EDITORIALS
The Lima News editorial policy is independent of political party affiliation. Opinions expressed in the Our View column reflect the view of The Lima News editorial board. Opinions elsewhere on this page are solely those of the writers.
The editorial board includes Doug Olsson, Publisher (dolsson@aimmediamidwest.com, 567-242-0371); Jim Krumel, Editor (aimmediamidwest.com, 567-242-0391); and David Trinko, Managing Editor (aimmediamidwest.com, 567-242-0467).
Editorial: The congressional guide to insider trading
Whether or not U.S. Representative Chris Collins engaged in insider trading, as federal prosecutors allege, his indictment this week exposes what a poor job Congress has done to guard against such transgressions. Collins, a New York Republican, is accused of sharing...
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Editorial: Ohio State loses either way in Urban Meyer case
Right or wrong, Ohio State University’s reputation will be tarnished further this week when a special committee is expected to issue its findings in the investigation of football coach Urban Meyer. There’s no way avoiding it. Should the investigation...
read moreOhio legislators needto address sports betting
Gamblers who like to bet a certain set of numbers might want to add 316 to their favorites. That’s the number of a bill introduced recently in the Ohio Senate to create the framework for sports wagering in Ohio. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May that states may...
read moreEditorial: Goading liberals may be fun for Trump supporters, but it isn’t winning any converts
Last Saturday, two middle-aged men from the Columbus, Ohio area gained national attention — a classic 15 minutes of fame in the Andy Warhol sense — by sporting an eye-opening message on the t-shirts they wore to the Donald Trump rally. A photograph of them...
read moreEditorial: The best answer on auto fuel economy
The world is heating up. Wildfires are devastating large swaths of the western United States, Europe has been sweltering in a historic heat wave, and heavy rain and flooding have wrought havoc from Japan to Sudan — all a taste of the damage that climate change...
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Los Angeles Times: Pope Francis makes the Catholic Church’s opposition to the death penalty absolute
Pope Francis threw the weight of the Catholic Church behind the death-penalty abolition movement last week, releasing a new church teaching that says — quoting a speech by the pope last year — that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an...
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Houston Chronicle: Declining birth rates bigger woe than immigrants
Women in America are having so few babies that the birth rate has hit an historic low, and that does not bode well for the nation’s future. Fewer babies now means fewer adults later to work, pay taxes and make sure the country’s future remains bright. The...
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Baltimore Sun: Why hide Kavanaugh’s White House past?
Just because the current political landscape in Washington suggests that most, if not all, Senate Democrats will oppose Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court while their Republican counterparts are likely to endorse it, the Senate is...
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Editorial: If president wants to talk, let him talk
If there’s one thing we know about Donald Trump, it’s that he’s a people person. On Monday he said he’d “certainly meet” with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani if the Iranian leader was interested. With that meeting, we will have run...
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Economics 101, from a talking bean
Who’d have thought Americans could learn something useful from official Chinese propaganda — let alone from a cartoon bean? A new video by a Chinese government media outlet features an English-speaking cartoon soybean explaining why the trade war started...
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Cleveland Plain Dealer: Lake Erie can’t afford to wait for panel’s decision
The Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission is supposed to look out for all Ohioans by making sure hio’s precious natural resources aren’t squandered. Those resources include, prominently, Lake Erie, a state jewel. Instead, by hastily shelving Gov....
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Brownsville (Texas) Herald: Public awareness needed to fight human trafficking
Today is the World Day Against the Trafficking of Persons. Various United Nations offices designate July 30 as a day to increase awareness and encourage more efforts to fight one of the worst scourges of humanity. The groups consider it a modern form of slavery, and...
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Editorial: Jordan would reframe priorities of Congress
Jim Jordan is the right man for the right job at the right time. The region knows the Republican from Urbana who held the 4th District seat since 2007 as an uncompromising man of principle. The rest of the country’s Republicans should seriously consider his...
