National Columns

The Washington Post, beginning Nov. 1, 2019, will allow its syndicated columns to appear only in print. The columns will still be available as part of our e-edition newspaper online, but they will not be available as separate pieces on our website, ljworld.com. These columnists include George Will, David Ignatius, Michael Gerson and others. This does not affect other columnists like Leonard Pitts, Mona Charen, Connie Schultz and Mark Shields, who are not affiliated with the Washington Post.

Opinion: Thankful to be free from excruciating pain

Reflecting on gratitude for this holiday, I want to highlight something that can be shared with the wider world. Last year at this time, I focused on reasons to be thankful despite Donald Trump’s reelection: Trump ran on promises he cannot possibly fulfill. He swore to reduce prices and ...

Opinion: A Thanksgiving turkey to forget

I’ll start by making a few things clear: I love my father, I love cooking and I love Thanksgiving. And now that the throat-clearing is done, I can move on to the complaining. Because of all dishes in all the holidays on the calendar, there’s nothing like the Thanksgiving turkey ...

Opinion: Time to end two nations split by health and wealth

The United States is not united at all. We live in two countries, divided by politics, wealth, health and education. Almost two centuries ago, British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli wrote: “Two nations... who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they ...

Opinion: Industrial policy is bad economics

American industry has been getting a lot of hands-on direction from Democrats and Republicans for quite some time now. Every few years, someone looks at the underwhelming results of this economic maneuvering and insists that real “industrial policy” has never been tried. The truth is that ...

Opinion: How far downward can we define deviancy?

The central scandal in the Epstein sex abuse ring targeting children is not the sex. It’s the children. What powerful men do with grown-up women — that is, females 18 or older — bothers me little. I never cared much about Donald Trump’s assignation with porn star Stormy Daniels. ...

Opinion: What the Founders feared most

“The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.” — James Madison America today would terrify the Founding Fathers. Armed troops roam the streets of major cities, masked government agents arrest people without probable cause and disrupt ...