Opinion

Dear Annie

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Dear Annie: One of my good female friends graduated from a rival college of mine. We love talking smack about who has a better football team. When her school loses games, I gloat. One time this year, I said her school had zero chance of winning against my school. I did this level of trash-talking for two months, practically daily.

It Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy

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Here’s a funny thing about the Freedom Caucus’ insurrection against Kevin McCarthy, which on Tuesday denied him election as Speaker of the House on three consecutive ballots for the first time in a century. On the surface, it looks like the firebrands and zealots are in revolt against the GOP “establishment.” But the reality is that the Republican establishment is deader than dead. It’s hard to date its demise with precision, but Jan. 6, 2021, is a good marker. That was a second date that should live in infamy -- a date when, following a violent assault on the Capitol, two-thirds of the Republican caucus voted with the mob. The battle unfolding over the speakership is not between the extremists and the establishment. It’s between two camps of extremists.

Let’s Base Policy on Real Facts, Not Misleading Statistics

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From all those lists of best books of 2022, here’s one with the potential to change public policy debate and discourse for the better. It’s “The Myth of American Inequality,” and the three authors are two Ph.D. economists, former Sen. Phil Gramm and his long-ago Texas A&M colleague Robert Ekelund, and former Bureau of Labor Statistics assistant commissioner John Early. Their subject is government statistics -- and how they present a misleading picture of recent economic history.

Dear Annie

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Dear Annie: I have been with a man off and on for seven years. He is my best friend, and I can’t live without him. A few years ago, he stole my stimulus check of $1,200, and he brought other women home, claiming he was only doing business with them.

Dear Annie

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Dear Annie: I moved to Florida from Oklahoma to be near my son and sister after my husband passed away from cancer. It did not work out with my son, so I moved to a place near my sister -- a small, one-bedroom mobile home in an RV retirement park for seniors over 65.