The future is public financing of elections
Dear Governor Cuomo,My grandfather, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was known for bold government action in the face of crisis. We could use a dose of that now. But to lots of people, the federal...
View ArticleThomas Friedman: Victors no longer write the histories
The Egyptian strongman Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was recently in Moscow visiting with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Putin reportedly offered el-Sissi $2 billion in arms — just what a...
View ArticleCasey Seiler: Seeing your shadow
The film critic Manny Farber wrote in 1962 about the divide between what he called "white elephant" art — lumbering, prone to grandiosity — and its "termite" counterpart, dedicated to smaller tasks...
View ArticleKathleen Parker: Obama right person for this message
WashingtonPresident Barack Obama's new outreach initiative to help at-risk boys of color — "My Brother's Keeper" — is cause for cheer.It isn't that we haven't known for some time that minority boys...
View ArticleMaureen Dowd: Clintons, Bushes, 'Groundhog Day'
Washington Oy. By the time the Bushes and Clintons are finished, they are going to make the Tudors and the Plantagenets look like pikers.Before these two families release their death grip on the U.S....
View ArticleDiane Cameron: The stars are out for us
I'll be in my pajamas early this evening but I'm prepared for the inevitable exhaustion tomorrow. I'll be staying up late for the Academy Awards and I won't be alone. The Oscar ceremony is one of the...
View ArticleEditorial: Prestige, with a price tag
THE ISSUE:New York state plans another building at the Harriman State Office Campus.THE STAKES:Will state government consider paying its fair share like most other property owners? The good news is...
View ArticleHealth care across upstate needs access to $8 billion
New York state recently received great news: The federal government has agreed to invest $8 billion over five years in our state's health care system. This "Medicaid waiver" allows New York to keep a...
View ArticleRichard Brodsky: Cuomo tested on left, right
Andrew Cuomo is as politically deft as any New York governor since Nelson Rockefeller. He's had his way, for good reasons and bad, on policy and politics.He's taken hard left-wing social positions and...
View ArticleCharles Krauthammer: Putin needs Ukraine for his empire
Washington Henry Kissinger once pointed out that since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year. All undone, of course, by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which...
View ArticleUpdate oil spill response
In a little over two years, the amount of crude oil traveling down the Hudson by rail or barge has jumped from virtually none to over a billion gallons annually.And the explosive growth in the...
View ArticleEditorial: The Medicaid solution
THE ISSUE:New York pushes billions in Medicaid costs onto localities.THE STAKES:Ending this would be a boon for long-suffering property taxpayers. Gov. Andrew Cuomo says property taxes are too high....
View ArticleShould a death row inmate's life hinge on an IQ test?
The following appeared in a Los Angeles Times editorial:On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about a Florida man, Freddie Lee Hall, who faces execution for a 1978 murder. Hall is...
View ArticleDavid Brooks: Putin tries to justify his power play
Even cynics like to feel moral. Even hard-eyed men who play power politics need to feel that their efforts are part of a great historic mission. So as he has been throwing his weight around the world,...
View ArticleJail classes led to much better life
The week Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans to fund college classes in New York state prisons, I celebrated two years out of Auburn Correctional Facility and the Cornell University classes I took...
View ArticleEditorial: The challenge in Ukraine
THE ISSUE:Russia invades Ukraine's Crimean peninsula; its next step is uncertain.THE STAKES:The aggression must be answered, as well as the stated concerns behind it. The stakes in Ukraine could not...
View Article'12 Years' proves making a complicated film is worth it
The following appeared in a Los Angeles Times editorial:Perhaps it's not a big surprise that "12 Years a Slave," the acclaimed movie based on the true story of a free black man who was sold into...
View ArticleMaureen Dowd: Women surviving in films
As the statuesque Cate Blanchett clutched her statuette, she sent an acid air kiss Sandra Bullock's way.The "Blue Jasmine" star said, "Sandra, I could watch that performance to the end of time, and I...
View ArticleGlobal strife disrupts the Peace Corps
The news wasn't totally unexpected, but it was discomforting. Everything had been falling into place nicely on this end, but falling apart on the other.The sale of the house was moving along, and the...
View ArticleEditorial: Wrong ways to the truth
THE ISSUE:The attorney general wants to give all wrongfully imprisoned people the right to seek compensation.THE STAKES:It's a good first step, but preventing such incidents would be an even better...
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