Donald Trump’s recent flurry of executive orders mandates that for every new regulation issued by any agency, two must be eliminated. This comes on top of a federal hiring freeze and vows to reduce administrative bloat and otherwise force the government bureaucracy to conform to the kinds of expectations that govern private business.While Trump sees himself as an outsider president bringing new ideas to Washington, these particular ideas would be painfully familiar to his predecessors. For the p

Feb. 7, 2017

America has fixed coordinates for the geography of the Islamic State, the West’s deadliest terror threat. There’s Mosul, now in the midst of a US-backed bid by the Iraqi military to eradicate Islamic State militants from the northern Iraqi city. There’s also North Africa and northern Syria, where the Islamic State inflicts its barbarism on Syrian civilians and blueprints attacks on the West.But there’s another part of the world where Islamic State is rising, a region few Westerners know: Deadly

Feb. 7, 2017

President Donald Trump seems determined to start a fight with China over trade. He’s appointed notable China skeptics to his economic team, badgered companies like Apple Inc. to stop making products on the mainland, and threatened tariffs of 45 percent on Chinese goods.He hopes to get companies to move their manufacturing operations back home and create jobs in American factories. It won’t work. In fact, it’s likely to hurt the very voters he’s promised to protect.China’s factories now compete l

Feb. 7, 2017

At a meeting with small-business leaders last week, President Donald Trump pledged to do “a big number” on the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which he blamed for cutting off the bank lending needed for growth. “It’s almost impossible now to start a small business and it’s virtually impossible to expand your existing business,” he said.　Trump is wrong about small-business starts. Since early 2010, new business creation has rebounded.　But he’s right, albeit with a whiff of exaggeration, that it’s harder to

Feb. 6, 2017

Democrats trust only Democratic-approved media sources, and Republicans trust only Republican-approved media sources. Perhaps the only medium that both Democrats and Republicans will accept as a valid source of information is … the stock market.　With the stock market, there is a price at which one can buy or sell. And that’s that. No alleging that Fox News peddles “alternative facts,” or MSNBC spins.　Additionally, for anyone with their wealth in financial assets, movement in the stock market aff

Feb. 6, 2017

President Donald Trump’s unwarranted anti-Muslim ban imposed on refugees, immigrants and visitors from seven mostly impoverished and war-torn countries contained an extraordinary clause exempting Christians from these same countries from its draconian sway.　Trump then doubled-down with a tweet the following day: “Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!”　The cynical executive order is not only blatantly discriminatory, but it pla

Feb. 6, 2017

Do humans act largely rationally, or can stories and rumors throw an entire economy off course? Lately, economists are increasingly recognizing that narratives matter.In the early 1920s, the US suffered a brutally sharp economic contraction, in which inflation turned rapidly to deflation and stock price-to-earnings ratios dropped to 50-year lows. The economists Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, in their book “Monetary History of the United States,” blamed an inexperienced Federal Reserve, which

Feb. 6, 2017

By putting Iran “on notice” for its aggressive behavior, President Trump has taken aim at a country that‘s opposed by many US allies. But he has begun this confrontation without much preparation or strategic planning, continuing the haphazard pattern of his first two weeks in office. Iran is a convenient enemy for Trump. Israel and the Gulf Arab states share the administration’s antipathy toward Iran, and the regime‘s hard-liners gave Trump a pretext with a ballistic-missile test last weekend th

Feb. 5, 2017

Thanks to the belligerent statements and policies of Donald Trump, the Islamic State terrorist group will grow from strength to strength in coming weeks and months. The IS group no longer needs to conduct overt recruiting campaigns of its own. The global publicity about Trump’s ban on people from seven designated Muslim-majority countries entering the United States will serve that purpose for the jihadists. The president has delivered an unexpectedly grand “bonus” triumph in the war they’re wagi

Feb. 5, 2017

The key political divide in the United States is not between parties or states; it is between generations. The millennial generation (those aged 18-35) voted heavily against Donald Trump and will form the backbone of resistance to his policies. Older Americans are divided, but Trump’s base lies among those above the age of 45. On issue after issue, younger voters will reject Trump, viewing him as a politician of the past, not the future.Of course, these are averages, not absolutes. Yet the numbe

Feb. 5, 2017

Marine Le Pen could be France’s next president. Sure, her lead in some polls exaggerates her strength before the field narrows to two candidates -- but voters’ discontent with normal politics isn’t subsiding. For France’s sake, and Europe’s, Le Pen must be defeated. Her party’s blend of virulent xenophobia and economic statism makes Donald Trump seem moderate. But with her support still building, defeating her calls for more than a show of contempt. Her rivals need to understand why she’s so pop

Feb. 5, 2017

The indefinite ban on Syrian refugees imposed by the United States has cast a bright spotlight on one of the great challenges of our time. What should we do with the millions of refugees fleeing war and persecution around the world?The scale of today’s refugee crisis is staggering: Worldwide, an unprecedented 65 million people have been forced to flee from their homes; and, in 2016 alone, over 7,500 migrants – men, women, and children – died while desperately trying to reach safety, of which 5,0

Feb. 3, 2017

President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries is un-American, dangerous and probably illegal, and the public response has been heartening: marches at airports, lawsuits, judicial stays, even some Republican criticism. Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, however, went a step too far.Yates told Justice Department staff members on Monday not to defend the order in court. Hours later, she was fired.　President Donald Trump was justifi

Feb. 3, 2017

The mere idea of President Trump’s executive order suspending the entry into the country of various visitors, migrants and refugees was bad enough, based as it was on the erroneous assertion that people from predominantly Muslim countries posed an escalated threat to the United States, and the contention — also without evidence — that existing vetting of arrivals from those countries was inadequate.In execution, it was a disaster, plunging US airports into chaos and displaying a shocking lack of

Feb. 2, 2017