Ed Koch

The campaign for president -- to be decided in the election in November 2012 -- is going to be decided, most people believe, by the state of the economy and its impact on each of us as we enter the voting booth. I believe while the economy will hold a...

The crime of sexually abusing a child, including adolescents and teens, is so heinous that the public is immediately shocked and angered. For a number of years, we have read of sex acts involving Catholic clergy with adolescents and seminarians taking place in a number of countries, including the U.S....

The issue of how to deal with the threat of Iran manufacturing a nuclear bomb is a matter affecting Israel's very existence and, therefore, a first priority for the leaders of the Jewish state. In deciding Israel's approach to this issue, and in particular, whether Israel has the military capability...

A New York Times editorial on April 27 continued the paper's ongoing campaign over the years to end the death penalty in the United States.

The editorial points out that only 33 states retain the death penalty. New York is not one of them. Wikipedia notes how...

On April 14, the New York Times published an editorial discussing the efforts and direction of a newly formed committee, New York Leadership for Accountable Government. The Times praises the committee's efforts to bring public financing to New York State elections for the Assembly and Senate. The editorial...

The New York Times of April 7 had a magnificent, several-pages-long article on the effect the change in welfare programs throughout the nation has had on its beneficiaries, mostly women with children, beginning with 2007, 11 years after the law was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996....

In an April 4 New York Times op-ed article, Tom Friedman endorsed what he designated to be "non-violent resistance by Palestinians" against Israel. He added that Palestinians need to "accompany every boycott, hunger strike or rock they throw at Israel with a map" delineating their territorial demands.

The chickens are coming home to roost in the Middle East. The experts who supported the removal of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, e.g., the New York Times' Tom Friedman and many others, are perhaps now wondering if they were right to do so.

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Within the past week, three incidents of depravity have been the subject of news coverage. Of course, in the world at large, many outrages have occurred, but these three affecting young people had a special impact, and I would like to bring them to your attention.

On March...

There is no rational reason for us to be in Afghanistan. Our original goals were to end the government of the Taliban which had given Osama bin Laden a base from which he could launch worldwide terrorist attacks and commit his greatest horror and catastrophe: the blowing up of...

According to an Associated Press story in the February 24th Daily News, "Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly dispatched his detectives to surveil every Muslim-owned business and community center in Newark [in] the clearest sign yet that the NYPD's fight against terrorism has gone terribly awry." This announcement has...

I am now in my 88th year, having celebrated my 87th birthday last December. I occasionally sit at my desk and experience a reverie, my mind thinking back to past events over my lifetime.

There are also nights when I lie in bed in the wee hours of the morning,...

Justice Stephen Breyer, a member of the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court, has a vacation home on the Caribbean paradise island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies. Last week the Times reported: "Justice Breyer was in his vacation home with his...

Not long ago, I read an article in the New York Post reporting a decision by the Appellate Division First Department confirming a referee's recommendation in a case brought by the Departmental Disciplinary Committee against Elliott Dear, an attorney. The Committee recommended that Mr. Dear's license to practice law...

I'm back, having had a wonderful vacation of seven days in the Caribbean and having the special experience of going through the Panama Canal. I transversed it by entering the canal from the Pacific side. Some call the creation of the canal the ninth wonder of the world. The...

In the Times of January 24 is an article headlined, "2 Palestinian Legislators Are Arrested in East Jerusalem Protest." The article reported:

I don't believe class conflict is harmful to our country, as long as it is limited to elections. It is also helpful if the charges made by both sides in this conflict are factually correct.

The Republicans are the party of the wealthy. Its membership, however, is...

Ethanol is produced from some agricultural products. It is a form of alcohol which is added to regular gasoline in order to make us less reliant on foreign supplies of oil, from which gasoline is derived.

The subsidy to create ethanol was first provided 30 years...

A really interesting decision of a federal appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia, was reported in the Times of December 28, 2011. An employee at a Tyson chicken plant sued the company alleging racial discrimination and seeking damages for the act of a plant manager who "called adult...

Here we are at the end of 2011. Our Congress is made up of bumblers who are interested only in their re-election, and the Republican leadership is obsessively focused on preventing the re-election of President Barack Obama, rather than providing solutions to America's huge economic problems, particularly the unemployment rate....