats argue a state has the constitutional authority to regulate presidential elections. But that relates to election procedures, not candidate qualifications.

OPINION

Islamic State has largely taken control of a huge camp in northeast Syria, and there’s no plan for what to do with the 70,000 people there (including more than 50,000 children). The United States and Europe must immediately address this urgent national security and humanitarian crisis before a new caliphate is established while we watch.

OPINION

Cuccinelli conveniently forgot the history that not too many of those arriving at Ellis Island toted sacks of cash or spoke perfect and unaccented English, and that his own ancestors who sought opportunity in America might not pass muster.

OPINION

The short-term loan industry went into Chicken Little mode as soon as the new rules were announced a few years ago, arguing that the requirements would put thousands of lenders out of business. That means, of course, the industry was acknowledging its business model depends on ensnaring consumers in endless debt.

OPINION

There’s something deeply disturbing about Congress and the federal government standing powerless before U.S. drug companies and relying on little Canada to bail us out.

OPINION

Bacterial drug resistance is a major public health problem that potentially affects all of us. Using accurate language is necessary to keep the public optimally informed about this important threat.

OPINION

The use of advanced genomic tests is helping better determine a veteran’s risk of harboring undetected prostate cancer.

OPINION

He needed to sit in court. He needed to hear woman after woman explain that they weren’t having fun; they were traumatized. He wasn’t an eccentric playboy; he was a predator. Nobody wanted his sperm.

OPINION

Fully 38 percent of murder offenders with known ages are below age 25. This is due in part to ongoing development of brain domains that regulate impulse control, judgment and long-term planning.

OPINION

I do not believe Trump is a racist, much less a white supremacist. I think the rhetoric of the Democratic candidates is incendiary and dangerous, and also politically self-destructive.

OPINION

With a shocking set of facts such as this one, that kind of speculation, frequently based on naked suspicion, is inevitable and, in today’s world, impossible to stop. The only antidote is a swift, thorough and objective search for the truth.

OPINION

National conservatives preen as defenders of the dignity of the rural and small-town — mostly white and non-college educated — working class. However, these defenders nullify the members’ dignity by discounting their agency.

OPINION

Our industry’s corrosive ideas about manhood and power bleed into too many of the products we ship. We’ve told one kind of player that they are the center of the universe, and we’ve catered to their every whim for 30 years.

OPINION

We could easily tighten up the current law of incitement without undermining free-speech protections.

OPINION

It’s true that Trump campaigned on getting the United States out of foreign wars. But he also campaigned on not repeating the mistake Obama made in Iraq when he completely withdrew and left a vacuum ISIS filled.

OPINION

The Pentagon is buzzing about a potentially revolutionary order by the new Marine Corps commandant that bluntly answers the essential question for would-be military reformers: What should we discard from the legacy arsenal to make room for what we need to fight the wars of the future?

OPINION

What makes the attack on political correctness so disturbing is that the ideology doesn’t exist anywhere but in the radioactive contempt for it.

OPINION

In Iran and Saudi Arabia alike, the persecution and prosecution of women’s rights activists shows the ruling patriarchy’s unchanging attitude toward women.

OPINION

There is no political justification for acts of mass murder of civilians. When political leaders give such acts cover, even inadvertently, the movement spreads and innocent people die.

OPINION

While Beijing fortifies contested islands to its southeast, it remains silent on its long-surrendered northeastern lands, leaving Russia the undisputed sovereign of Eurasia’s far northeast.

OPINION

Each time, someone bent on mass murder found it possible — easy, really — to get the weaponry with which to carry out those intentions.