Opinion
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Columnist Gene Lyons: Fundamentalism and Donald Trump
Donald Trumps MAGA movement is fundamentalist at its core with fundamentalism being understood as a psychological rather than a religious concept. Pretty much every large-scale public movement, secular or sacred, has its share of extremists, and as the religious columnist Paul Prather has argued: Remove the labels, close your eyes…
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Columnist Byron York: Democrats waging lawfare on Donald Trump
The story of the 2024 campaign so far is the effort by Democrats and their appointees to use criminal charges and lawsuits to force former President Donald Trump out of the race for a second term in the White House. The name for such an effort is lawfare that is,…
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Columnist David Shribman: Three candidates; three definitions of ‘is’
It depends on what the definition of is is. Right now, former Gov. Nikki Haley is considered Donald Trumps biggest threat to winning his third consecutive Republican presidential nomination. Shes remaining competitive, barely but bravely, in Iowa, the site of the first caucuses of next years nomination fight. She is…
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Columnist Terry Mattingly: Israel-Hamas war dominates this years religion beat
The Hamas surprise attack on Israeli citizens was selected as the years most important international story by religion-beat journalists, in part because it led to spikes in Islamophobia and antisemitism when Israel launched its massive counterattack on Gaza. Members of the Religion News Association echoed that decision when voting to…
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Columnist Gene Lyons: Texas abortion case defies logic
Try as I may, I simply cannot comprehend the thinking of Texas Republican officials who forced a 31-year-old mother of two to flee the state to secure a legal abortion in order to spare the doomed fetus in her womb from terrible suffering, preserve her ability to bear a third…
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Columnist Slim Randles: Windy Wilson makes and interesting Santa Claus
Now before you can sneak away, here comes that pharaoh of the feed-store, that baron of the bunkhouse, that titan of the tack room Windy Wilson. Well, tother day I meandurated around town until I crept in to Sarahs bookstore. You know the one. Has that sign on them bookshelves…
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Columnist Byron York: Nikki Haley, Donald Trump and chaos follows him
Like all the Republican candidates for president, Nikki Haley is trying to find the secret formula for running against Donald Trump. The most recent Fox News national poll in which the former president is leading Ron DeSantis by 57 points and Haley by 60 shows that no one has discovered…
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Letters to the Editor published 12-20-23
Thank you from Osher Lifelong Learning Institute The OLLI 2023 fall semester ran vigorously from September through November. It has been a successful three months of active learning and relishing the company of our fellow OLLI members. There were 44 in-person classes in Brookings, 58 in Sioux Falls, 27 in…
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Columnist Terry Mattingly: Norman Lear was an unorthodox seeker
Early in the premiere episode of Norman Lears sitcom Sunday Dinner, the beautiful environmentalist T.T. Fagori raised her eyes to heaven and, with a sigh, entered a spiritual minefield. Chief? she asked God. You got a minute? In addition to praying out loud in prime time, this character offered a…
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Columnist Gene Lyons: Parsing the complex language of war
Watching coverage of The Three Equivocating Presidents on TV that is, the recent House Committee on Education hearing that featured testimony from three lofty academics I found myself marveling that such a trio of seeming nonentities had been put in charge of prestige universities in the first place. Never mind…
