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Jeff Jacoby became an op-ed columnist for The Boston Globe in February 1994. Seeking a conservative voice to balance its famously liberal roster of commentators, the Globe hired him away from the Boston Herald, where he had been chief editorial writer since 1987.
A Cleveland native, Jacoby graduated with honors from George Washington University in 1979 and from Boston University Law School in 1983. He practiced law for a short time at the firm of Baker & Hostetler, but returned to Boston to become deputy manager of Ray Shamie's 1984 campaign for the U.S. Senate. From 1985 to 1987, Jacoby was an assistant to Dr. John Silber, who at the time was president of Boston University.
In addition to his print work, Jacoby has been a political commentator for WBUR-FM, Boston's National Public Radio affiliate. For several years he hosted "Talk of New England," a weekly television program, and has often appeared as a panelist on WCVB-TV's "Five on Five." He is an overseer of the Huntington Theatre Company, the largest resident theatre in Boston, and is on the board of The Concord Review, a quarterly journal of essays on history by secondary students worldwide.
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Jeff Jacoby (Dec 29, 2011)
Of all the rituals that mark this season, none is more misguided than the complaints about how crass and mercenary the holidays have become.
The laments begin early in... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Dec 28, 2011)
You don’t need me to tell you that the chattering class is appalled by the partisan gridlock and political bickering that keeps Washington from dealing efficiently with the... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Dec 23, 2011)
Second of two parts (Read Part 1)
IF RACIAL PREFERENCES in higher education were good for racial minorities in higher education, we surely would have seen the definitive... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Dec 19, 2011)
WHEN THE SUPREME COURT, in the 2003 case of Grutter v. Bollinger, narrowly upheld the use of racial preferences at the University of Michigan Law School, it emphasized that... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Dec 11, 2011)
IT'S GROUNDHOG DAY at the US Postal Service: time once again for the familiar laments about how the agency's financial losses are surging, how demand for its services is... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Dec 07, 2011)
IN THE FIRST ROUND of Egypt's parliamentary elections, the hardline Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party won 36.6 percent of the vote -- a plurality --... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Dec 05, 2011)
BARNEY FRANK may be the only member of Congress who has ever made headlines for not acting like a jerk.
When the longtime Massachusetts representative found himself last... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 30, 2011)
Mary Archer's death in 1981 was horrific. Gary Haugen, her daughter's former boyfriend, broke into her home in Portland, Ore., where he raped the 39-year-old,... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 24, 2011)
With our music teacher, Mrs. Feigenbaum, at the piano playing the melody – the Toreador's Song from the opera "Carmen" – and the lyrics handed out to us on mimeographed... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 21, 2011)
THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT reported last week that the national debt had surpassed $15 trillion, clocking in at precisely $15,033,607,255,920.32 as of the close of business... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 16, 2011)
Are you glum about the nation's prospects? If so, you've got lots of company.
According to a recent poll for The Hill, a Washington-based daily, 69... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 13, 2011)
THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION announced last year that harsh new labels, large and graphic, would soon have to cover half of the front and back of all cigarette packages... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 09, 2011)
RON PAUL, the Texas congressman and isolationist would-be president, is against using tough economic sanctions or military force to prevent Iran from acquiring... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 07, 2011)
Here's one for the Guinness World Records people: Two New York City taxi medallions were sold last month for $1 million apiece. That's the highest price ever paid... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Nov 02, 2011)
At the Occupy Phoenix demonstrations, fliers encourage protesters to violently resist police officers, asserting that "you will usually have only two options:... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Oct 31, 2011)
President Obama tells reporters that all US troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011. BY NEW YEAR'S DAY, the US military presence... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Oct 26, 2011)
In his 2010 book "No Apology," Mitt Romney has a lot to say about China, much of it unfavorable. He writes of Beijing's "brutal repression and incarceration of dissidents."... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Oct 19, 2011)
MANY ISRAELIS, and many friends of Israel in the West, think there is something to be admired in thelopsided deal that will free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Oct 12, 2011)
HAVE YOU EVER seen a pogrom? Sarah Carr has.
"The Coptic Hospital tried its best to deal with the sudden influx of casualties," wrote Carr, a Cairo-based... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Oct 10, 2011)
THE DAY AFTER Herman Cain's dazzling victory in the Florida straw poll, I commented to a Republican neighbor -- and where I live, there aren't many of... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Oct 05, 2011)
DAVID HOROWITZ aches to believe that life has meaning and that there is a purpose to this world. The prolific writer, a former Marxist radical who became a leading... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 28, 2011)
MEETING WITH VOTERS in an Andover living room last month, US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren vigorously challenged the idea that Obama Democrats are engaging in... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 27, 2011)
Bill Clinton declared last week that Americans "look like a joke" because leading Republican presidential contenders decline to embrace the agenda of the global-warming... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 21, 2011)
If the Palestinian Authority genuinely desired international recognition as a sovereign state, Mahmoud Abbas wouldn't have come to New York to seek... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 19, 2011)
Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor and Wall Street scourge, formally opened her campaign for the Democratic US Senate nomination... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 15, 2011)
Was the 9/11 decade a disaster for individual freedom?
