Syndicated columns

Given the cornucopia of issues Americans have to select from each day, the recent firing and rehiring of the House of Representatives’ chaplain may not have bestirred many to form an opinion. But these days, the Hill is alive with buzz as people absorb the odd goings-on between House Speaker Paul Ryan, who pushed the chaplain to resign, and the Rev. Patrick Conroy himself, who later withdrew his resignation, and Ryan’s acceptance of what appears to be pastoral bullying.

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal signed with Iran and the European powers in 2015 doesn’t just make it likelier that Iran, too, will abandon the treaty and renew its push to make a bomb. It could also determine if the social unrest sweeping the Islamic Republic deepens and further destabilizes the regime. The government is facing perhaps its greatest opposition nationwide since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Trump’s decision will change how that story plays out in ways that will further destabilize the regime while giving conservatives more power for now. The U.S. decision is sure to exacerbate Iran’s economic crisis, promoting more political unrest. Although the Iranian regime will blame the United States for an even greater decline of its economy if Washington reimposes sanctions, much of Iranian society no longer believes the claims of the regime. (During recent demonstrations, one chant from the protesters was: “Our enemy is here 1/8at home 3/8. It is not America.”)

WASHINGTON – My fellow Americans, I understand that some of you are questioning why I, Scott Pruitt, head of what’s-its-name, that environmental office that I sued 13 times, spent $100,000 to go to Morocco. Or had to build a $43,000 phone booth.

This is for Rose. She is a nice lady who wrote me a nice email in which she spoke about the need to try to understand Donald Trump’s supporters. As Rose put it, “We need to not close ourselves off to how the other side thinks.”

That President Donald Trump knew about hush money paid to a porn star isn’t the only shocking thing his new lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, acknowledged Wednesday. Giuliani also said that the reason Trump fired James Comey as FBI director was essentially because Comey wouldn’t do his bidding in the Russia investigation. “He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation,” Giuliani told Fox News’s Sean Hannity.

The prospect of winning the Nobel Peace Prize is understandably tantalizing for President Trump. After all the contempt he has faced from the political establishment, watching liberal heads explode at the suggestion by South Korean President Moon Jae-in that he deserves the award must be gratifying. It would be even more gratifying to watch the collective meltdown as he delivered his Nobel acceptance speech. Moon understands this, which precisely is why he dangled the prospect of a Nobel Prize in front of Trump. He is flattering Trump in the hopes that this will make him more flexible in his negotiations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump should refuse to take the bait.

For many years, Democrats have been convinced that the American people, and even their Republican opponents, are open to persuasion. If they could just have the opportunity to explain why their policies are morally right and practically effective, they could win almost anyone over. Republicans, on the other hand, harbored no illusions about persuading Democrats of anything. Instead, they had a much more hard-headed view of how politics works.

When I moved to Washington several years ago, a D.C. veteran whispered a warning that she had learned from her father: New York is tough, but Washington is mean. Truer words, my friend, truer words.

Washington, as we know, is riven by vicious partisanship, with those on the right and left at each other’s throats over the most pressing issue that this nation has faced in decades. We are, of course, talking about the violently differing opinions and never-ending hot takes about Michelle Wolf’s comedy act at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Amid the nonstop invective, it was easy to have missed Capitol Hill’s equivalent of Halley’s Comet – a rare celestial display of welcome bipartisanship in a matter relating to Donald Trump and Robert Mueller. The Senate Judiciary Committee on April 26, by a 14-7 vote (with four Republicans joining the panel’s Democrats in the majority), approved legislation designed to safeguard the special counsel from being arbitrarily fired by Trump. The bill was designed to protect Mueller from the wrath of a cornered president.

In keeping with our era of ideological boycotts, I will no longer be purchasing Kind bars. Or Barilla pasta. Or Triscuit crackers. Or Del Monte diced tomatoes. Or Nutro dog food. A one-person boycott, of course, is really just a change in your shopping list. But the companies that produce these brands are guilty of crimes against rationality. All advertise on their packaging, in one way or another, that they don’t contain GMOs – genetically modified ingredients. Walking down the aisle of my supermarket, I could have picked many other examples. Some food companies seem to be saying that GMO ingredients are not even fit for your dog.

When we’re having dinner as a family, we’ll talk about almost everything, from serious things to news of the weird. One of our twin sons wants to teach and coach soccer, the other plans to go into accounting.

Before meeting with North Korea’s “very honorable” (Donald Trump’s words) dictator, Kim Jong Un, the president should bone up on the history of that country’s duplicity and deception, including ways it has used the wishful thinking of some past U.S. presidents to achieve its objectives. A good place to start is an essay written by Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute for the March 2003 issue of Commentary magazine.

Praying for the poor is now apparently a firing offense in the corridors of power. House Speaker Paul Ryan did not give a reason when his chief of staff this month told the Rev. Patrick Conroy, a Jesuit priest and House chaplain, to resign or face dismissal.

Dear Sen. Marco Rubio: So I see where you came after me on Twitter. I’m flattered. Never knew you cared.

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. – Courage isn’t required to condemn the Syracuse University chapter of the Theta Tau fraternity for simulating a sexual assault on a disabled student. Video of this apish display, now in wide circulation, should horrify anyone with an ounce of decency. That is, assuming people still recall what decency is.

Looking back, it’s ironic to remember how the charges against Bill Cosby were not taken seriously until after they became a joke. The joke was told on a stage in Philadelphia four years ago by rising Chicago-based actor-comedian Hannibal Buress.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – The four-story building at 55 Savushkina St. that housed the infamous Russian internet “troll factory” that meddled in America’s 2016 election now appears empty. I saw a huge “For Rent” sign in one of its large windows facing the street. The main trolling operation has moved to an impersonal seven-story glass office building in the distant Lakhta business district. I couldn’t enter the building due to tight security. (Journalists seen taking pictures have been grabbed and harassed.) The city’s leading business daily, Delovoy Peterburg, reported late last year that the operation’s workspace has tripled.

Emmanuel Macron and President Trump don’t agree on much. Macron is a globalist; Trump is a nationalist. Macron is a free-trader; Trump just imposed protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum. Macron wants the United States to remain in Syria; Trump wants to get out. Macron wants to preserve the Iran nuclear deal; Trump wants to scrap it. Macron wants the United States to rejoin the Paris climate deal; Trump withdrew from the accord. And yet there they were, the French and American presidents air-kissing on the White House portico, clasping hands at the lectern of a joint news conference, clutching arms as they walked down the colonnade and clinked glasses at the first state dinner of the Trump presidency. “He is perfect,” Trump declared of Macron (after brushing what he said was dandruff off of the French leader’s suit). The displays of amity have left Washington and Paris agog at le bromance.

The attitude of President Trump toward federal law enforcement is, to put it mildly, mixed. The FBI refused to bend to his will. So it is comprised of “hardened Democrats” engaged in a “WITCH HUNT.” The FBI was, according to Trump, too preoccupied with the Russia investigation to prevent the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Its reputation “is in Tatters – worst in History!” But Immigration and Customs Enforcement has passed the loyalty test. ICE’s enforcement surge “is merely the keeping of my campaign promise,” explained the president. Referring to ICE acting Director Thomas Homan, Trump said, “Somebody said the other day, they saw him on television. ... ‘He looks very nasty, he looks very mean.’ I said, ‘That’s what I’m looking for!’ ”