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No price too high for evading school shopping

In the pantheon of parental duties, shopping for school supplies stands alone. At the tripart crossroads of “least enjoyable,” “most expensive” and “least negotiable,” it is an intrinsic part of life in late summer, and it has been since I was a kid in the Cretaceous era. I remember it much more fondly from that perspective — being the receiver of shiny No. 2 pencils, folders, composition notebooks and a Trapper Keeper to hold it all together. I’m certain my parents found the experience annoying and expensive, but with all due respect, they had absolutely no ...

We live in a mixed economy

Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan keeps calling himself a capitalist. And the Democratic Socialists of America keep backing him. Why? Because the DSA understands that El-Sayed has to say that to win over even Democrats in a moderate state like Michigan. They firmly expect that once elected, he would do as they say. Confusing? Yes, on purpose. But let’s move beyond this war of labels. Let’s stop using socialist and capitalist as either compliments or denunciations. The United States has a mixed economy, as do most modern countries. It has an economic system in ...

The summertime political reruns

When I was younger, so much younger than today (credit The Beatles for that lyric from “Help”), television networks would rerun programs that had originally been broadcast the previous fall and spring. A few still do, like “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” but those are syndicated shows. Still, it can be fun to watch programs you missed, or even ones you have seen, especially if you can impress someone with “Jeopardy” answers because you know them. Reruns that always annoy are the political ads, which start before primaries and continue until the day before the November ...

Munitions crisis was foreseeable

During the 1979-80 hostage crisis, a defiant Iran starkly demonstrated the limits of American power. Forty-five years later, it is doing the same thing, although in different circumstances. Back then, when the post-Vietnam military was at a low ebb, we didn’t strike Iran, and a long-shot rescue operation ended in abject failure. Now, with the U.S. military at its most proficient and professional in history, we have inflicted punishing blows against the regime but still haven’t been able to impose our will, in part because we are running low on the munitions necessary to ...

Pittsburgh among first to see DSA rise

The rise of the Democratic left in Pittsburgh did not happen overnight. It was built over years through patient organizing, disciplined recruiting and a clear-eyed focus on the races that mattered most: low-turnout primaries where entrenched power was vulnerable. Mik Pappas’ 2017 race for Pennsylvania’s 31st Magisterial District judge offered an early hint that the local Democratic establishment was losing its grip on some of the contests it had once taken for granted. He was underfunded, openly aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America and not expected to mount a serious ...

Talking ourselves into failure

There are a couple of stories that seem unrelated but are very related. They show the story of a country that used to build things and has decided, without ever admitting it, that building is too hard. Start with the missiles. Rep. Mike Turner was on television last week talking about letting Ukraine license our Patriot technology and build the missiles themselves, because the threat is spreading and our defenses must spread with it. He is right. Think how strange that is. The most powerful country in history is handing another nation the recipe for our best defensive weapon because we ...