At the beginning of his masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens wrote: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Wow! He could have been writing about the United States of America in 2018. All we ever hear is that it is the worst of times. Reality says that, in many ways, it has been the best of times. Off-the-charts employment — for all racial groups — and increasing wages. A booming economy as
The one thing that may trump the rise of European national pride (no pun intended) is the emergence of a serious common enemy. Putin’s Russia just may fill the bill. Russia’s increasingly aggressive behavior within its sphere of influence has alarmed many European leaders. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and theft of Crimea, his harassment of NATO and European military ships and planes, his placement of nuclear-tipped missiles in Kaliningrad, and his alliance with Iran and support of Bashar al-Assad have
In a move that stunned some analysts and even members of Congress, Russia, Iran, Syria, and Iraq announced they would form an intelligence-sharing unit headquartered in Baghdad. In 2003, the United States went to war in Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from building, acquiring, and using weapons of mass destruction. After winning the war, we stayed and helped rebuild Iraq at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, and many U.S. lives. Out of that sacrifice, Iraq gained a
