Opinion

Dear Annie: I have been reading your column in my local newspaper for a long time. Earlier this year, I sent a note to you about losing my wife and how my friends reacted. Never would I have thought that I would be sending you another note. But here I am.

When President Joe Biden sent Congress his budget proposal for fiscal 2023 last March, he tried to sound as if he were a fiscal conservative. “My Budget details the next steps forward on our journey to execute a new economic vision, reduce costs for families, reduce the deficit, and build a better America,” Biden said in the budget message that began his proposal.

China’s shrinking population, we are told, poses an economic threat to that country, as well as an economic drag for us. Here are the numbers: Deaths exceeded births in 2022 by 850,000.

Today is the 20th day of 2023 and the 31st day of winter. T ODAY’S HISTORY: In 1841, China ceded the island of Hong Kong to the British.

Dear Annie: I have never been ignorant to the fact that, in my opinion, my parents’ marriage sucks. My dad is and has always been controlling and domineering. And my mom just exists and really believes it is her job to just be submissive. (These are people married since the 1950s.)

With all the outstanding questions about who packed up then-Vice President Joe Biden’s files in the Obama administration’s final days, who unpacked them and why documents with classified markings were unlawfully removed in the process, one fact is pretty well-established. Biden’s testy response to a reporter’s question about how such documents ended up next to his Corvette (“By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage. OK? So it’s not like it’s sitting out in the street.”) was God-awful. It may not have matched former President Donald Trump’s idiocy about the COVID-19 pandemic (“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous -- whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light”), but it was bad.

Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, prolife Americans will March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Dear Annie: I’ve read a few letters in your column in which parents wrote about two of their children arguing and wanting there to be peace. And in all of the replies, you have advocated trying to remind people about the good times and work toward building back the relationship.

Because of a Misdemeanor Welfare Fraud Conviction, Bryan Range Is No Longer Allowed to Own Guns Back in 1995, Bryan Range pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $2,458 in food stamps by misrepresenting his income. He returned the money, paid a $100 fine and $288 in court costs and served three years of probation.

When I worked on Reuters’ business desk, we weren’t allowed to parrot press releases reporting that earnings soared 100% from the year before. Why? Because here’s the reality behind some such claims: Acme Pebble’s income last year may have grown from a miserable $100 to only $200. That’s a 100% gain but hardly a reason to party.