Syndicated columns

So much has happened in recent days, it’s easy to overlook how little has happened. To wit: Nothing material. Not when it comes to matters of war and peace in Ukraine, where Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues to bomb civilians, to detain children (for which he is wanted by the International Criminal Court) and more generally to terrorize a sovereign nation that he considers an errant satrapy.

Athletic competitions mesmerize because, being unscripted, their outcomes are unpredictable. But as college football season lumbers forward, there is occurring a predictable but nonetheless entertaining event associated with college athletics: Government and large, mostly state-run universities are collaborating to reestablish the cartel that for decades enabled the schools to reap billions from the negligibly compensated labor of “student-athletes.”

Although the term “neoconservative” has fallen into disuse – except as an occasional slur used by the MAGA right, the progressive left and social-media antisemites who really mean to say “Jew” – I’ve never been shy about describing myself as one. In Donald Trump’s whipsawing performances with Vladimir Putin in Alaska and Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European allies in Washington on Monday, I’m reminded of why.

If President Donald Trump were to issue an executive order to abolish mail-in voting, as he announced he would on social media on Monday, it would almost certainly be unconstitutional. It would also be baffling – because eliminating vote-by-mail would probably hurt Republicans more than it would help them in next year’s midterm elections.

By Bloomberg editorial board

Ukrainian and European leaders are worried Donald Trump will get played for a second time when he meets his Russian counterpart in Alaska on Friday – and they’re right to be nervous. Indeed, if Trump wants to emerge from the talks a master negotiator rather than a pushover, his smartest move may be to postpone the summit until it’s better prepared.

Earlier this summer, pollsters with the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research asked voters for a word to describe their political party. Republicans said “strong” and “patriotic.” Democrats chose words like “weak,” “apathetic” and “ineffective.”

Scientists studying the cosmos often speculate about hypothetical forces that might explain peculiar data or results. For instance, some astronomers have suggested that our solar system has an extra planet, way beyond the demoted Pluto, whose effects explain certain other celestial movements. And modern cosmology assumes a vast invisible substance, so-called dark matter, whose hypothesized existence makes sense out of gravitational effects that would be otherwise mysterious.

In a less depraved time, anyone who followed politics would know about the ugly abuse allegations facing the Florida Congressman Cory Mills, and the scandal would be a big problem for the Republican Party.

You might not believe it if you’ve experienced one of the flash floods hammering the planet from Texas to Vietnam this summer, but the Earth is becoming drier -- at least the parts where most people live. Given how this can affect every aspect of human existence, from farming to geopolitics, it’s past time we started treating this like the emergency it is.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel $500 million in grants and contracts for mRNA vaccine development jeopardizes the health and safety of Americans – now and for years to come.

In a May report on alternative scenarios for the long-term U.S. budget outlook, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the impact of productivity growth that was faster or slower than the 1% annual average in its baseline forecast. It made a big difference.

In 2003, Andrew Sullivan wrote about a breed of conservatives that he called “South Park Republicans,” who shared the irreverent, profane ethos of the cartoon, which debuted in 1997 and delighted in ridiculing liberal sacred cows. These Republicans were socially libertarian – “some smoke pot” – and contemptuous of political correctness, and they thought protesting the invasion of Iraq was lame. “If people wonder why anti-war celebrities like Janeane Garofalo or Michael Moore failed to win over the younger generation, you only have to watch ‘South Park’ to see why,” Sullivan wrote. “The next generation sees through the cant and piety and cannot help giggling.”

Egads! After a disastrous first 100 days, Donald Trump is starting to have a much more successful presidency. This is not what we, his foam-at-the-mouth critics, had planned or perhaps secretly hoped for.