THE WASHINGTON TIMES

EDITORIAL: Aid to Puerto Rico being exploited

Puerto Rico is a mess. But it was a mess before Hurricane Maria swept through with new misery three weeks ago. Electricity is still at a premium. By one estimate, electric power has been restored to only 10 percent of the island's customers. Published October 12, 2017

EDITORIAL: Ralph Northam’s slam dunk for Virginia’s governorship slipping away

The race for governor of Virginia looked like a slam dunk for the Democrats only a fortnight or so ago, and now it doesn't. Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, the Democrat, is still the betting favorite (for people who do that sort of thing), but his double-digit lead in the public-opinion polls has been cut in half. Published October 12, 2017

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Millions of dollars in ‘oppression’

What does "systemic oppression" look like in 2017? Apparently, a lot like $14.2 million, or the approximate worth of 49ers' safety Eric Reid's contract over the past five years. Where do I line up for such hardship? Published October 12, 2017

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Let Taiwan into UNFCCC

The 23rd session of the Conference of Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will take place next month in Bonn, Germany, is capturing worldwide attention. COP23 is the latest in the series of Conference of Parties meetings that are signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty through which member states commit to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Published October 12, 2017

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: The honor Jerry Lewis deserved

Legendary entertainer and philanthropist Jerry Lewis has died, after receiving awards from Paris, France, and all over the world, but not from the president of the United States. Why did we deny this icon the opportunity to smell the roses of his success while he lived? Published October 11, 2017

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is offensive

As a full-time sixth-grade substitute teacher, I have discovered that the Pulitzer-Prize-winning book "To Kill a Mockingbird" has multiple usages of the N-word. Published October 11, 2017

EDITORIAL: Donald Trump sends EPA back to search for accurate information

New ideas sell better than old, and the trendy idea at the moment, the equivalent of that aroma that comes with new cars, is climate change. Or more precisely, global warming. (New labels are prescribed for fads getting soggy around the edges.) Then along came Donald Trump, who was unafraid to ask the simple question that Al Gore and his anvil chorus dreaded someone asking: Is the current view of how climate works actually accurate? The next generation deserves an honest answer. Published October 11, 2017

EDITORIAL: Elizabeth Warren scheme puts Pentagon computers at risk

The Democrats pretend to be the party that knows all about high tech. But some of them would get lost on a leisurely Sunday-afternoon drive through Silicon Valley. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whom the Great Mentioner has suggested for consideration as the Democratic nominee for president, circa 2020, has inserted a couple of provisions into the National Defense Authorization Act which, if enacted, would put in jeopardy just about every Pentagon computer system and leave the country less safe, but — and here's why the Warren mischief is so attractive to Democrats — make the bureaucracy much bigger. Published October 11, 2017

EDITORIAL: Canada dealing with illegal-alien dilemma too

Canada is experiencing a sharp surge of illegal aliens, and they're not just a few angry Hillary voters making good on their bluster about moving north if Donald Trump won the election. Published October 10, 2017

EDITORIAL: Democrats losing ground in border wall fight

There's something that doesn't love a wall, wrote the poet Robert Frost, and that something for the moment is comprised of Democrats. President Trump's long-promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico is slowly rising from the desert floor and his noisy political opponents are mounting a campaign to bring it down. Published October 10, 2017

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Pull the plug on the NFL

One thing black folks have in common with the NFL is the billions of dollars we represent in sports marketing. We must learn to use our collective influences to affect change where there is racial injustice and disparity in our communities. Published October 10, 2017

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: No more percentage or death tax

President Trump is mistaken on tax reform. The kleptocracy he inherited has been stealing from its citizens for at least the past 100 years. Mr. Trump has an uphill battle ahead of him, Published October 10, 2017

EDITORIAL: Palestinian-Hamas pact is fragile, unenforceable

The deal between Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and Hamas in the old Gaza Strip is considerably less valuable than it looks. Although Mr. Abbas' West Bank authority will assume civilian responsibilities there, Hamas will remain in control of security, and will neither lay down its weapons nor dismantle its security forces and militias. Hamas has received arms from Iran in the past and now threatens the entire region. Published October 9, 2017

EDITORIAL: Donald Trump wants to nix the Iran nuclear deal

You have to give a little to get a little. That's the art of the deal. But when Barack Obama bargained with Iran's mullahs over their nuclear program, he gave away the store — including the cash drawer — and only got a little time in return before the advent of the Islamic bomb. Buying peril on the lay-away plan does the world no favors. President Trump calls it "the worst deal ever negotiated," and he wants to alter it. To act in the interest of the United States, after all, is his sworn duty as president and commander in chief. Published October 9, 2017

EDITORIAL: No snakes in the grass

Sexual harassment is tacky and vile, ranging from a wink and a nod (usually a misdemeanor) to brute force (always a felony), and such misbehavior has been with us since Adam and Eve ruined paradise when Eve had an affair with a snake -- a real one, not the snake in the grass that can bedevil mere friendships. Published October 5, 2017

EDITORIAL: The humiliation of the snobs

One rare nugget of good news from the roiling, boiling cauldron of controversy about everything is that there's a new recognition of the Constitution. Many Americans, ignorant of the how and why of the founding document, have learned, sometimes to their frustration, that it's relevant, after all. Published October 5, 2017

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Decertify Obama Iran deal now

During the 2016-election campaign, candidate Trump promised voters that one of his top priorities as president would be to repeal the 2015 Obama nuclear Iran deal. According to him, the deal is one of the worst and most one-sided transactions America has ever made. Published October 5, 2017

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Get China to control North Korea

China is our only leverage when it comes to modifying North Korea's world outlook, policies, actions and (possibly) leadership. But there is no reason for China to truly exert itself, regardless of current statements, because the United States' prolonged difficulties with an essentially minor player, North Korea, impair our credibility throughout the world and make China's expansionist plans easier to achieve. Published October 5, 2017

EDITORIAL: The romantic lure of secession

Break-ups break hearts, but sometimes the thirst for freedom cannot be denied. When the desire to end a bad relationship involves the peoples of a nation, the process can become a bloody one. Americans don't have far to look to understand that. A century and a half after Appomattox the wounds of a civil war have not yet fully healed. Published October 4, 2017

EDITORIAL: Abuse by the administrative state

The spirit of the Obama administration lives -- only Barack Obama is gone -- in the bureaucracies that imagine they were established to harass taxpayers. One of these is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or the CFPB, one of the toxic vegetables in Washington's alphabet soup. Protecting the bureau, as the bureau sees it, is Job 1. Published October 4, 2017