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MAGA masculinity: Protesting too much

Editorials

We’ve seen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lifting weights in snug Levis, sweat pouring down his naked muscled chest. Last February, the secretary of health and human services was “giving body” in the “Rock Out Workout” video. A jeans-clad Kennedy flexes alongside Kid Rock in black shorts, then strips off his shirt and joins Rock in a grotto-like pool. Provocative questions followed. Kennedy has become a hero to a MAGA movement that celebrates masculinity and pushes back against what it sees, not without reason, as an anti-male attitude flooding far-left feminism. I’m not the first ...

Hail Marco as classic orator

Editorials

Back in my college days (American University, Washington, D.C.), required reading included the works of Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Long after graduation they remained on my bookshelf. It was believed for generations that these men, along with philosophers Plato, Cicero and other great minds, could teach us. At too many of today’s colleges and universities we find courses in LGBTQ+ history and, according to Campus Reform, a 2023 course at Harvard “aimed to teach students how to prepare for a diversity, equity, and inclusion-filled future.” Harvard is not ...

Vote responsibly on local issues in our Valley

Editorials

Leaders of local governments and public school districts in the Mahoning Valley are to be applauded for accurately reading the room of their 2026 electorate. That keen perception is clearly evident in the relative dearth of additional tax levies those leaders have deigned to place on this fall’s general election ballots. Of nearly 40 issues up for a vote this cycle in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, only six seek new money from taxpayers. The electorate in Mahoning County will face a meager four additional operating levies, while only two such issues are on Trumbull ballots. Of those ...

Those who shout ‘genocide’ loudest are hypocrites

Editorials

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas killers slaughtered 1,200 people, more than two-thirds of them civilians, inside Israel. For the ensuing three weeks, they refused Israel’s demands to turn over the 251 hostages and to surrender the architects of the massacre. No matter — within a day of the attacks, when Hamas gunmen were still fighting Israeli troops on Israeli soil, the American Left was already screaming “Genocide!” What was most surreal about the charges of “genocide” against Israel was that they so often came from elite first- and second-generation Middle Eastern immigrants to ...

Sound off!

Letters to the Editor

Fact: Vivek Ramaswamy gave up on Ohio by moving his business to Texas and took $1.7B in assets to Texas He didn’t think Ohio was good enough for his business. Is this who you want as governor? Then you have Jon Husted who voted for the war, the Big Beautiful Bill, which cut Medicare and Medicaid. He voted not to release the Epstein files and took money from Epstein’s advisers as well as FirstEnergy. How is he going to help you? Vote Brown and Acton. — Youngstown Amy Acton will not agree to debate Vivek Ramaswamy for Ohio governor This implies that she is unprepared to serve ...

Orchids & onions

Editorials

ORCHID: To the National Park Service for awarding Austintown Township a $130,000 grant to revitalize the historic Austin Log House on South Raccoon Road in the community. The grant funds will enable improvements to windows, drainage and various aesthetic enhancements to one of the Mahoning Valley’s oldest historical sites. The cabin was constructed in 1814 by Calvin Austin, founder of Austintown Township who served as the first justice of the peace of the expansive Connecticut Western Reserve, from which Ohio was carved. The funding is aptly timed amid the nation’s celebration of its ...