There was a moment of reckoning on election night when the enormity and irreversibility of what was taking place across the nation hit home with the force of a jackhammer. The talking heads were looking at two state maps, first Pennsylvania and after that Wisconsin, both enlarged on the screen so that each state was […]

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In a defiant speech in late September, North Korea Foreign Minister Ri Young warned the U.N. General Assembly that the Korean Peninsula “has now been turned into the world’s most dangerous hot spot which can even ignite the outbreak of a nuclear war.” This was not speculation, but rather a warning from the former Chief […]

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FBI Director James Comey frequently describes how his Irish-American heritage formed him. Here, for example, is Comey at Georgetown University in February 2015. I am descended from Irish immigrants. A century ago, the Irish knew well how American society—and law enforcement—viewed them: as drunks, ruffians, and criminals. Law enforcement’s biased view of the Irish lives […]

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Millions of voters believe putting Donald Trump in the White House will lift them out of the economic hell they have endured for decades, working more and getting nowhere except deeper in debt. They could not be more wrong. Their concerns are real. The latest income tax data show that in 2014 the average income […]

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Squeezed between Quebec and New Brunswick, and sticking up into Canada like a sore thumb, is the improbable state of Maine. The average income in Maine is $5,000 less than in the rest of the United States, and only a quarter of its residents have college degrees. Portland and Bangor have internet service but overall […]

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