[Francis Wilkinson] Coming clash on Trump’s immigration plan

Perhaps no battle in Donald Trump’s presidency will be as pitched, or public, as the coming fight over undocumented immigrants. If he pursues his stated goal of deporting 2 to 3 million undocumented immigrants, a network of pro-immigrant cities, institutions and activists is poised to make the process as visibly contentious as possible.Trump will have authority to deport millions. While individual cases can be contested and prolonged in immigration court — the system is already overloaded — laws

Dec. 5, 2016

[Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan]‘Cafeteria economists’ get it wrong on price gouging

Catholics who choose to accept some church teachings but not others are known as “cafeteria Catholics.” The problem, in the eyes of the Church, is that Catholic theology isn’t a collection of disparate items of faith to be selectively chosen. It is a coherent body of thought that leads to a set of reasoned conclusions. To reject some teachings while retaining others is to ignore the arguments underlying all of them. And so it is today with so many amateur “cafeteria economists.”These amateurs se

Dec. 5, 2016

[Leonid Bershidsky] In London, Airbnb surprises by being humble

Despite their reputation as argumentative, litigious and impatient with regulation, “sharing economy” companies sometimes voluntarily go along with local rules to avoid even worse regulatory problems. Airbnb announced that, starting next spring, it will follow a directive in London that would make it impossible for hosts to rent out entire houses or apartments for more than 90 days a year.That’s surprising for Airbnb. Like Uber, the other pillar of the “sharing economy,” the San Francisco-based

Dec. 5, 2016

[Robert Park] Trump’s Dangerous and Insensitive Rhetoric concerning Japanese Nuclear Armament

US President-elect Donald Trump has on various occasions suggested that Japan’s nuclear armament would be permitted if the country did not “pay more” for the US military presence in the region. He has also suggested Japan’s nuclear armament could be in US interests. On March 27 of this year, Trump told The New York Times: “unfortunately, we have a nuclear world now. ... And, would I rather have North Korea have them with Japan sitting there having them also? You may very well be better off if th

Dec. 4, 2016

Vive le change? The French race for president is next indicator

International political observers following the run-up to France’s presidential elections next year are on high alert. They are desperately trying to make predictions based on the outcomes of this summer’s British vote to leave the European Union and America’s choice of Donald Trump as president.First of all, remember that most prognosticators, a miserable lot, predicted the British and American elections wrong. Second, trying to string the three elections together is probably a mistake. France

Dec. 4, 2016

[Doyle McManus] Trump will have to build mandate by getting things done

It’s been over three weeks since Donald Trump won the presidential election, but he can’t stop stewing over the narrow result.“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” he tweeted Sunday.“Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California -- so why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias -- big problem!”Both claims are false.Nobody, including the Trump aides who were supposed t

Dec. 4, 2016

Human journey to Mars is just a dream

Reports of a new space race tell of NASA’s plan to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s and SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk’s ambition to get private explorers there first. This race, however, can’t be won with either’s current technology, regardless of their spending or commitment.The barrier is human biology. Even a short, sortie mission to Mars and back would be extremely hazardous to human health. A Mars colony is out of the question. Living long-term on its surface is beyond the capacity o

Dec. 2, 2016

Different from other presidents

At a forum hosted by the Asian Media Information and Communication Center last Friday, I had the opportunity to paint a picture of the conditions that journalists labour under while covering President Duterte. With Marites Vitug’s own take, it was meant to prompt a discussion.President Duterte is an unusual subject, different from most other presidents, in several ways. A large part of the challenge of covering him can be explained by these differences. Let me cite four related pairs of unusual.

Dec. 1, 2016

ASEAN as an accessory to murder and mayhem

If there was ever a time for the member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to abandon their all-too-comfortable policy of letting one another handle domestic problems unhampered by neighborly criticism, it is now. In a crisis worsening by the day and being watched around the world, tens of thousands of Myanmar residents are being driven from their homes at risk of death. People are being killed in the interest of forced expulsion.The benighted Rohingya people are right now f

Dec. 1, 2016

[Noah Feldman] Put Faith in Constitution, Not ‘Democracy’

When my colleague Lawrence Lessig argued at Medium that members of the Electoral College should break faith and vote for Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump, I chalked it up to the brilliantly contrarian Larry being brilliant and contrarian -- even if wrong. But when, over the holiday weekend, the Washington Post published his op-ed making the same argument, it made me think serious people might take his argument seriously -- which would be dangerous for democracy and bad for the republic. S

Dec. 1, 2016

[Jonathan C. Brown] The life and notorious times of Castro

The death of Fidel Castro, the retired leader of Cuba, gives us Americans an occasion to ponder why he is so famous. If we were challenged to name one Latin American leader, Castro likely would be the first person who comes to mind. And yet, he presided over one of the smaller countries of the Western Hemisphere. When Castro initiated the revolution in 1959, the Caribbean island had just 6 million inhabitants.Americans already knew Cuba for its sugar and also as the gambling mecca and winter hom

Nov. 30, 2016

[Dan K. Thomasson] Try as he might, Trump won’t be able to stop a curious press

Every new president begins his tenure by trying to manage the press. And even though the press is a far different institution than it was when most of our chief executives took office, that hasn’t stopped the current president-elect from doing the same.Well, good luck, Donald Trump. You will need it.Since beginning his almost unbelievable odyssey, Trump has received more ink and air time than almost any seeker of the world’s most important job before him. Granted, a lot of that oversized attenti

Nov. 30, 2016