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We’re not going to take it anymore

I’m forming a new political party. I’m going to call my party The Nuisance Liberation Front, and you’re welcome to join. We’re not going to tackle any hot-button social topics — you can go somewhere else if you want action on wedge issues. We’re dealing only with the stuff everyone agrees on, but no one ever takes action about. Here are just a few of the planks in our platform: A permanent end to corporate welfare. Recently, the CFO of ChatGPT company OpenAI, which lost an estimated $5 billion last year, said the federal government should “backstop” their $1.4 ...

Ellis Island sharp contrast to recent border crossings

Between 1892 and 1954, approximately 12 million immigrants arrived at the now-iconic Ellis Island to enter the U.S. — or nearly 200,000 legal entries per year. All were registered, documented, and given rudimentary health exams. They arrived as rich and poor, white and non-white, and, without exception, legally. With the gradual decline of such great influxes, Ellis Island finally ceased operating roughly 71 years ago. Yet Ellis Island’s successful tenure offers a sharp contrast to the failures of our recent open-border catastrophes. Americans will never know how many ...

We must address the affordability issue

Affordability. It’s the word on everybody’s lips. Ever since self-described socialist Zohran Mamdani became the frontrunner in the New York City mayoral election by saying the word “affordability” with talismanic regularity, we have been told that the key to modern politics is that word’s repetition. Say “affordability,” and watch your polls rise. And yet the world becomes ever more unaffordable. Why? Because there is, in the end, only one way to make things more affordable: to reduce prices. And there are only two ways to reduce prices: to reduce demand, or to ...

Affordability issues continue to dominate

The Nov. 4 election results are a reality check for the Trump administration. Democrats didn’t just run up the score in deep-blue enclaves. With power prices soaring, they flipped two Georgia utility-regulator seats in rare statewide victories. In New York City, more than half of voters told exit pollsters that their top worry is the cost of living. Seven in 10 Americans say their grocery bills have gone up this past year. Six in 10 say their utility costs have increased. So, yes, the affordability issues that dominated the 2024 election remain central. But President Donald Trump ...

Don’t Be Cruel: Administration Ignores Elvis’ Plea

The rock musical “Hair,” a huge hit in the ‘60s, is scarcely remembered today. Still, the first line of the play’s showstopper song, “Easy to Be Hard,” keeps running through my head: “How can people be so heartless?” Each day that’s what I ask myself. The Democrats never had a chance in the congressional standoff over the budget. Violating precedent and judicial orders, the Trump administration cut off the food aid provided to about 42 million Americans by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. A senior White House official promised, “We’re going to ...

When compromise dies, democracy follows

In a recent interview, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared in unequivocal terms that President Donald Trump was “the worst thing on the face of the Earth.” You heard that right. Not a threat to democracy, not a danger to civility, the worst thing on the face of the Earth. It was a statement so hyperbolic that it felt less like political commentary and more like a sermon from a zealot who has mistaken politics for theology. Such rhetoric isn’t harmless. It corrodes the political imagination of a people already steeped in outrage. It plants in the public mind a simple but ...