Presidential debate: Oh no, Joe!

It wasn't long ago that I wrote that I thought there was nothing to be gained by a Trump-Biden debate. Knowing that presidential debates are usually more about style than substance, I said that, if there were to be a debate, there should be real-time fact checking. Without it, I feared that Trump's repeated falsehoods …

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News media sucked into protest vortex

You all know the cliche - "if it bleeds, it leads." Local news, and increasingly national networks, promote stories off the police scanner. As a result, for decades, the perception of crime has exceeded the reality of crime across society. Naturally, if you've been mugged or a neighbor's house broken into, crime is indeed a …

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To debate or not debate: new rules are the question

So, now he's said it. President Biden told Howard Stern recently that he'd be willing to debate Donald Trump. With all due respect, I disagree. I just don't think there's anything to be gained. I have always embraced the high-minded goals of candidate debate: well-reasoned,fact-based discussion; values-driven argumentation; clarification, prioritization of positions. Dignified dialogue serves …

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Books: non-fiction, early spring reviews

How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney offers what could be an eye-opening look at how to talk to “the other.” It’s about much more than when every day becomes Thanksgiving Day and seemingly reasonable people turn out to be crazy Uncle Harry. McRaney shares what he has …

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Will raw politics kill immigration reform?

Do we really need to arm the Statue of Liberty? It’s no secret that there is an immigration crisis in this country. Since Biden became President, more than three million migrants have crossed the border, and an estimated 1.7 million more have snuck in or overstayed their visas. The influx is now a problem for …

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Haley and DeSantis – a So’s ya mutha! debate

Former Ambassador Nikki Haley and Governor Ron DeSantis were like two playground kids pretending to be scorpions in a bottle in Wednesday night's debate, jabbing at each other, oblivious to the big foot about to crush them both. You lie. Nah, you lie. Back and forth they went, with slanted opposition research about each other's …

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