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Editorial: Immigration reforms needed, but keep ICE
One result of public outrage over the Trump administration’s ill-conceived policy of separating immigrant families is a call to eliminate the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Congressional Democrats have even offered a bill to that effect....
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Chicago Tribune: The next sidewalk clash: Pedestrians vs. scooters?
Those zingy electric scooters you may have spotted on sidewalks and streets look like fun. Until one of them zips up behind you at 15 mph and nearly clips you. Or until one cuts across two lanes of heavy traffic in a nonchalant, I-own-the-road gesture of defiance....
read moreEditorial: The awkward obligation: When you suspect a student is dangerous
Two decades ago, Americans hoped the slaughter of students at Columbine High School would prove to be a horrible aberration, an event provoked by some bizarre confluence of causes unlikely to be repeated. Tragically, we now know better. School shootings in America...
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Chicago Tribune: The awkward obligation: When you suspect a student is dangerous
Two decades ago, Americans hoped the slaughter of students at Columbine High School would prove to be a horrible aberration, an event provoked by some bizarre confluence of causes unlikely to be repeated. Tragically, we now know better. School shootings in America...
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KAVANAUGH PRO: Truly a “judge’s judge;” precisely what our nation needs
WASHINGTON — What can we expect of Brett Kavanaugh if he’s confirmed as Justice Anthony Kennedy’s successor on the Supreme Court? Kavanaugh’s record and background show he will be a fair, impartial and principled justice — and...
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KAVANAUGH CON: His pick is bad news indeed for health care, women, consumers and unions
WASHINGTON — Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the United States Supreme Court, is a bad choice for most Americans. His political, legal and judicial career is littered with activist ideological opinions out of step with the American...
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Los Angeles Times: The IRS found a way to make ‘dark money’ spent on politics even darker
Under a perverse interpretation of federal law, tax-exempt nonprofit organizations supposedly devoted to “social welfare” can spend large amounts of money to influence elections without publicly disclosing the identities of their donors. But instead of...
read moreCOLUMNS
John M. Crisp: The pope has it right; we should listen
I’m not a particular fan of the Catholic Church, but I like Pope Francis, who appears to be a simple, devout, humble man who has somehow found himself at the head of a vast, opulent patriarchy. I’ll like him even more when he finds a way to establish the...
Commentary: Farmers want fair trade, not handouts
My grandfather, who was a dairy farmer, would often say, “farmers do not need to go into a casino to gamble. They do it every single day, just going to work.” Farmers roll the dice on the weather, which can deliver unseasonably late snow falls, harsh...
Jerry Zezima: A visit from the tooth fairy
For grownups, making money can be like pulling teeth. Kids have it so much better because they don’t have to pay to have a tooth extracted. They can just wait for it to fall out. Then they can go to sleep and count on the Tooth Fairy to leave them money, which...
Jim Krumel: We’re going to break the rules today
Yeah, I’m a news guy. And I know I’m not supposed to do this, but I’m going to anyway. I’m going to break what many of you tell me is the golden rule of journalism. Yep, you guessed it. I’m going to say something positive. You see one of...
Eric Zorn: Is Trump smarter than those whose brainpower he criticizes? Let’s find out! //
It seemed racist — didn’t it? — when President Donald Trump blasted out a tweet insulting the intelligence of two prominent African-Americans: ”Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon,” wrote Trump of...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Intolerance can never be up for debate
Donald Trump is a man of famously definite opinions. Whether it be about Mexicans, Muslims or Mueller, he knows what he thinks and isn’t shy about sharing. So it was telling, one year ago this weekend, when he refused to take a stand. Meaning, of course,...
George Will: If you want peace, prepare for war
WASHINGTON — Scholars have already debated for decades, and will debate for centuries, the role U.S. policies — military, diplomatic, economic — played in bringing the Cold War to endgame and the Soviet Union to extinction. One milestone was Ronald...
