Trump’s latest travel ban, his crazy tweets, and high housing costs
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Our take
Editorials
Trump’s new travel ban has same terrible impact: Trump’s new travel ban is scaled back to avoid court fights. But it’s still counterproductive, bigoted and fiction-based.
California must confront the exorbitant cost of housing: We Californians pride ourselves on being opening and welcoming. We have more new Americans than any other state. We are, in many ways, the new Ellis Island, and proud of it. But we want nothing built in our backyard; it’s a fundamental disconnect.
Column
Foon Rhee: Can smarter bus routes help save Regional Transit? RT officials hope they can copy the success in Seattle and Houston, which redesigned their routes and boosted ridership. But to make it work, they’ll still need more money, and that means going back to voters who narrowly rejected a sales tax increase last November.
Op-eds
Deborah Burger: Senate Bill 562 would create a universal system for all Californians, with comprehensive covered services, no insurance networks that restrict patient choice, and no more copays, deductibles or surprise medical bills.
Craig Lewis: Renewable energy projects are sprouting up on rooftops and parking lots across the state. The state’s grid operator should properly value the benefits, but unfortunately, the exact opposite is true for much of California.
Take a number: 1.7 million
Each year, air pollution, secondhand smoke, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, and inadequate hygiene kill 1.7 million children under 5 years, a fourth of all deaths in the age group, the World Health Organization reports. Causes range from environmental hazards to climate change, which has led to increased rates of childhood asthma, to a lack of basic hygiene. Because of lack of clean water and proper sanitation, 361,000 children under 5 die due to diarrhea. Some officials and individuals believe the U.S., the world’s richest and most powerful nation, should retreat from commitments to foreign aid and humanitarian causes. We must not.
Their take
San Diego Union-Tribune: California’s cap-and-trade program isn’t working. For a fourth straight quarter, the state’s auction of pollution credits under its ambitious cap-and-trade program has been a big disappointment. Only one-sixth of 75 million metric tons of emission allowances were sold, with most of the sales being of permits that were given to California utilities.
Orange County Register: The White House should never be the arbiter of which media outlets are right and wrong, fair and unfair, acceptable and unacceptable. That goes against the grain of the Constitution, which establishes the press as the people’s check on the government; if we lose that, we lose democracy.
Raleigh News & Observer: It’s such a bad idea that in a day of enlightened General Assembly leadership it would have made it to the dust bin before introduction. But these days, a bill to allow concealed-carry permit holders to carry their weapons on public university and community college campuses could actually make it through Dysfunction Junction.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Cutting Great Lakes funding from $300 million to $10 million, as the Trump administration reportedly is considering, is unacceptable. And Congress, led by representatives from the Great Lakes states – especially House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. – needs to send a strong message that it won’t stand for such a measure and will restore any money that is cut.
Takes on the travel ban
L.A. Times: The new travel ban President Trump signed Monday is no less misguided and damaging to those trying to travel to the U.S., or to those seeking refuge from war-torn regions of the world, than the original.
San Francisco Chronicle: Further legal challenges seem inevitable – and they should be. This new order is only superficially better than the first. It still takes our country in the wrong direction.
Takes on tweeter-in-chief
Denver Post: What a remarkable time for our nation when reasonable adults must wonder if the president has misplaced his tinfoil hat while tweeting, or whether he really knows what it is he is talking about.
Charlotte Observer: Until now, the best way to deal with America’s lunatic fringe was to keep it there – on the fringe. 9/11 truthers? Sandy Hook hoaxers? Just roll your eyes, feel sorry that some people are suckers for conspiracy, and try to ignore it. But what happens when the lunacy comes from the White House?
Dallas Morning News: Yes, Donald Trump’s claim that his predecessor illegally ordered, Watergate-style, the bugging of Trump Tower during the presidential campaign is astonishing. But it seems designed to divert attention.
Syndicates’ take
Charles M. Blow: This may sound extreme, but the American people must immediately demand a cessation of all consequential actions by this “president” until we can be assured that Russian efforts to hack our election did not also include collusion with or cover-up by anyone involved in the Trump campaign.
Eugene Robinson: President Donald Trump has put himself in a no-win position. If the Republican leadership in Congress denies his request for an investigation into his allegations of wire tapping, he suffers an embarrassing public rebuke. If the request is granted, however, Trump sets in motion a process he will not be able to control.
Trudy Rubin: President Donald Trump has called for a new military strategy to defeat ISIS, but it’s insufficient for the White House to push for military victory and then turn its back on the region. Unless any military plan is nested in a broader political strategy to stabilize Syria and Iraq, we can expect Son of ISIS to arise in the not-too-distant future.
Paul Krugman: It goes without saying that Donald Trump is the least qualified individual, temperamentally or intellectually, ever installed in the White House. As he veers from wild accusations against President Barack Obama to snide remarks about Arnold Schwarzenegger, he’s doing a very good imitation of someone experiencing a personal breakdown – even though he has yet to confront a crisis not of his own making.
Mailbag
“We’ve never had a president who accomplished more in such a short time. Liberals don’t seem to get that.” – Coty Artrip, Sacramento
Travel ban tweets
“New #travelban doesn’t take effect until March 16. Wait, didn’t @realDonaldTrump claim that giving advance warning would let in terrorists?” – Foon Rhee, @foonrhee
“Dear Mr. President - SAUDI FREAKING ARABIA.” – Matt Rexroad @MattRexroad
This story was originally published March 6, 2017 at 5:31 AM with the headline "Trump’s latest travel ban, his crazy tweets, and high housing costs."