Year: 2016

This is the season of college Commencement speeches — an art form that has seldom been memorable, but has increasingly become toxic in recent times. Two themes seem to dominate Commencement speeches. One is shameless self-advertising by people in government, or in related organizations supported by the taxpayers or donors, saying how nobler it is […]

At this point, I am not going to announce support for Donald Trump, though I am not #NeverTrump and am emphatically #NeverHillary. To restate my position without social media lingo, I would never vote for Hillary Clinton and, though I am right now uncomfortable with endorsing Trump, I anticipate — but don’t guarantee — that […]

When you differ from people you admire, you have to question yourself. After all, what is the purpose of admiring people if they aren’t capable of influencing you? So, I have had to challenge my position — stated since the outset of the Republican presidential debates — that if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, […]

In releasing his list of potential Supreme Court nominees, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has begun to solidify his support among conservatives as perhaps no other announcement could do. The record of any of the 11 judges currently serving on federal or state benches may calm the fears of those who are not […]

The legislatures of Utah and South Carolina recently passed bills concerning abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization. This is the stage of development shown in the photograph on the right. Before performing abortions, the Utah bill requires physicians to anesthetize or give a painkiller to the “unborn child” once he or she reaches 20 weeks. […]

“It’s as hard right now to be a cop maybe as it’s ever been,” San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr to The Chronicle Editorial Board Tuesday. At the time, Suhr was resisting calls demanding that he resign. Five local protesters had given up their hunger strike to force his departure to atone for officer-involved shootings […]

Washington state’s Republican Party just defied the stampede toward “unity.” Meeting over the weekend, they awarded 40 of the state’s 41 delegates to Ted Cruz. Washington’s Republicans have refused to be sheep. The past few days have featured hectoring demands of Never Trump people to “get over it.” These have come not just from the […]

Women, lamented Hillary Clinton in an April 2014 tweet, make just 77 cents on the dollar to men. As a presidential candidate she has repeated that lament again and again, updating the numbers, in line with government statistics, to 78 cents in July 2015 and 79 cents this year. This injustice, she says, must be […]

Ours is not to wonder why – ours is just to do or get fined. Okay – that’s not exactly accurate, unless you are one of the 600 left to oppose the lefts new civil right – the rights of transgenders or “gender-non-conforming people.” For all these years close minded conservatives have been under the […]