Does Black Success Matter?
We keep hearing that “black lives matter,” but they seem to matter only when that helps politicians to get votes, or when that slogan helps demagogues demonize the police. The other 99 percent of black...
View ArticleTrump and Blacks
Who would have thought that Donald Trump, of all people, would be addressing the fact that the black community suffers the most from a breakdown of law and order? But sanity on racial issues is...
View ArticleA Clash of Police Policies
Amid the rioting in Milwaukee, there is also a clash between two leading lawmen there — Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and the city of Milwaukee’s Chief of Police Edward Flynn. They have very...
View ArticleAbstract Immigrants in an Abstract World
Why would a country with the world’s largest Jewish population, outside of Israel, admit large numbers of immigrants from countries where hatred of Jews has been taught to their people from earliest...
View ArticleMisleading Statistics
Mark Twain famously said that there were three kinds of lies — “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Since this is an election year, we can expect to hear plenty of all three kinds. Even if the...
View ArticleRacial Issues
Ordinarily, it is not a good idea to base how you vote on just one issue. But if black lives really matter, as they should matter like all other lives, then it is hard to see any racial issue that...
View ArticleOur Political Predicament
There is no point denying or sugar-coating the plain fact that the voters this election year face a choice between two of the worst candidates in living memory. A professor at Morgan State University...
View Article‘Favors’ to Blacks
Back in the 1960s, as large numbers of black students were entering a certain Ivy League university for the first time, someone asked a chemistry professor — off the record — what his response to them...
View ArticleThe Academic Curtain
Back in the days of the Cold War between the Communist bloc of nations and the Western democracies, the Communists maintained pervasive restrictions around Eastern Europe that were aptly called an...
View ArticleWords Versus Deeds
Donald Trump’s gutter talk about women shows yet again that he is bad news. The problem is that Hillary Clinton is far worse. Trump’s talk is indefensible. But Hillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary of...
View ArticleThe Left and the Masses
The greatest moral claim of the political left is that they are for the masses in general and the poor in particular. That is also their greatest fraud. It even fools many leftists themselves. One of...
View ArticleThe Left and the Masses: Part II
It is never easy to tell what people’s motives are. But, when the political left proclaims their devotion to improving the lives of others in general, and of the poor in particular, we can at least get...
View ArticleThe Left and the Masses: Part III
Claiming the role of champions of the masses is something the political left has been doing ever since there has been a political left — which is to say, ever since the late 18th century, when people...
View ArticleImmigration Controversies
Despite controversies that rage over immigration, it is hard to see how anyone could be either for or against immigrants in general. First of all, there are no immigrants in general. Both in the...
View ArticleTurnout Time
Some of us this election year don’t even want to say the words “Clinton” or “Trump” — and with good reason. However, there is one word that we should keep in mind: “Turnout.” If we sit home in disgust...
View ArticleThe Left’s Vision
The political left keeps announcing, as if it is a new breakthrough discovery of theirs, that life is unfair. Have they never read Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” more than two...
View ArticleHas Economics Failed?
It is especially painful for me, as an economist, to see that two small cities in northern California — San Mateo and Burlingame — have rent control proposals on the ballot this election year. There...
View ArticlePainful Choices: Part II
In most Presidential election years, the most important vote is the vote for President of the United States. This year, the most important vote looks like the vote for control of the Senate. Regardless...
View ArticlePainful Choices
Let’s talk sense about the election. Nothing is to be gained by refusing to face the hard facts. What are those facts? First of all, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has the qualifications, the...
View ArticleWhat Now?
The good news is that we dodged a bullet in this election. The bad news is that we don’t know how many other bullets are coming, or from what direction. A Hillary Clinton victory would have meant a...
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