Christine M. Flowers: By protecting dad’s parental rights, the legal system failed his daughter
A few years ago, I wrote a column about Harambe, the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo who was euthanized after a child fell into his enclosure. I thought the mother was negligent in failing to supervise her toddler, who tumbled down an embankment and directly into...
David Trinko: The unexpected joy of the ‘Quirkiest Circus’
My home can be a bit of a zoo sometimes. It’s a little crazy with four children, three dogs, three rabbits, a tank full of fish, a cat and a bearded dragon. Still, all that hadn’t prepared me for the circus I discovered when I arrived home from work Friday...
Legal-Ease: Sorting through trust types to create the irrevocable grantor trust
We often organize thoughts and ideas into broad categories. Such generalizations can make life easier to navigate, even though we know there are exceptions to the general rules. Because of their complexity, legal ideas are frequently generalized in this fashion in...
LETTERS
We welcome letters of 275 words or fewer. Letters are subject to editing for length, clarity and grammar. They should be concise, to the point and original — no form letters, please. Letters dealing with private disputes or containing criticism of private individuals or businesses are not published. Letters must have a signature (unless emailed) and a full name, address and daytime telephone number (for verification purposes only). Writers are limited to one letter a month. Letters may be published on our website. MAIL LETTERS TO: The Lima News Letters Column 3515 Elida Road Lima, OH 45807 E-MAIL LETTERS TO: letters@limanews.com ONLINE FORM: Click here to send a letter to the editor online.Letter: Moving the parade not fair
The Allen County Fair is just days away. It’s a summer event that people like me look forward too. For me, I make a beeline tom favorite french-fry trailer right off the bat. All other food falls in line. All the activities are great but one isn’t right:...
Letter: Successful year for swim program
The 2018 Red Cross Learn To Swim Program is completed for this summer with 75 students participating. I would like to thank the Village of Ada for the facility to hold the lessons and to the Ada Kiwanis Club for being our sponsoring agency. The classes were held with...
Letter: UNOH board ignoring problem
My wife and I are residents of Sherwood Park, south of the University of Northwestern Ohio, and we have lived here for 43 years. We are both retired and love having our eight grandchildren at our house as much as possible. Twelve years ago we started making our back...
Letter: Respect needed from NFL players
This is in response to Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, who says “Trump tweets inflame Anthem issue.” This is how I feel about NFL players taking a knee during the National Anthem: • Be the change you want to see • Complain on your own time...
Letter: Trump, Jordan have it right
There have been a lot of letters to the editor written lately by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and Jim Jordan Anxiety Attacks. These pitiful, liberal progressives continue to try swaying public opinion toward their myopic socialist/communist...
Letter: Too busyto say goodbye
On July 26th I buried my high school sweetheart who was just short of her 87th birthday. We didn’t get married right out of high school because we married others. However, after 56 years we found each other again and God gave us 13 great years together. The...
Letter: Sees no good, hears no good
Long ago an individual with small mustache and enlarged ego tried to conquer the world with unsurpassed hatred. Reading books, free speech and basic human rights were verboten. We thought as free thinkers and free society this type of fanaticism was of the past. But...
Letter: District loses as Jordan seeks power
U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan seems more interested in advancing himself to Speaker of the House than representing the people in his district. Let’s send Jim back home to Urbana where he can collect on his congressional retirement. Let’s give Janet Garrett a try....
Letter: Same horror 150 years later
When we fail to realize that each individual that we encounter in life offers up an opportunity for human growth, we have failed both the individual and ourselves as well. Their contribution, no matter how small or large, enriches our own life and because of that...
Letter: Sidewalks for some, not others
OK Lima, where is the Cable Road sidewalk north of Allentown Road for the students going to UNOH? Everyone can see not one, but two, sidewalks south of Allentown Road on Cable. There are also sidewalks on both sides of state Route 309 through the businesses and even...
