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Punishing achievement is punishing everyone

Last week, Democrats settled on an area of apparent commonality: the desire to eat the rich. According to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, “Senator Wyden and the Senate Finance Committee ... would impose a tax on unrealized gains on liquid assets held by extremely wealthy individuals, billionaires.” While Yellen refused to call this a “wealth tax,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had no such qualms: “We probably will have a wealth tax,” she said. This has long been a talking point for the most Marxist-leaning Democrats, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who famously proposed a 2% ...

House progressives detach from reality

Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat left-wing “squad” member in the House, attacked Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin for his opposition to the multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better Act. Manchin is “anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman and anti-immigrant,” according to Bush because of his opposition to this megaspending welfare bill. If Bush wants to identify politicians hurting Blacks, children, women and immigrants, she needn’t go further than to look in the mirror. Bush represents Missouri’s 1st Congressional district, which includes a big chunk of St. Louis. The district is 49% ...

Let’s talk about a new kind of prison system

Show of hands: How many readers believe that the U.S. prison system truly works to rehabilitate convicts before releasing them back into society? I’m betting not many hands went up. A quick history of America’s correctional-industrial complex shows that up until the late ’60s, the goal really was to rehabilitate prisoners so they could have a better chance of success when they got out. But in the early ’70s that mindset changed, and we adopted a system of harsh mass incarceration, including extraordinarily long, no-parole sentences, even for first-time offenders. The result ...

Is failure baked in the cake at Glasgow?

“Colossal Stakes as Leaders Meet to Talk Climate,” ran the headline. “The Last Best Hope,” ran the subhead, which turned out to be a quote from President Joe Biden’s climate czar John Kerry. But these alarmist headings were not atop an editorial. They topped the lead news story in Sunday’s New York Times, the opening line of which set the tone for Glasgow: “The future is on the line.” Somini Sengupta, climate reporter, then laid out the “colossal stakes” of the summit. “As presidents and prime ministers arrive in Glasgow this week for a pivotal climate ...

Ghosts, hauntings and witches, oh my!

It’s that time of year when imaginations run wild, and you swear you hear spine-chilling shrieks, and things going thump and bump in the night! But what if it isn’t your imagination. There are many stories from the Juniata River Valley’s past that makes one wonder what could be lurking behind the shadows. Join me as we look at some of the local, frightful stories that have been passed from generation to generation. Fact, fiction, urban legend, only you can decide. Our first stop is in the Historic Courthouse, on the square in Lewistown, home to our Chamber office. According to ...

Will press be afraid to be free?

In a week, the Supreme Court will decide if it will consider diminishing long-standing protections for the freedom of the press. Here is the backstory. In 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed a jury verdict by an Alabama state court and in doing so changed the law of defamation in such a manner as to enhance substantially and materially the freedom of the press. The case was Times v. Sullivan, in which the police commissioner of Montgomery, Alabama, sued The New York Times for publishing a full-page advertisement that, he argued, ...