Within hours of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the noted libertarian activist John Perry Barlow warned that the... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 11, 2011)
AMERICA'S WAR ON TERROR was launched when the heroes of United Flight 93 rushed the hijackers over Shanksville, Pa., aborting what would have been al-Qaeda's fourth 9/11... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 07, 2011)
My mother's mother revered Franklin Roosevelt. She voted for him four times, and firmly defended him decades later, when I tried to convince her that FDR... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Sep 06, 2011)
Charles Ponzi was a Boston swindler who in 1920 bilked thousands of people out of millions of dollars by selling them bonds that guaranteed a fabulous rate of return -- 100... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 31, 2011)
In 2007, a prominent Florida televangelist named Bill Keller condemned Mitt Romney's religion in a "daily devotional" to his 2.4 million e-mail... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 29, 2011)
COLUMNISTS MAKE PREDICTIONS at their peril, but I'll go out on a limb: If Hurricane Irene turns out to have wrought the havoc some forecasters have predicted, it will be only... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 24, 2011)
WARREN BUFFETT is the billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a friend and political supporter of Barack Obama, and a well-known advocate of higher taxes on the rich. He is... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 22, 2011)
To many liberals, Rick Perry's audacious pledge to make Washington, DC, as "inconsequential in your life as I can" is tantamount to a pledge to bring back the Dark... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 17, 2011)
WHEN TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY announced his campaign for president last weekend in a speech to the RedState Gathering in Charleston, S.C., he saved his best line until... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 15, 2011)
THE FIRE HALL next to my in-laws' house in northern New York State has a siren that can be heard for miles. "Loud" doesn't begin to describe the sound it makes: a shrill,... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 11, 2011)
JOHN P. WALSH learned five years ago that some people don't especially care for him. He still hasn't gotten over that discovery.
Maybe it's himself he needs to get over.... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 08, 2011)
LATE LAST MONTH, President Obama announced new automobile fuel-efficiency standards that will require cars to achieve an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Vehicle... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Aug 03, 2011)
DID VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN slander Tea Party Republicans by saying they "acted like terrorists" in the protracted debate over raising the federal debt ceiling? To use such... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jul 25, 2011)
WHEN THE DAILY CALLER, a news site based in Washington, DC, reported last week that Michele Bachmann gets migraine headaches, it labored to give the impression that it was... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jul 20, 2011)
DAVID AND VICTORIA BECKHAM were overjoyed by the birth last week of their fourth child, a baby girl they named Harper. "We all feel so blessed and the boys love their baby... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jul 18, 2011)
IN 5½ MONTHS, the sale of traditional 100-watt incandescent light bulbs will become illegal in the United States. Twelve months later, the same fate will befall... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jul 13, 2011)
MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNMENT is almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, so there was no chance that a law limiting collective bargaining for municipal... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jul 11, 2011)
ABOUT 15 YEARS AGO, I wrote a column -- "Bring back flogging" -- that called for reviving corporal punishment for convicted criminals. Rather than continuing to... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 29, 2011)
SAME-SEX WEDLOCK became lawful in New York last week after the state legislature passed a bill recognizing "otherwise-valid marriages without regard to whether the parties... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 27, 2011)
Should health insurers be compelled to cover colorectal cancer screenings? The American Cancer Society offers some good reasons to say yes. There are better ones to say... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 22, 2011)
SHOULD THE UNITED STATES be the world's policeman?
According to a new Rasmussen poll, only a narrow sliver of US voters -- 11 percent -- want America to be the nation... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 20, 2011)
WHEN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION last week released the results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress -- "the Nation's Report Card" --... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 13, 2011)
SO NOW it's the video game industry that wants to be bribed to do business in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Boston Globe reports that local game... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 11, 2011)
For three years, under presidents of both parties, the federal government has pumped trillions of borrowed dollars into stimulus, bailout, and recovery spending. The results... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 06, 2011)
IT WAS THE TORTURE of elementary-school students in Deraa that gave momentum to the current Syrian uprising against Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime. The children, some... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jun 01, 2011)
WHEN ALL WAS SAID AND DONE, much more was said than done during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's high-profile visit to Washington. But once all the words were... more
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Jeff Jacoby (May 25, 2011)
ON THE BALLOT in San Francisco this fall will be a proposal making it a crime to circumcise male children. If the measure passes, anyone convicted of circumcising a baby boy... more
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Jeff Jacoby (May 23, 2011)
Racial McCarthyism is alive and well in Barack Obama's America, where reckless liberals hurl baseless charges of racism at critics of the nation's first black president.... more
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Jeff Jacoby (May 18, 2011)
Mitt Romney has been stalwart in his defense of the individual mandate -- the obligation to buy health insurance that is at the heart of both the law he signed in... more
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Jeff Jacoby (May 16, 2011)
John Kerry finally got a clue on Syria last week. Is it too much to hope that the Obama administration might follow suit?
