Year: 2013

The Nov. 23 New York Times reported that redistribution has become the unmentionable word at the Obama White House. Former Chief of Staff William Daley says that redistribution is “a loaded word that c0njures up all sorts of unfairness in people’s minds.” He notes that it is a word that in the political world, you […]

This week, President Barack Obama doomed Israel to a choice between unpalatable options: either striking at Iran’s nuclear facilities in its own defense and thereby internationally isolating itself, or watching as its most ardent enemy goes nuclear. The deal, put into place with Iran by the Obama administration, allows Iran to continue developing nuclear-enrichment processes, […]

“I’m not a particularly ideological person,” President Obama told an audience of donors in Seattle over the weekend. He added (in Reuters’ words) that “pragmatism was necessary to advance the values that were important to him.” This is an old refrain of Obama’s. As he said in his first inaugural, “The question we ask today […]

PARIS — Remember when you were a kid and you would open a full refrigerator right after mom’s latest grocery-shopping trip, only to complain that there was nothing to eat and that she was starving you to death? Well, that’s Iran right now. Iran has enough energy to light up the entire planet several times […]

Herd mentality can be as frustrating as it is inexplicable. Once a crowd starts moving, momentum can be all that matters and clear signs and warnings are often totally ignored. Financial markets are currently following this pattern with respect to the unshakable belief that the Federal Reserve is ready, willing, and most importantly, able, to […]

“Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams wants to kill Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Ted’s widow. He also wants to kill my husband, author and anti-assisted suicide activist Wesley J. Smith — and me, because I, too, oppose assisted suicide. “If you’re a politician who has ever voted against doctor-assisted suicide, or you would vote against it in the […]

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which is representing 41 organizations in a federal lawsuit challenging the IRS, said today the new: regulations: proposed by the IRS aimed at tax-exempt organizations places the free speech rights of Americans at even greater risk.:  “These proposed new regulations put the First Amendment rights of Americans at even […]

Random thoughts on the passing scene: Many people take pride in defying the conventions of society. Those conventions of society are also known as civilization. Defying them wholesale means going back to barbarism. Barbarians with electronic devices are still barbarians. After the government shutdown crisis, the one thing that Congressional Democrats and Republicans finally agreed […]

After months of the feds doing everything they could to distance themselves from the origin and launch of the controversial Common Core State Standards, more and more of Washington’s tentacles are surfacing through public rage, implementation revelations and the White House’s own foot-in-mouth disease. After Education Secretary Arne Duncan cast bigoted blame on “white suburban […]

Does anyone with credibility like this deal Obama’s team made with Iran? I’m not seeing much encouragement as I scan the news covering the subject. Ask yourself this: What was so urgent about securing a deal that will allow Iran to pursue nuclear development in exchange for our releasing the sanctions? Did you do a […]

There are individual haters on the right and individual haters on the left. But there is no large-scale hatred in the United States of America today that compares with the hatred of the left for the right. Whereas the right regards the left as wrong — even destructively wrong — the left regards all those […]

Ninety percent of the American opinion elite will fall for the old “historic breakthrough” conceit every time. The appeal of getting enemies in a room together, where they will shed their animosity and “reason together,” is so profound that nothing as tiresome as experience can diminish its allure. Don’t talk to Secretary of State John […]