“To spy or not to spy: It’s a good question”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, December 29 2013 Let’s have that conversation Edward Snowden keeps urging on us: Should our government be vacuuming up our phone records in the name of keeping us safe? No way, says U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. Such a sweeping intrusion likely violates…
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“’Duck Dynasty’ star should have kept his bill shut”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, December 22 2013 Yes, you can be fired for saying dumb stuff outside work. And please, don’t go yelping about the First Amendment. It won’t protect you for a second from a private employer’s ax. Swamp-TV star and backwoods theologian Phil Robertson just learned that…
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“Signing? World diplomacy? Leave it to the pros”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, December 15 2013 Some things are best left to professionals. Things like brain surgery. And signing for the hearing-impaired. And international diplomacy. Thankfully, no untrained amateurs were caught last week donning scrubs and drilling into anyone’s skull. But we did have a very strange man…
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“Speaker Boehner takes small step in right direction on women”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, December 8 2013 Freud asked, “What do women want?” John Boehner has a follow-up: What do women want to hear? Apparently, “legitimate rape” isn’t too high on the list. Those two words sunk Todd Akin’s Republican Senate bid last year in Missouri.…
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“HealthCare.gov helped by Obama’s deadline”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, December 1 2013 Deadlines are tough. Just ask President Barack Obama. He promised the Obamacare website would be up and running by the end of November and, wouldn’t you know it, the end of November came. The results aren’t perfect. Deadline projects seldom are. There’s never enough time,…
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“Mired in tribal rules while Obamacare suffers”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, November 24 2013 Why stop with the Senate filibuster? Washington has so many other rules just begging to be obliterated. The rule that says Democrats must support President Barack Obama even when they know he’s stumbled. See Obamacare. The rule that says Republicans have to…
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“Those who control the language control the debate”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, November 17 2013 Was it just an early fumble — or Barack Obama’s Hurricane Katrina? Tell me which analogy you like. I’ll tell you which side you’re on. Long before a winner is crowned in the bitter battle over the president’s health insurance policy, we’ll…
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“Toronto’s mayor is cracking under the pressure”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, November 10 2013 What does a mayor have to do to be impeached in Canada? Shoot a moose? Outlaw hockey? Getting caught on video sucking a crack pipe obviously isn’t enough. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Toronto Mayor Rob Ford gives crackheads a…
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“Tea party is poison pill for GOP”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, November 3 2013 The Republican’s ahead in the big, industrial, northern state. The Democrat’s leading down South. And in New York City, where the last two mayors were elected as Republicans, Democrat Bill de Blasio is so far ahead, the R beside Republican Joe Lhota’s…
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“Health care rollout woes? About what we expected”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, October 27 2013 Has anyone thought about switching the computer on and off? I swear, that cures a good 75 percent of the problems I have with my creaky PC. Isn’t a quick reboot at least worth a try at healthcare.gov? The Obama administration had…
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