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: A challenge: When free speech sounds like cyberbullying

A University of Chicago student who happens to be white objected to an undergraduate anthropology class titled “The Problem of Whiteness.” Daniel Schmidt, a sophomore who didn’t know the lecturer, was outraged — and he showed it in a tweet that happened to include the lecturer’s ...

Opinion: Affirmative action isn’t the answer to inequality

When considering the knotty problem of affirmative action, it’s important to bear in mind, as some of the Supreme Court’s dissenters failed to do, that the issue is no longer black versus white, in every sense of that term. We are a multiethnic country, and discriminating against one ...

Opinion: A few warnings as elections approach

As elections approach, sweeping generalizations have a certain allure that often energizes the frustrated and captivates the hopeful. However, it’s essential that we as voters remember that things that seem too good to be true typically are. Here are a few warnings. First, as far as our ...

Opinion: The frustrations and costs of tourism

I have friends who routinely ask where I’ve traveled of late and where I plan to go next. The answer is that, except for a recent trip to New York, I haven’t gone anywhere. As for my plans for future travel, plans, yes, I have them. I plan to not travel. An insanity has gripped ...

Opinion: Time and again, Russia falls short of Western norms

On the one hand, events in Russia last month were stunning — the leader of a mercenary group declaring against the country’s military leadership and, for 24 hours, marching on Moscow. On the other, they were about what you’d expect in a Russia that, across the long centuries of its ...

Opinion: Could we keep the national debt no higher than the GDP?

Election season is getting into gear, and that means politicians of all stripes making promises about what they’ll do for the American people if elected or reelected. I’d like to hear promises to get government out of the way and allow entrepreneurship and market competition to spur genuine ...