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Downsizing MAGA to reality

As we survey the wreckage of Trump’s second term, it is often said that half the country voted for this, or worse, half the country is fine with this. That isn’t true. MAGA is a bit of a moving target, but a recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 27% of all voters described themselves as “MAGA supporters” and a perhaps surprisingly low 54% of Trump voters so identified. In other words, a minority of the voting public and only a little over half of the GOP is Trump’s loyal base. A new survey from More in Common, an international pro-democracy organization (I sit on ...

Yes, Virginia, there are differences between boys, girls

Am I sexist? I think there are differences between men and women -- traits beyond obvious physical ones. But when I was young, feminist leaders said there were no differences. The only reason men ran most things was sexism. There was plenty of that. One example people forget: Until 1974, women couldn’t get a credit card without their husband’s permission. A women’s movement was long overdue. I believed the new “experts” who said, if we raise children in gender-neutral ways, men and women will behave similarly. Then I had kids. Now I understand that boys and girls ...

Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To Mahoning County Auditor Ralph Meacham for implementing a fraud protection program covering property transfer deeds for county residents. It’s the first of its kind in any county in Ohio to provide no-cost protections to homeowners. Homeowners would be remiss not to sign up for the protections by going to the Mahoning County auditor’s website (auditor.mahoningcountyoh.gov) and clicking on the Property Ownership Alert Subscription page in the Tools tab. “I want criminals put on notice: This office will do everything in our power to prevent a fraudulent property ...

Give Ohio townships viable opportunities to evolve as cities

In coming weeks and months, leaders of the 15 townships with 5,000 people or more in Mahoning and Trumbull counties likely will keep their eyeballs squarely peeled on the evolution of state House Bill 592. That’s because that legislation, sponsored by state Rep. David Thomas, R-Jefferson, would open long-locked doors to those townships’ potential to evolve into much stronger local governments. For decades, informal whispered talk of transforming weak township governments into much stronger city governments have been floated, particularly among such larger and urbanized ...

Tax the dog (walker)

At first it seemed like something from the satirical website Babylon Bee. The new governor of Virginia, the “moderate” Democrat Abigail Spanberger, has proposed a tax hike on services such as dog walking and grooming. Additional proposed tax hikes include levies on guns and ammunition, storage facilities, dry cleaning, home repairs, food delivery services, package deliveries and a new personal property tax on electric leaf blowers (but not gas-powered blowers?) and electric landscaping equipment. There is no economic reason for raising taxes in Virginia. When his single term ...

Selling U.S. security: A Trump family business

The U.S. makes artificial intelligence chips so special, so advanced, that the Biden administration limited their export for national security reasons. They didn’t want them to get into the hands of China or Russia. But days before Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term, go-betweens for an Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal that delivered $187 million into Trump family ventures. So far, as far as we know. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan — nickname, the “spy sheik” — had long been frustrated in his campaign to obtain this highly sensitive AI technology. The fear ...