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NIMBY needs defending

NIMBY stands for Not In My Backyard. It’s often employed as a shaming tool to portray those unwilling to turn their neighborhoods over to developers as selfish or even racist. It’s a weapon in efforts to plow through zoning laws put in place to preserve a sense of community and the comfort of continuity. Some peddlers of builders’ interests try to blame the defense of neighborhoods on snotty liberals. This boobery reached a pinnacle in a Wall Street Journal piece titled “How Zoning Ruined the Housing Market in Blue-State America.” Yoni Applebaum writes that “three ...

America joins the jackals

As I watched election returns on the evening of Nov. 5, 2024, I was struck by the sense that Americans had missed the memo. Across the nation, in blue states as well as red, county after county showed a marked rightward shift. It was so seemingly normal. What do you do when groceries are much more expensive than four years ago, the border is flooded with immigrants? You vote for the other guy. It has been only four weeks since Trump took the oath of office, and I wonder whether casual voters or even those who truly despised Joe Biden have taken onboard what they’ve done. The ...

Trump sells Ukraine down the river

For anyone planning a book entitled “Totalitarianism for Dummies,” last Saturday was a good day. “He who saves his country does not violate any Law,” proclaimed President Donald Trump, convicted of violating 34 of them. It is, of course, a fascist’s credo, one that Trump believes, apparently correctly, he can embrace without consequence: I am all powerful, I can do what I want and, by definition, if I do it, it is legal. No totalitarian has said it more plainly, and it isn’t the first time Trump has said it. “I have an Article II (of the Constitution) where I have the ...

Pope Francis still in critical condition with kidney failure

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis remained in critical condition Sunday and blood tests showed early kidney failure but he remains alert, responsive and attended Mass, the Vatican said, as the 88-year-old pontiff battles pneumonia and a complex lung infection. In a late update, the Vatican said Francis hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday night but was still receiving high flows of supplemental oxygen. Some blood tests showed “initial, mild, kidney failure,” but doctors said it was under control. “The complexity of the clinical picture, and the necessary wait for ...

Conservative opposition wins German election

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz won a lackluster victory in a national election Sunday, while Alternative for Germany nearly doubled its support, the strongest showing for a far-right party since World War II, projections showed. Chancellor Olaf Scholz conceded defeat for his center-left Social Democrats after what he called “a bitter election result.” Projections for ARD and ZDF public television showed his party finishing in third place with its worst postwar result in a national parliamentary election. Merz vowed to move quickly to put ...

FBI Director also will be named acting head of ATF

WASHINGTON (AP) — New FBI Director Kash Patel is expected to be named the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a Justice Department official said Saturday. Patel could be sworn in next week, the official said, putting Patel in charge of two of the Justice Department’s largest agencies in an unusual arrangement that raises questions about the future of the bureau that has long drawn the ire of conservatives. The Justice Department official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the move before it’s announced publicly. White House ...