Nonstop election campaigns not good for our country

January 28, 2020

I love Ireland for its natural beauty, its people, its food (some of it), its music, its writers and especially its elections, which are shorter, less costly and designed to engage citizens and boost voter turnout. On Jan. 14, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar called a general election for Feb. 8. That means a campaign of slightly more than three weeks. In the process, the Irish Parliament was dissolved. What a delightful thought. If only the U.S. Congress could be at least occasionally dissolved. It could use some dissolving, or at least disinfecting, after the toxic impeachment and ...

So much for ‘pain of imprisonment’

January 28, 2020

“Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, all persons are commanded to keep silent on pain of imprisonment while the House of Representatives is exhibiting to the Senate of the United States articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump, President of the United States.” I’ve always been a small-D democrat, but that’s never interfered with the agreeable sense of awe I experience when our institutions turn ceremonial. I enjoy the reserved ritual and formality of the State of the Union address. I appreciate the quaint, old-fashioned phrases that hark back to our nation’s beginnings: ...

Hell was a place called Auschwitz

January 27, 2020

This week marks 75 years since Soviet troops stormed the gates of hell. Hell was near a Polish town called Oswiecim. Hell was a place called Auschwitz. That murder factory has all but passed from memory now, been swallowed by history. So perhaps it feels distant to you, far removed in space and time. In 2005, the year of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I went to Poland with a Holocaust remembrance group led by a man named Joe Engel. We toured Majdanek, Belzec, Treblinka and the two main camps of the Auschwitz complex, from which Engel escaped in January 1945. With ...

Do human rights still matter?

January 24, 2020

By many counts, the trade deal President Trump signed on Jan. 15 with China lacks heft. It doesn’t remove all the tariffs, it doesn’t impose any major penalties on intellectual property theft, and it punts completely on issues including China’s state subsidies to prop up its own companies in international markets. Yet on one matter, the agreement could dramatically alter the U.S.-China relationship and the future of global democracy. At the signing, Trump trumpeted a future of “harmony, prosperity and, really, commerce — commerce and — far beyond commerce, between the ...

Pennsylvania House races serve as 2020 harbinger

January 23, 2020

Eugene DePasquale and Sean Parnell couldn’t be more different politically. DePasquale is a seasoned statewide-elected official and Democrat from York County, Pennsylvania, while Parnell is a western Pennsylvania Republican newcomer who has never run for office. Yet they share one very important thing this year: They are both challenging incumbent members of Congress in districts President Trump won in 2016. Both of their races tell the story of not just how uncertain the Keystone State is politically but also how completely divided it is. They also show us how hard it is to ...

Sanders’ ‘Medicare for All’ is not fair to Medicare

January 22, 2020

It needs pointing out that Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All plan bears little resemblance to Medicare. The Vermont senator undoubtedly exploits the word “Medicare” to obscure the radicalness of his single-payer proposal. Medicare, after all, is very popular. Those who admire single-payer systems — which do have their virtues — should own up to it and not hide their plans under misleading labels. Medicare isn’t single-payer. Even Canada’s single-payer system doesn’t offer the range of free services Sanders proposes. For example, it doesn’t cover vision and dental. ...