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Trump derangement syndrome hijacks an election

Just hours before Canada’s federal election, a man treated a street festival here in Vancouver like it was a bowling lane and his vehicle was the ball. Eleven people have died as a result, with several others injured. But sure, let’s make the federal election all about U.S. President Donald Trump. Local police quickly ruled out terrorism. How could they possibly know so fast? Well, because they were apparently like, “Oh, it was just THAT guy.” And not because he hangs out at the doughnut shop with them and shoots the breeze, but because he’s out there doing enough criming ...

Can’t make government efficient

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple when he was 21 years old. Nine years later, at age 30, he was purged and fired from the company he founded and built by the professional management he helped recruit. Eleven years later, after that management brought the firm to the edge of bankruptcy, Jobs returned to the helm and saved the company. In 1997, when Jobs returned as interim CEO, Apple lost $1.04 billion and estimates were that it was 90 days from insolvency. Jobs restored discipline and focus. He slashed the product line from 15 to four products and fired 3,000 employees. By the ...

Reality has a vote, in politics as in entertainment

Reality has a vote. That is one lesson administered to the body of politics in the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second administration. After the president gleefully announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, stock market prices fell sharply, and the bond market became, as Trump put it, “yippy.” So after just one week, on April 9, he put the Liberation Day tariffs on a 90-day pause. Perhaps contributing to this choice was automaker Stellantis’ April 3 decision to lay off workers in five U.S. factories. Reality and widespread reactions to a policy I ...

N.Y.’s budget: highway robbery

New Yorkers are getting robbed blind. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state’s two legislative leaders announced a budget deal Monday night on how much to tax New Yorkers and how much the state government will spend in the coming fiscal year, which starts June 1. From the smattering of information available, it’s likely this deal will necessitate additional tax hikes months from now that could trigger an economic death spiral for the state and its largest city. Here’s the kicker. This is a backroom deal, done in secrecy. No press allowed, and none of the other 211 members of the ...

Philosophy only a leftist could love

In an interview with Time magazine, President Trump explained how he approaches tariffs and trade negotiations. I use the word “explained” with some trepidation because explanations imply a certain delineation of reasoning, facts and logic along with opinion and perspective. If you ask me to explain my support for abolishing rent control and I respond, “Because vests have no sleeves and turtles smell of elderberries,” have I really offered an explanation? Or have I merely revealed what passes for my thinking? “We’re a department store, a giant department store, the ...

Trumps second term might have been sunk by tariffs

Presidential second terms are rarely successful, and on the evidence of his first 100 days Donald Trump ’s won’t be different. The President needs a major reset if he wants to rescue his final years from the economic and foreign-policy shocks he has unleashed. There’s no denying his energy or ambition. Mr. Trump is pressing ahead on multiple fronts, and he has had some success. His expansion of U.S. energy production is proceeding well and is much needed after the Biden war on fossil fuels. He has ended the border crisis in short order. He is also rolling back federal assaults ...