The United States continues to be peculiar in handing out powerful magazine-fed firearms to almost anyone who wants one and not requiring background checks on private purchases even if these are made at gun shows or by persons with a history of mental illness.
In 2014, the Virginia legislature ordered a cut in the number of tests taken by the state’s children, and specifically eliminated the fifth grade and middle school U.S. history tests.
In an interview with Freakonomics, Summers, one of the architects of deregulation in the 1990s, insisted that ending Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with the collapse.
The Russia-gate hysteria now routinely includes rhetoric about the U.S. being at “war” with nuclear-armed Russia, but the shaky factual foundation continues to show more cracks.
European elites sneer compulsively at Trump, but polls show that majorities of their citizens would support a similar ban on Muslim immigration into the European Union.
This soft spot for rascals seems surprising in a nation founded by bluenose Puritans and virtue-obsessed Revolutionaries, but charming sinners often trump priggish saints.
What makes modern athletes’ national-anthem protests different from Muhammad Ali’s resistance to the Vietnam War draft, and his insistence on the rights of African-Americans, a half century ago?
