Year: 2013

Seung-Hui Cho, who committed the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, had been diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder as a child and placed under treatment. But Virginia Tech was prohibited from being told about Cho’s mental health problems because of federal privacy laws. At college, Cho engaged in behavior even more bizarre than the average college […]

The horrific Newtown, Conn., mass shooting has unleashed a frenzy to pass new gun-control legislation. But the war over restricting firearms is not just between liberals and conservatives; it also pits the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution against each other. Apparently, in the sequential thinking of James Madison and the Founding Fathers, the […]

To judge from his surly demeanor and defiant words at his press conference on Monday, Barack Obama begins his second term with a strategy to defeat and humiliate Republicans rather than a strategy to govern. His point blank refusal to negotiate over the debt ceiling was clearly designed to make the House Republicans look bad. […]

If I were president, what would I do in the wake of the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook School shooting, which left 20 first-graders and six adults dead, if I wanted not only to advance an ambitious initiative to reduce gun violence but also to sign a law that actually worked? To punctuate what is at […]

When Barack Obama implored Americans to “do the right thing” on gun restriction during a news conference this week, the “right thing” should have been obvious to everyone. Absolute moral authority — it’s the only way to go. If you fail to see the picture as clearly as the president, you may be an extremist […]

One definition of “imperial” on: dictionary.com: is, “of the nature or rank of an emperor or supreme ruler.” At his news conference Monday, a petulant, threatening and confrontational President Obama spoke like an emperor or supreme ruler. All that was missing was a scepter, a crown and a robe trimmed in ermine. This president exceeds even Bill […]

The birth, and the apparent death, of the trillion dollar platinum coin idea may one day be recalled as a mere footnote in the current debt crisis drama. The ultimate rejection of the idea (which was to use a loophole in commemorative coinage law to mint a platinum coin of any denomination) by both the […]

Last week, I appeared on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight.” For the past few weeks, Morgan had been inviting gun rights defenders ranging from the reasonable to the nutty, and then slamming them by appealing to the memory of the children slain at Sandy Hook. And when I appeared with Morgan, that’s precisely what I told […]

This week for the first time, the U.S. State Department in its: daily press briefing: spoke out about American Pastor Saeed Abedini who has been imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith. The State Department expressed its “serious concerns” about his fate and acknowledged that the sole reason for his imprisonment in Iran is because of his […]

You know that old saying that there are no dumb questions? It’s not true. I know. As a journalist, I’ve asked my share of stupid questions. Yet even in the context of my own shortcomings, I do not understand what the White House press corps is thinking during what passes for a news conference in […]

The president of the United States will release a binder full of new gun-control executive orders on Wednesday. Instead of standing alone, bearing full responsibility for the imperial actions he is about to take, President Obama will surround himself with an audience of kids who wrote to him after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre. This […]