
Columnist.
The first use of nuclear weapons occurred Aug. 6, 1945. The second occurred three days later. That there has not been a third is testimony to the skill and sobriety of 12 presidents and many other people, here and abroad.
The Republicans' tax legislation is built on economic projections that are as confidently as they are cheerfully made concerning the legislation's shaping effect on the economy over the next 10 years.
The conversation about a cake lasted less than a minute but will long reverberate in constitutional law.
American democracy's comic opera frequently features collaborations of "bootleggers and Baptists." These entertainments are so named because during Prohibition, Baptists thought banning Demon Rum would improve public morals (oh, well) and bootleggers favored the ban because it made scarce a commodity for which there was a demand that they could profitably supply.
Although it is plausible to suspect this, it is not true that the Credit Mobilier scandal of the late 1860-early 1870s (financial shenanigans by politicians and others surrounding construction of the Union Pacific Railroad) and the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal (shady dealings by politicians and others concerning government oil leases) were entangled with Division One college basketball programs. Back then, there were no such programs. About the 1970s Watergate scandal, however, suspicions remain.
Tryptophan, an amino acid in turkey, is unjustly blamed for what mere gluttony does, making Americans comatose every fourth Thursday in November. But before nodding off, give thanks for another year of American hilarity...
This state's story, which lately has been depressing, soon will acquire a riveting new chapter. In 2018 Illinois will have the nation's most important, expensive and strange election.
But for the bomb, the four would be in their 60s, probably grandmothers. Three were 14 and one was 11 in 1963 when the blast killed them in the 16th Street Baptist Church, which is four blocks from the law office of Doug Jones, who then was 9.
The Republicans' tax bill would somewhat improve the existing revenue system that once caused Mitch Daniels (former head of the Office of Management and Budget, former Indiana governor) to say: Wouldn't it be nice to have a tax code that looked as though it had been designed on purpose?
Such is the federal government's sprawl, and its power to establish new governing precedents, mere Washington twitches can jeopardize venerable principles and institutions.
Evidence of national discernment, although never abundant, can now be found high on the New York Times combined print and e-book best seller list. There sits Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses Simpson Grant, which no reader will wish were shorter than its 1,074 pages.
Needing a victory to validate their majorities, congressional Republicans have chosen not to emulate Shakespeare's Henry V before Agincourt. He advocated stiffening the sinews, summoning up the blood and lending the eye a terrible aspect. The Republicans would rather define victory down.
What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive ourselves into believing that corporate welfare can be seemly. Consider the caper, both amusing and depressing, that began when mighty Boeing sought protection behind the skirts of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The breakfasters at Bob and Edith's Diner are too preoccupied with their tasty bacon and eggs to notice the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
Kevin Hassett evidently has not received the memo that economics is "the dismal science." The ebullient chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers is relishing the intellectual feast of applying to policymaking the predictive tools of a science that was blindsided by the Great Recession.
What would America's abortion policy be if the number of months in the gestation of a human infant were a prime number — say, seven or 11?
With eyes wide open, Mike Pence eagerly auditioned for the role as Donald Trump's poodle.
Bending metal, slapping on chrome and marketing an empowering product and status marker that mesmerized 20th-century America, the automobile industry typified the Old Economy, of which General Motors was emblematic. As was its bankruptcy.
With biblical succinctness, and foreshadowing a resurrection, Mike Duggan said, "Let there be light!" and 65,000 LED streetlights replaced the 40 percent of the city's streetlights that were broken when he took office in 2014.