For years, the senior senator from Massachusetts... more
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Jeff Jacoby (May 11, 2011)
When US Representative Steve King learned that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US troops in Pakistan, he couldn't resist a little crowing about the efficacy of... more
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Jeff Jacoby (May 04, 2011)
As the public debt of the United States approaches the $14.3 trillion limit currently allowed by law, Congress is being pressed by the Obama administration to change the... more
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Jeff Jacoby (May 03, 2011)
Good people rejoice when evil monsters are cut down, and by the tens of thousands good Americans from one end of the country to the other came pouring into the streets last... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Apr 25, 2011)
Underwhelmed by the way the 2012 presidential contest is shaping up? With more than 18 months remaining before Election Day, sensible Americans have better things to dwell on... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Apr 18, 2011)
On the homepage of his US Senate website, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin invites visitors to learn about his record of "Looking Out For Consumers" by protecting them "from... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Apr 13, 2011)
To convey their disdain for the ongoing Republican pressure to reduce federal spending -- pressure that led to the recent agreement with President Obama for $38 billion in... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Apr 11, 2011)
I take it for granted that no one in America thinks the law ought to interfere with Angelina's freedom to say no. Whether she agrees to date Brad or not is a matter of... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Apr 06, 2011)
The Goldstone Report was a blood libel.
Issued in September 2009 by a UN "fact-finding mission" headed by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 30, 2011)
If the United States has good reason to support the popular revolt in Libya -- and President Obama argued Monday night that there is "an important strategic interest in... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 28, 2011)
NEWT GINGRICH sees himself as a statesman, a public-policy sage, and a potential president of the United States. The former House speaker has written more than 20 books,... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 23, 2011)
Back in November of 1999, as Boston's 516,000-square-foot convention center was about to go up near the South Boston waterfront, I wrote a column about the futility of... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 21, 2011)
Twenty years ago this month, George H.W. Bush went wobbly.
The Gulf War had ended. Kuwait, brutally occupied by Iraq in August 1990, had been freed by a massive US-led... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 16, 2011)
Last weekend in Itamar, an Israeli settlement in the Samarian hills, terrorists infiltrated the home of Udi and Ruth Fogel and perpetrated a massacre of the innocents.
The... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 14, 2011)
Ron Schiller told the truth.
National Public Radio's senior vice president for development, the network's top fundraiser, was fired last week after he was exposed in a video... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 10, 2011)
"Our experiment wasn't perfect," said former Governor Mitt Romney, speaking to an audience of New Hampshire Republicans about the Massachusetts health-care... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 07, 2011)
What would Jesus think of Sojourners' new campaign?
Sojourners is a liberal Christian group whose mission is "to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 03, 2011)
If Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker were getting a dollar for every protester, politician, and pundit accusing him of union-busting, attacking public-sector employees, or... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Mar 02, 2011)
In October 1963, a group of Cleveland rabbis signed a telegram urging President John F. Kennedy to link the sale of American wheat to the Soviet Union -- a sale Kennedy had... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Feb 21, 2011)
PERHAPS THE MOST SHOCKING THING about the despicablesexual attack on CBS correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo's Tahrir Squareis that to those who know Egypt, it wasn't... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Feb 16, 2011)
The Census Bureau has begun rolling out state-by-state demographic data distilled from the 2010 Census. They include statistics on race and Hispanic origin that can be... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Feb 09, 2011)
Free and democratic societies take chances. They guarantee freedom of speech and of the press, despite the risk that harmful, foolish, or depraved ideas may be promoted. They... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Feb 07, 2011)
IN ECONOMICS AS IN APPAREL, most fashions come and go. But like the navy blazer or the little black dress, bewailing the decline of American manufacturing never seems to go... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Feb 02, 2011)
George W. Bush launched his second term as president with an inaugural address that put the spread of democratic freedoms at the heart of his international agenda. In one... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jan 31, 2011)
IN 1969, as a member of the presidential commission appointed to consider replacing the draft with an all-volunteer military, the great University of Chicago economist Milton... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jan 23, 2011)
When President Barack Obamaannounced last week that he was ordering executive agencies to scrap "outdated" federal regulations "that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jan 17, 2011)
In the eight days since the deadly shootings in Arizona, the nation has been engulfed by a tidal wave of rhetoric and reaction, much of it unnecessary, ungracious, or... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jan 05, 2011)
On January 16, 1861, delegates to a Georgia state convention gathered to consider whether to secede from the United States. Three days later, voting 208-89, the convention... more
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Jeff Jacoby (Jan 02, 2011)
Joe DeNucci, a onetime prizefighter turned Massachusetts politician, steps down this month after 34 years on Beacon Hill: 10 years as a state representative, followed by 24... more