A new National Bureau of Economic Research study showing stocks outperformed after company executives had meetings at the Obama White House is the topic of my column this week. Please check the column out at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

The arguments against President Trump's proposed tax cuts are the subject of my column for the Sunday Las Vegas Review-Journal. Please check out the full column by clicking here.

David Brooks writes:

You've got to give him credit — Donald Trump is a lot more adaptable than many of his critics.

Many of them reacted to Trump's shocking election victory in the fall with the view, which was justified at the time, that Trump represented a unique and unprecedented threat to the republic. He was a populist ethnic nationalist aiming to drag this country to a very ugly place. He was a crypto fascist, aiming to undermine every norm and institution of our democracy.

Many of us Trump critics set our outrage level at 11. The Trump threat was virulent, and therefore the response had to be virulent as well.

The Commerce Department had barely announced the news that the GDP growth rate for the first quarter of 2017 was a weak 0.7% before Twitter started assessing the political implications. "Looking forward to the verbal pretzels of Trump apologists about the "Trump bump," tweeted the newest New York Times columnist, Bret Stephens.

Well, since he asked, here goes (though I am hardly a "Trump apologist": Maybe the GDP figure isn't Trump's fault, or Obama's, but has more to do with the Federal Reserve running around raising interest rates while talking about how great the economy is doing. The "Trump bump" in the stock market has been undeniable and has to do with expectations of future earnings, which would have been lower with a President Clinton adding regulations and increasing taxes.

Governor Andrew Cuomo's new Excelsior Scholarships, offering free college at public institutions to New Yorkers who do not exceed income thresholds and who agree to stay in the state after college, were the subject of my column last week. Please check out the full column at the New Boston Post (here), New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

The governor responded in the comments section of the Sun.

Amy Goldstein's book Janesville: An American Story is the topic of my column this week. The book tells the sad story of what happened after a General Motors factory closed in House Speaker Paul Ryan's hometown. Please check the full column out at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

Daniel Sharfstein's book Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War is the topic of my column this week for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Please check out the full column by clicking here.

If you are interested in learning more than the column but less than the full book, I also recommend the speech "An Indian's View of Indian Affairs," which, as I suggest in the column, is good stuff:

Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer, and Stephen Moore have an op-ed piece in the New York Times advising Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress on the next moves to make on tax reform. It's fine advice but one also suspects that if Mr. Trump and Speaker Ryan were already taking the advice and acting on it, this fantastic foursome might not need to resort to the Times op-ed page to press the case for it.

Whether you can walk on an escalator is suddenly a topic of political discussion and also the subject of my Sunday column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Please check out the full column by clicking here.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's success in getting Neil Gorsuch confirmed may contain some lessons Republicans can apply to taxes and health care, I write in my column this week. Please check it out at the New York Sun (here) and Newsmax (here).

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's annual shareholder letter is the topic of my column this week for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Please check out the full column by clicking here.

An encounter between a group of visiting members of Israel's parliament and a critical American Jew was the topic of my column for Sunday's Las Vegas Review-Journal. Please check out the full column by clicking here.

It's too early to write off the Trump presidency as a failure, I write in my column this week. Please check out the full column at the New York Sun (here) and Newsmax (here).

Instruction from the New York Times on how to deal with news-related anxiety and depression is the topic of my column this week. Please check it out at the New York Sun (here), Newsmax (here), Reason (here), and Wall Street Journal (here).

There's audio from Friday's 39-minute oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in David Ganek's civil suit attempting to hold accountable the federal officials who raided his hedge fund, forcing its closure. Nancy Gertner, the former federal judge who represented Mr. Ganek in the argument, held her own. It's a case worth keeping an eye on even now that Preet Bharara has left government service.