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Putin won Zelensky-Trump debacle at the White House

Toward the end of his on-camera, Oval Office brawl with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky last week, President Trump quipped that it was “great television.” He’s right about that. But the point of the meeting was supposed to be progress toward an honorable peace for Ukraine, and in the event the winner was Russia’s Vladimir Putin. “He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media last week after the exchange, while booting the Ukrainian president from the White House. “He can come back when he is ready for Peace.” ...

Dealing with erosion of trust

Sooner or later, The New York Times catches on to the news. In the case of immigration policy, the news it has caught up with is that mass immigration, legal and illegal, from less-developed countries is politically toxic. That news was relayed in a Feb. 24 article and thread on X by reporter David Leonhardt, a writer of center-left sympathies and a keen analyst of statistics — and the human realities to which they are useful clues. “The left has lost power in the U.S., Germany, Italy and Sweden,” Leonhardt writes. “Canada and Australia may be next. And the far right is ...

Truth behind Medicaid melodrama

Get ready to be bombarded with ghoulish paid ads and Democratic politicians warning about grandmothers dying, children denied needed cancer treatments, and pregnant women suffering. The demagoguery is in full swing against Republicans’ efforts to control federal spending on Medicaid and stabilize the nation’s debt. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul screamed last week that “House Republicans just voted to rip health care away from up to 1.8 million New Yorkers — all to bankroll giveaways for billionaires.” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) parroted the message (“tax breaks for their ...

Trump-Vance-Musk-Putin manosphere

Did anyone else see the horrific display in the Oval Office last Friday as a ritual exercise in male domination? I don’t want to insult great apes, but I’ve seen similar performances at the zoo. Donald Trump and JD Vance sought to humiliate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, treating him with the same disrespect they treat .. well, women. Trump, Vance and Elon Musk inhabit what’s been termed the “manosphere” — a place where the main events are dominance and submission. The whole point is to humiliate weaker men — and to subjugate women. Women — especially women ...

Priority must be to maintain the ceasefire

The pain and damage wreaked in the last 16 months will reverberate through families, communities and the Middle East for decades to come. On Thursday, the bodies of two young children and their mother, and that of an 83-year-old peace activist, were returned to Israel by Hamas. They were kidnapped in the 7 October 2023 raid in which the militants killed around 1,200 Israelis and others. Around 48,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war in response. It was always feared that the ceasefire deal, which has brought desperately needed ...

The time to lower prices is now

If President Donald Trump was elected with a specific mandate, it was to lower prices. Poll after poll reveals that inflation is a top worry for Americans. So the administration should be worried that it’s ticking back up. Further, the president — who seems to think he can solve all problems unilaterally with executive branch orders — will soon discover that to conquer inflation, he will need the help of Congress. Today’s rising inflation isn’t Trump’s fault. When inflation first spiked several years ago, the Federal Reserve insisted for months that it was under control and ...