Syndicated columns

Racism is a white problem. I know that many white people will instinctively and emphatically resist that observation. They’ll note the self-evident truth that prejudice is confined to no one culture or color. Having known more than a few African-American bigots, homophobes and anti-Semites, I’ll be happy to concede the point.

If only Nixon could go to China, as the saying goes, then maybe only Republicans can legalize weed. Marijuana has now been legalized for medical use in many states – only Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota still prohibit use in any form. Nine states allow recreational marijuana use, and 13 others have decriminalized recreational use to some extent. Meanwhile, public support for legalizing the drug continues to grow and is now firmly in majority territory.

For the first time in the history of the republic, it appears increasingly likely that a majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote against the president’s nominee for secretary of state. If this happens, it would be a black mark not on Mike Pompeo’s record, but on the reputation of this once-storied committee. There are no instances of a secretary of state nominee ever receiving an unfavorable committee vote since such votes were first publicly recorded in 1925 (before that, the committee voted in closed session). Democrat John Kerry was approved in a unanimous voice vote, including from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who opposes Pompeo. Democrat Hillary Clinton was approved 16 to 1, despite concerns about foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation. Madeleine Albright was approved unanimously, with the strong support of my former boss, the committee’s conservative then-chairman, Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., who called Albright “a tough and courageous lady” and voted for her despite saying that she was “sincerely wrong” in some of her foreign policy views.

Democrats scouring their ranks for a 2020 presidential candidate should put Andrew Cuomo high on their list. The New York governor is already on the case, giving speeches tailored for the Iowa caucuses. Assuming Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for a second term, Cuomo would be an especially strong combatant. Five reasons:

With much justification, Americans bemoan the state of our political discourse and the poor character of many our politicians. With the election of President Donald Trump came the depressing realization that decency, kindness and humility weren’t needed to reach the highest political office; these qualities might even be a hindrance. But we should not leap to the conclusion that we lack virtuous role models in public life; we’re just not looking in the right places. This week we learned about a trio of them, all women. First, the pilot. The Post reports:

Last week, the world commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Much of the news this year focused on a new national survey, conducted by Schoen Consulting for the Claims Conference, to assess just how much Americans, especially young Americans, know about the Holocaust today. The results were disheartening and disturbing. People are beginning to forget.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ guest opinion “Out with the old, in with the new (tax code)” on April 17, 2018 (tax day), concerning the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, focused on “celebrating” how this new law will help middle-class families. While there will be some temporary benefits to the middle class in this new law, the congresswoman doesn’t provide critical additional facts. I believe our congresswoman has failed to identify who is actually “celebrating” this new tax law. It’s not the middle class.

After the United States last week accused the Russian-backed Assad regime in Syria of a chemical-weapons attack, Russia had a ready rejoinder: Fake News. A Kremlin statement dismissed “the latest fake news about a chemical attack on Douma,” calling the charges “absolutely unsubstantiated lies.”

I recently returned from a trip to Japan. I’ve been going there for many years, so I can confirm that traveling in that country – especially for longer periods of time – is infinitely easier than it was just a decade ago. One of the main reasons is Airbnb. Ten years ago, lodging in Japan was limited to overpriced hotels or unreliable Craigslist sublets. Now, with a few button clicks on a smartphone or laptop, you can book a reasonably priced, centrally located private apartment with all the furnishings of a well-kept Japanese home. A portable Wi-Fi unit is often included, allowing you to dispense with the need to pay for an international cellphone data plan. Airbnb’s success in Japan is due in large part to the government’s far-sighted embrace of the room-rental service. In mid-2017 the government passed a law legalizing Airbnb, subject to the approval of local authorities. Japanese apartment owners can rent out their rooms for up to 180 days out of the year – much more than in many other cities. This leniency is just one factor powering a record boom in tourism to the Land of the Rising Sun:

“Mission Accomplished” may be the most famous presidential words never actually uttered by a president. I know because, as head of presidential speechwriting at the time, I didn’t write them. They were found on a banner, but never in a single draft of President George W. Bush’s 2003 remarks aboard the USS Lincoln. But now that this phrase has been tweeted and defended by President Trump, it is worth examining what he has accomplished by his missile strikes in Syria.

As sabers rattle ever louder across fields, plains, oceans and deserts, President Trump’s words from earlier this year haunt the stable mind: “I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity,” he said. “Without a major event where people pull together, that’s hard to do. But I would like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing.”

Markets are quivering as fears of a U.S.-China trade war ebb and flow. Thus far, they’ve mostly been focused on tariffs that President Donald Trump wants to impose on a range of Chinese goods, and China’s threats to retaliate. But investors may be overlooking a bigger risk in this dispute. It’s true that duties on U.S. imports would hurt – hands are already wringing in farm country – but there’s a limit to how much pain they can really inflict. The persistent worry that China will dump its mammoth holdings of Treasury bills is probably unfounded as well.

The Trump administration is declaring victory after striking three Syrian government chemical weapons sites. But the White House hasn’t learned the lessons of last year’s “pinprick” strikes on the Assad regime. Unless some sort of accountability is imposed on the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad’s slaughter of his own people in the cruelest and most illegal of ways is sure to continue apace. “Mission Accomplished!” Trump tweeted this morning, praising what he called a “perfectly executed strike” on the Assad regime conducted jointly with the French and British militaries. Tactically, it did seem successful enough. Syria’s oft-exaggerated air defense capabilities turned out to be impotent. Russia’s threats to retaliate proved empty. No allied assets were lost.

With President Donald Trump’s blessing, Republicans are preparing to launch a major counter-offensive against former FBI director James Comey, who is set to embark on a book promotion tour that could make explosive claims about Trump’s conduct, according to CNN. Comey’s new book is set to drop next week, and it will likely trigger a huge spin war over its revelations. There will be a powerful temptation for neutral observers to proclaim that both parties are being equivalently inconsistent about Comey. But this is wrong, and caving to this temptation will only help bad-faith actors accomplish their goal of obfuscating the true nature and points of disagreement in this debate, which have important public consequences.

I believe in the rule of law, regardless of who occupies the White House or which party leads the Justice Department. That is why in August I introduced a bill to create a judicial-review process to prevent the removal of a special counsel without good cause. Over the past several months, Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., and I have been working with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., who introduced a similar bill, to reconcile the differences between the two proposals. This week, we introduced the compromise, the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., did not have his thoughts collected when he faced the cameras after telling Republican colleagues he would not seek re-election to Congress in November. “I intend to full my serve term,” he announced.

To those paying attention, the recent strikes for higher teachers’ pay in West Virginia and Oklahoma are a harbinger of things to come. You can attribute the strikes to the stinginess of the states’ political leaders. After all, average annual teachers’ salaries in these states ranked respectively 49th lowest (Oklahoma at $45,276) and 48th lowest (West Virginia, $45,622) in 2016, reports the National Education Association. But that’s the superficial explanation. The deeper cause is that teachers – and schools – are competing with the elderly for scarce funds. The struggle will intensify.

Have you ever seen the moon? You will likely answer that you have, many times. But a new short video by filmmakers Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh may have you reconsidering whether you’ve ever actually seen it at all.

It’s a principle that has been a hallmark of our legal culture: The president shouldn’t be able to tell judges what to do. No longer. The Trump administration is intent on imposing a quota system on federal immigration judges, tying their evaluations to the number of cases they decide in a year. This is an affront to judicial independence and the due process of law.