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Down the Tubes: The Tax Man Cometh 0
- Economics
- May 12, 2021
Last week I filed my federal and state taxes. The tax preparation service I use here, mostly for backup purposes in case of an audit, informed me by phone that the forms were ready for my signature and that I would owe the federal government just over $1,000. Expecting to pay much more than that,
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Has the Backlash Arrived for Police-Bashing?0
- Politics
- May 11, 2021
Within hours of Saturday’s shooting in Times Square where three bystanders, including a 4-year-old girl, were wounded, the two leading candidates to replace Mayor Bill de Blasio were on-site. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a retired captain of the NYPD, and Andrew Yang, who declared: My fellow New Yorkers … Nothing works in our city
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Time to Plan Mask-Burning Parties 0
- Culture
- May 11, 2021
As COVID restrictions begin to fall there seems to be a new problem emerging, namely, Americans’ inability to ditch the masks. Masks, it seems, have become a type of “security blanket” for many, reporter Karin Brulliard claims in a recent Washington Post article. She explains how David Díaz, a vaccinated 29-year-old, struggles to go for
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Diagnosing American Disorder 0
- Culture
- May 10, 2021
The Decline of Nations: Lessons for Strengthening America at Home and in the World, by Joseph F. Johnston, Jr. (Republic; 385 pp., $30.00). How would you know your country is in mortal decline? Joseph Johnston first explains how the Roman Republic and the British Empire rose to greatness and then declined. In light of these
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Restoring Civility in the Workplace 0
- Culture
- May 10, 2021
It’s May, and the chilly dawn here in Virginia brings singing birds, velvet-soft breezes, and the rich perfume of freshly mown grass and damp earth. I take pleasure and joy in the time I spend on my front porch, sometimes singing a few lines from Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World.” After a few minutes,
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Where Did All Those ‘Capitalist Pigs’ Go?0
- Politics
- May 7, 2021
“There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money,” is an insight the famed biographer James Boswell attributed to Samuel Johnson. Clients of the late Bernie Madoff, however, might take issue. Over four decades, Madoff, acclaimed as the greatest fraudster of them all, ran a Ponzi scheme
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