http://www.linncountyleader.com/section/columns linncountyleader.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more. Mon, 20 May 2013 3:04:28 +0000 http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130218/NEWS/130218818/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:41:44 By Jeff Vrabel, GHNS http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130218/NEWS/130218818/1008/OPINION http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130218/NEWS/130218819/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:39:57 By Saelen Ghose, GHNS http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130218/NEWS/130218819/1008/OPINION http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130218/NEWS/130218887/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:14:37 By E.J. Dionne, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130218/NEWS/130218887/1008/OPINION In Alabama, Republican Gov. Robert Bentley urged a 60 percent increase in preschool funding in his state, with the goal of having a universal preschool system in place within 10 years. “I truly believe by allowing greater access to a voluntary pre-K education,” Bentley declared earlier this [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130215/NEWS/130219431/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Fri, 15 Feb 2013 4:18:00 +0000 http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130215/NEWS/130219431/1008/OPINION We may never know exactly what happened in Benghazi the night Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that our response was short of optimum.
Even today, there are far more questions than answers. Could Stevens have been saved? Was Washington doing all in its drone-loving power to intervene? And, finally, as now-retired Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fired back to congressional [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130213/NEWS/130219818/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Wed, 13 Feb 2013 5:29:00 +0000 By Michael Gerson, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130213/NEWS/130219818/1008/OPINION There are a few exceptions: Lyndon Johnson announcing a War on Poverty; Bill Clinton, as a scandal unfolded, undismayed in the lion’s den. And then there were these sentences in the 2003 address [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130211/NEWS/130219998/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Mon, 11 Feb 2013 5:19:00 +0000 By Esther Cepeda, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130211/NEWS/130219998/1008/OPINION You won’t find this word in Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s recently published memoir, “My Beloved World.”
And this alone tells you everything you need to know about the woman who grew up in near-poverty, in an ire-filled home with a distant mother and an alcoholic father who died when she was 9. She was left to manage her diabetes, her family and her hard-won education nearly all by herself.
You’d probably be forgiven for calling her a [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130210/NEWS/130219999/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Sun, 10 Feb 2013 5:13:00 +0000 By George Will, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130210/NEWS/130219999/1008/OPINION http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130209/NEWS/130209275/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Sat, 9 Feb 2013 5:09:00 +0000 By Eugene Robinson, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130209/NEWS/130209275/1008/OPINION The November election answered that question. Mitt Romney said the magic word “self-deportation” and lost among Latino and Asian-American voters by nearly 3-to-1. Suddenly, the darkness lifted and [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130208/NEWS/130209282/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Fri, 8 Feb 2013 3:00:00 +0000 By Kathleen Parker, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130208/NEWS/130209282/1008/OPINION And, yes, indoctrination.
Arguments favoring women in direct combat are perhaps well-intentioned, focusing on fairness, opportunity and pride in certain women’s abilities. Unfortunately, most people who make those arguments are operating on false assumptions. And, shall we say, mis-truths.
It’s not their fault. For the past several decades, the media and popular culture have [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130204/NEWS/130209893/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Mon, 4 Feb 2013 6:33:00 +0000 By E.J. Dionne, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130204/NEWS/130209893/1008/OPINION The moment’s highest priority should be speeding economic growth and ending the waste, human and economic, left by the Great Recession. But you would never know this because the conversation in our [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130203/NEWS/130209896/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Sun, 3 Feb 2013 5:31:00 +0000 By Esther Cepeda, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130203/NEWS/130209896/1008/OPINION Take the headlines coming off of President Obama’s inauguration speech. While the NBC Latino website said Obama’s speech was “forceful” and “invokes immigration,” one of my hometown papers, the Chicago Sun-Times, called it “progressive” but lamented in an editorial that “the president said little about immigration reform.”
This illustrates a very normal, human way of processing our complex world: [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130201/NEWS/130209862/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Fri, 1 Feb 2013 14:36:44 By Diana Boggia, GHNS http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130201/NEWS/130209862/1008/OPINION I just received a phone call that my ex-husband’s mother died. My two daughters loved her and I know they will be upset, so I want to find the right words to help them through this. I also need to prepare them for their first funeral with someone they loved, and prepare them for the process of it all. They were traumatized at a previous funeral of a family member they didn’t even know, so I hate to think of what this might do to them.
The school counselor and I told the girls [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130201/NEWS/130209999/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Fri, 1 Feb 2013 4:30:00 +0000 By Eugene Robinson, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130201/NEWS/130209999/1008/OPINION As they try to understand why the party lost an election it was confident of winning -- and why it keeps losing budget showdowns in Congress -- Republican grandees are asking the wrong questions. Predictably, they are coming up with the wrong answers.
They prefer to focus on flawed tactics and ineffectual “messaging” rather [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130130/NEWS/130139999/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Wed, 30 Jan 2013 6:48:00 +0000 By Dana Milbank, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130130/NEWS/130139999/1008/OPINION Pence chose the sensible path. Elected governor of Indiana in November, he delivered his first State of the State speech Tuesday, describing his proposed budget that, though a fiscally conservative plan, increases funds for education, job training, transportation, [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130129/NEWS/130128815/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Tue, 29 Jan 2013 6:52:00 +0000 By Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130129/NEWS/130128815/1008/OPINION Where has everyone been these four years? The only surprise is that Obama chose his second inaugural, generally an occasion for “malice toward none” ecumenism, to unveil so uncompromising a left-liberal manifesto.
But the substance was no surprise. After all, Obama had unveiled his [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130128/NEWS/130128816/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:47:43 By Michael Gerson, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130128/NEWS/130128816/1008/OPINION Obama’s election was a symbol of reconciliation in America’s longest, bloodiest conflict -- the one that produced Antietam. It was followed by a partisan lunge to fulfill the dreams of the Great Society by delivering universal health care. Which was followed by an ideological backlash that shifted control of the House, led by activists who talked as if the whole welfare state [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130127/NEWS/130129517/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Sun, 27 Jan 2013 7:00:00 +0000 By E.J. Dionne, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130127/NEWS/130129517/1008/OPINION Whatever happens in the next four years, Obama will forever be our first African-American president, and our first biracial president. He has won two successive popular vote majorities. Andrew [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130126/NEWS/130129526/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Sat, 26 Jan 2013 7:24:00 +0000 By Esther Cepeda, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130126/NEWS/130129526/1008/OPINION So after several years of hashing out policies focused on the quality of teacher education programs and teacher performance in the classroom, it’s only right that the gaze of accountability should turn to parents.
According to Education Week, a new tool to measure the quality of parent-school relationships is starting to make its way into several school districts.
Harvard University and [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130125/NEWS/130129539/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Fri, 25 Jan 2013 7:00:00 +0000 By George Will, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130125/NEWS/130129539/1008/OPINION This plausible judgment comes from professor Thomas A. Lambert of the University of Missouri Law School, writing in Regulation quarterly, a publication of the libertarian Cato Institute. The crucial [...]]]> http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130124/NEWS/130129540/1008/OPINION?rssfeed=true Thu, 24 Jan 2013 7:00:00 +0000 By Eugene Robinson, Washington Post http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130124/NEWS/130129540/1008/OPINION The jury is out, but continued dysfunction seems the most likely scenario. Obama’s last news conference before Inauguration Day was a tutorial in low expectations.
Obama devoted his opening remarks to the latest unnecessary crisis: the threat by Republicans in Congress to [...]]]>