Author: Cal Thomas

FT. WILLIAM, Scotland — The power of television to shrink the world has always amazed me. Eating lunch on the road to Ft. William, a man at the next table recognizes me and introduces himself. Keith Farrington says he spent 15 years working as an assistant director of finance for the South East Thames Regional […]

The military coup that ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi marks another failure in U.S. foreign policy over several administrations, which have erroneously promoted the notion that American-style democracy in Islamic lands will produce a nation more like ours. The Founders wrote a Constitution. When properly read and obeyed, it guards against pure democracy and makes […]

“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” — John Quincy Adams Freedom is not the default position of humankind; otherwise more would be free. In much of the world, dictatorship, religious persecution and the suppression of women […]

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” — Genesis 2:24, NIV The problem for people who believe in an Authority higher even than the Constitution is that in our increasingly secular and indifferent society it has become more […]

“Character, not circumstance, makes the person.” — Booker T. Washington   The Supreme Court’s narrow 5-4 decision to strike down a central component of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, “freeing nine states, mostly in the South,” writes The New York Times, “to change their election laws without advance federal approval,” is a welcome recognition that […]

After 12 years of fighting, the Taliban in Afghanistan have announced they are ready to talk peace with the United States. The Taliban opened a political office in Qatar. The talks will take place there, but without the Afghan government, which is refusing to take part in the “peace” talks. President Obama says there will […]

The Bradley Foundation, a private, independent grant-making organization based in Milwaukee, recently handed out its annual Bradley Prize to four men who have, in the words of the organization’s mission statement, “(preserved and defended) the tradition of free representative government and private enterprise that has enabled the American nation and, in a larger sense, the […]

Ever since President Clinton “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” whatever remains of standards seem to have fallen even lower among people who hold offices and positions once thought to require good behavior and strong moral character. Last year, several Secret Service agents left the agency amid scandal after allegedly engaging […]

Without the slightest hint of irony, President Obama said last week, “If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.” Yes […]

For years I have been writing about the failures of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) as a warning for what the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) will do to health care here in the U.S. London’s Daily Mail has chronicled the growing problems with the NHS, which include declining quality of care and availability […]

The annual ritual known as the Scripps National Spelling Bee came and went last week with kids spelling words that, I suspect, many with graduate degrees couldn’t spell. The winner was Arvind Mahankali, a 13-year-old eighth-grader from Bayside Hills, N.Y. Mahankali is the first boy to win the title since 2008. There is a lesson […]

Who doesn’t admire former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole? Wounded World War II veteran, part-time comedian (Dole once described a meeting of former presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon as “see no evil, hear no evil — and evil”), former presidential candidate and all-around decent man, Dole was a part of government for much of […]

Following the hacking death of a British soldier by two alleged Islamic extremists, Prime Minister David Cameron said, “There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act.” Winston Churchill thought otherwise, but he lived in a time before political correctness ran amok and drew on his personal experiences serving in the Sudan and […]

President Obama gave two commencement addresses in one to graduates of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., last weekend. It would be easy for this conservative to critique the political and social elements of his speech. Instead, I choose to focus on the inspirational part. The president struck the right note at the historically all-male college. […]

Given last week’s revelation that the IRS targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, it’s worth recalling President Obama’s Ohio State University commencement address. The president decried “voices” warning “that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.” It’s no longer lurking. It’s here. Testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee by the outgoing acting […]

It was the pictures and riveting testimony that convinced a Philadelphia jury that abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was guilty of murdering three infants born alive following botched late-term abortions and also guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of Karnamaya Mongar, who overdosed on Demerol during an abortion at Gosnell’s clinic. How ironic that the Gosnell decision […]

In his defense of President Obama, Press Secretary Jay Carney is beginning to sound a lot like Ronald Zeigler, Richard Nixon’s spokesman. Carney only has to use the word “inoperative,” as Ziegler did when incriminating evidence surfaced that proved his previous statements untrue. Following what appears to be a cover-up in the Benghazi attack, the […]

In 1998 when President Clinton signed the bipartisan Internet Tax Freedom Act, which prohibited state and local taxation of Internet access and Internet-only services, the purpose was to promote the commercial potential of the Internet, especially for start-ups and small businesses. Congress extended the bill three times, the latest until 2014. Now there’s the Marketplace […]

President Obama rightly asked us not to “jump to conclusions” about motives or responsibility for the two bombs that exploded Monday at the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding more than 170. That request was pre-emptively ignored. Some couldn’t wait to project their biases and political agendas on this latest act of terror. In a […]

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has prompted reactions from Britain’s far left that takes bad taste to new extremes. During its Top 40 music countdown Sunday night, BBC Radio 1 was “forced” to play a seven-second clip of “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” from the 1939 […]

MANCHESTER, England — There is a story about Margaret Thatcher, which is probably apocryphal, but speaks volumes about the strength of Britain’s first female prime minister, who died Monday at age 87. Following her election in 1979, the story goes that Thatcher took her all-male cabinet out to dinner. The waiter asked what she would […]

In 1983 when President Reagan ordered the deployment of missiles in Europe as part of his “peace through strength” strategy to counter the Soviet Union, the very liberal town of Takoma Park, Md., declared itself a “nuclear free zone.” City officials passed an ordinance known as The Takoma Park Nuclear Free Zone Act, which said, […]