After Senate acquits Trump, what’s next?

February 4, 2020

Just because the Senate is about to acquit President Trump of charges Republicans believed never rose to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” don’t think Democrats will raise the white flag of surrender. They (and their media allies) have only just begun. Next is a campaign to defeat enough of the 23 Republican senators up for re-election and, if possible (it doesn’t look possible, but this is February), keep President Trump from winning re-election. Democrats have virtually no issues on which to run, except the promise of free stuff — from Elizabeth Warren’s ...

Even democracy’s partisan now

February 4, 2020

As it marks its centennial this month, the League of Women Voters shows how difficult it is for a political organization born and bred in nonpartisanship to navigate the cratered road of partisan destruction. The ascendance of President Trump, the decline of the Republican Party and the reaction against them both have rendered “nonpartisan” and “political” as effective antonyms. Not that the league was ever immune to partisan complaint. Too prim and complacent for the left, it was too feminist and fluoridated for the right. When William F. Buckley launched National Review in ...

The obvious goes unsaid: She was right

February 3, 2020

Surely you remember the “basket of deplorables.” That was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 characterization of some Donald Trump supporters. Observers saw it as a major gaffe, and conservatives erupted in hot, “How dare you!” indignation at the idea there was anything deplorable about voting for a lying, racist, misogynistic, vagina-grabbing, deadbeat. Few people, if any, dared point out the obvious. Which is that Clinton was right. Well, welcome to déjà vu all over again. Recently on CNN, Don Lemon presided over a segment about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who recently blew up at ...

Throwing flag over hosting a ‘Python Bowl’

February 3, 2020

For football fans, the biggest day of the year is over. For pythons in Florida, their days are still numbered. In a grotesque twist on the Super Bowl, Florida wildlife officials and Gov. Ron DeSantis promoted a spectacle called the Python Challenge Python Bowl, in which participants were encouraged to hunt and kill as many snakes as possible. Footballs made from the 750 snakes’ skins tally used during Super Bowl festivities. The python “problem” in Florida is fueled by the exotic pet industry, which encourages a capricious public to buy these animals on a whim. ...

A primer on student loan debt

January 31, 2020

As the 2020 election ramps up, student loan debt has emerged as a hot-button issue on the campaign trail, with several presidential hopefuls releasing plans to solve what they are calling a “crisis.” The size of student debt — which has roughly tripled in the last dozen years and now exceeds $1.5 trillion — is undeniably sobering, and it is an especially serious matter for students from low- and middle-income families. Our candidates are right to be talking about it. But as with other major national issues that have become topics of partisan debate, political rancor and ...

Where our trust in the news continues to live

January 30, 2020

Every Wednesday morning, James McDaniel sits along the South Main Street portion of U.S. Highway 11 (in Lexington, Va.) with a healthy stack of The News-Gazette beside him. He wears a neat white apron with the newspaper’s moniker stitched across the top. He keeps a small, folded tarp tucked away to protect the paper in case of rain, even if there isn’t a cloud in the sky. “You just never know,” he says. He also keeps a broad, never-failing smile on his face and a “hello” on his lips for everyone who passes on the street, whether they buy a paper or not. During the ...