Columns

Woman wants ex-boyfriend back after he reconciles with his wife

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Dear Abby Advice Columnist

DEAR ABBY: A couple of years ago, I ran into “John,” an old friend who was going through a divorce. We began a wonderful relationship, although he was having a hard time emotionally. I was John’s confidante and best friend. About six months after the divorce was final, his ex-wife found out he was with me. She decided she wanted him back, and he reconciled with her.

Decisions about Down syndrome pregnancies belong to the mothers, not the government

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There is a new push in anti-abortion circles to pass state laws aimed at barring women from terminating their pregnancies after the fetus has been determined to have Down syndrome. These laws are unconstitutional, unenforceable — and wrong.

This is a difficult subject to discuss because there are so many parents who have — and cherish — a child with Down syndrome. Many people with Down syndrome live happy and fulfilled lives. The new Gerber baby with Down syndrome is awfully cute.

Off to the races — again

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Syndicated Columnist

You may have missed the starting shot, but the midterm races officially began last week with the Texas primaries. This coming Tuesday, voters in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District head to the polls for a special election to fill the seat left vacant by Republican Tim Murphy.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic — or downright giddy — 2018 promises to be as significant, if not more so given the stakes, as 2010 when Republicans wrested the House of Representatives from Democrats amid tea party turbulence and early chants of “repeal and replace.”

China trade has been a bust

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Syndicated Columnist

There’s already a trade war, and it’s being waged by Beijing.

China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization nearly 20 years ago has failed in its large-scale strategic objectives. It hasn’t created a liberalizing regime or a free-market economy in China; in fact, it hasn’t even created a China ready and willing to abide by the norms of free trade.

Why my son is no longer a Republican

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Syndicated Columnist

It was Donald Trump’s position on guns that did it. To be more specific, it was President Trump’s proposal to address violence in schools by arming schoolteachers that finally made a Democrat of my son. Until then, he’d been holding out hope for the Republican Party. But when the president decided that my son’s girlfriend — a student teacher dedicated to teaching science to inner-city public school students — should earn a bonus for carrying a deadly weapon, my son decided he’d had it.

Intersectionality and Anti-Semitism

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Syndicated Columnist

When Only a Human Will Do

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Syndicated Columnist

As computers continue to replace cashiers, ticket vendors and bank tellers, consumers increasingly don’t notice or care much whether they are dealing with a human or a machine. The big exception is when they do.

Consumers often prefer the convenience of interacting with computers. A checkout employee who doesn’t know the price of Gala apples adds grit to the smooth functioning of an over-scheduled day.

No Trade Barriers

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No, President Trump, it’s not true that if you tax imported steel, we “will have protection for the first time in a long while.” The opposite is true. If you raise tariffs on steel and aluminum, you punish consumers. Yes, such tariffs also punish Chinese producers and protect some American businesses and workers, but the tariffs will hurt many more Americans. They’ll hurt every business that makes things from steel or aluminum. They’ll hurt most everyone who buys anything. Tariffs are taxes, and they don’t just affect inanimate metal objects. They punish people.

Stop first, parse later

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At least they’re doing- something, which is about the most one can say about Florida’s proposed gun bill.

But doing something and doing something effective are very different animals.

State legislators under pressure to “do something” following the murders of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, cobbled together a bill that likely wouldn’t do much good.

Though hearts are in the right place, minds are still limited by politics and hobbled by haste. Democrats want more; Republicans want less.

The left’s Farrakhan problem

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“Time’s up,” the slogan of the Hollywood antiharassment movement, has a very different meaning for Louis Farrakhan.

At his annual Saviours’ Day conference in Chicago last weekend, the Nation of Islam leader boasted, “And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew, and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.”