Syndicated Columnists

Michael Gerson: Abandoning Syria to the whims of sadistic killers

After Syria — in which mass atrocities and war crimes are vast, systematic and continuing — the “responsibility to protect” seems utterly meaningless. President Obama embraced the narrowest possible definition of American interests in Syria — the elimination of chemical weapons — which has nothing to do with civilian atrocities by other means.

Syndicated Columnists

Trudy Rubin: In Gaza, it’s time to stop the blame and recognize the humanity

As U.S. efforts to produce a lasting cease-fire falter and temporary cease-fires run down, many Americans can’t conceptualize the humanity of the civilians who are dying there.

Syndicated Columnists

Leonard Pitts Jr.: Selfies in Auschwitz — and why it’s wrong

This whole thing of mugging for cameras in inappropriate places feels viscerally … wrong. It suggests a cluelessness, a shallowness, and an incapacity for reverence that have come to feel like the signature of these times.

Syndicated Columnists

Charles Krauthammer: A world of many crises requires leadership

From the immigration crisis on the Mexican border to the Islamic State rising in Mesopotamia, Barack Obama seems totally detached.

Syndicated Columnists

Jonah Goldberg: Establishing a League of Democracies over the U.N.

As legend has it, Groucho Marx sent the Friars Club a telegram that read, “Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” At least the Friars Club had standards. What to make of the United Nations? It has a single criterion for membership: existence.

Syndicated Columnists

Tunette Powell: Black preschool children are often unfairly suspended

Black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment but make up 48 percent of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension, according to a study released by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in March.

Syndicated Columnists

Trudy Rubin: Putin’s clear complicity with murderous rebels

Vladimir Putin has become a global menace. There is an irrefutable link between his decision to train and arm Ukrainian separatists with heavy weapons and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

This week in Kansas City: Butterflies, hot dogs and ‘Idols’

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum’s Heart of America Hot Dog Festival wants to bring the community together through one of our nation’s favorite pastimes. Also this week: ‘Ragtime’ at Theatre in the Park and comedian Mike Epps at Starlight.

Syndicated Columnists

Charles Krauthammer: Israeli resilience and integrity against Hamas

Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.”

Syndicated Columnists

Leonard Pitts Jr.: GOP reforms thwarted by crazy behavior, including Todd Akin

As its title suggests, “Firing Back” is about settling scores. Among its targets: “evil” Democrats, “biased” media and “spineless” Republicans who joined the chorus of condemnation his quote engendered, unwilling to stand up for an “unapologetic conservative.”

Syndicated Columnists

Jonah Goldberg: Attacking Israel with the big lie: genocide

It’s just a hunch, but if the Israelis wanted to wipe out as many Palestinians as possible, never mind commit genocide, they probably wouldn’t issue warnings to Gazans (by phone and leaflet) to get out of harm’s way.

Syndicated Columnists

Michael Gerson: New film exposes world of choice, love, desire

Some parents wanted the book banned from schools, thus unintentionally re-asking the book’s central question: How comprehensively should children (and other humans) be protected from risk and pain?

Syndicated Columnists

Robert Reich: Walgreen, if it goes Swiss, plays the tax-dodge game

We’ve been hearing for years from CEOs that American corporations are suffering under a larger tax burden than their foreign competitors. This is mostly rubbish.

Syndicated Columnists

Charles Krauthammer: Obama fiddles as youths pour across U.S. border

Immediate deportation is exactly what happens to illegal immigrants, children or otherwise, from Mexico and Canada. By what moral logic should there be a Central American exception?

Syndicated Columnists

Leonard Pitts Jr.: The high court’s high-handedness on religious rulings

The malleability of the court’s logic suggests these rulings are based less in law than in the personal beliefs of the men on the tribunal. One gets the sense they chose the desired result first, then back-filled whatever “reasoning” would get them there.

Syndicated Columnists

Jonah Goldberg: Conservative values do well at the box office

One of my biggest complaints about contemporary conservatism is that it has lost sight of the importance of storytelling. Conservatives refuse to celebrate, or even notice, how much of the popular culture is on their side. Sure, Hollywood is generally very liberal, but America isn’t.

Syndicated Columnists

Hanna Kozlowska: The struggles of displaced Syrian women

Lina is one of 2.8 million Syrian refugees who have fled the country since fighting broke out in 2011. Hers is one of 145,000 refugee households — a quarter of the total — headed by a lone woman. A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report released this week details the miseries that have befallen these women.

Syndicated Columnists

Leonard Pitts Jr.: Selfies in Auschwitz ï¿½ and why it's wrong

In a place haunted by ghosts, on a thoroughfare of the damned, standing upon ground once watered by blood, Breanna Mitchell lifted a camera to take her own picture. She smiled a sunshine smile.

Syndicated Columnists

Robert Samuelson: Three myths about road funding and gas taxes

Created in 1956 to pay for the Interstate Highway System, the trust fund is both popular and controversial.

Syndicated Columnists

Michael Gerson: Tea party extremes steer voters from Republicans

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin called for the impeachment of President Barack Obama on the theory that his border policies are “the last straw that makes the battered wife say, ‘no mas.’”

Syndicated Columnists

Robert Reich: Supreme Court deepens imbalance with Hobby Lobby ruling

The deeper problem is the Supreme Court’s obliviousness to the growing imbalance of economic power between corporations and real people. By giving companies the right to not offer employees contraceptive services otherwise mandated by law, the court ignored the rights of employees to receive those services.

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