Author: Cal Thomas

The Obama administration is touting the latest unemployment numbers released last week by the U.S. Department of Labor as proof its policies are working. But a closer look at the actual number of able-bodied people who are willing to work, but are not, reveals a different picture. As economist John R. Lott has written, not […]

For 60 years the National Prayer Breakfast has been a nonpolitical event where speakers put aside their earthly biases and focus on a Higher Authority. Last Thursday, President Obama departed from that tradition to claim the endorsement of Jesus for raising taxes. It beat the endorsement of Mitt Romney by Donald Trump. In his remarks, […]

One of several casualties of the vitriolic name-calling between Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich is what to do about Iran. In interviews, Romney has spoken about tougher sanctions, but it’s been difficult to consider the candidates’ positions on Iran — or much else — with the childish talk about who is the […]

One of the memorable slogans from the Reagan administration was “peace through strength.” Reagan believed a strong defense was a safeguard against enemy attacks and the best hope of victory should America go to war. President Obama is taking the opposite approach. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently announced cuts in defense spending of $487 billion […]

Summertime is usually when TV networks air repeats of shows we’ve already seen. In his State of the Union Address Tuesday night, the president got a five-month jump on the summer season by re-running a class-envy video he has broadcast more times than local stations have shown episodes of “The Andy Griffith Show.” Instead of […]

A longtime conservative friend sent me an email after reading something positive I had written about Newt Gingrich: “Whoever votes (for) or supports Newt for president is out of their mind.” It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called crazy. He continued: “You can believe in redemption, as I do, but you are not […]

A group of conservative evangelical leaders met in Texas last weekend and endorsed a Roman Catholic for president. Given the history of evangelical antipathy toward the theological underpinnings of the Roman Catholic Church, that in itself signals a remarkable evolution (pardon the word), along with a considerable amount of political pragmatism. The blessing of what […]

While most attention is focused on the presidential race and Republican hopes to oust President Obama from office, some significant steps were taken last week on issues dear to the hearts of conservatives. In Texas, a federal appeals court upheld the state’s sonogram law, which requires that women seeking abortions view a picture of their […]

Even fair-minded liberals, of which there must be a few, should acknowledge that the Saturday-Sunday “blitz” of the Republican presidential candidates by ABC and NBC correspondents looked like a play designed by the left wing of the Democratic Party. Clearly the questions by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer about contraception and same-sex marriage were […]

LISBON, Portugal — When the Republican presidential candidates tire of bashing each other, perhaps they will start addressing the expansion of radical Islam. Only Rick Santorum raised the issue in last Saturday’s debate in New Hampshire. Next door in Spain, two new satellite TV stations recently signed on. They won’t be airing “Judge Judy,” but […]

How does one measure whether a life was a success, or a failure? Some would measure it by recognition, that is, how many knew the person’s name. For others, the measure of a successful life would be the amount of wealth accumulated, or possessions held. Still others would say a life was successful if the […]

President Obama’s decision in 2010 to cut NASA’s budget and abandon the Constellation program, established by the Bush administration, which was charged with returning Americans to the moon by 2020 and creating an “extended human presence on the moon,” has created a vacuum, which China will attempt to fill. China has announced an ambitious five-year […]

A friend of mine hands me what looks like a business card. It says, “Don’t Die Stupid.” As America begins another round of voting to select the next president, or retain the current one, what we need is a stupid test. Flunk it and you shouldn’t vote. Evidence of the dumbing-down of America is everywhere. […]

Is there, or should there ever be, a point when a state is no longer penalized for its discriminatory past? Not according to the Department of Justice, which last Friday rejected a South Carolina law that would have required voters show a valid photo ID before casting their ballots. Justice says the law discriminates against […]

According to the Mayan “long count” calendar, the final day on Earth is less than a year away, on Dec. 21, 2012. While we wait to see if that apocalypse occurs, a more reliable prediction includes an end of a different sort. The economic stimulus pipeline from Washington to the states is about to run […]

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken. There’s a pain goes on and on. Empty chairs at empty tables Now my friends are dead and gone.” — Marius, from the musical “Les Miserables” “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” Andy Williams reminds us over tinny speakers in crowded shopping malls. It may be […]

Perhaps not since Madalyn Murray O’Hair and Carl Sagan has there been such an “evangelical” atheist as Christopher Hitchens, the writer and social commentator who died last week after a long and public battle with esophageal cancer. Hitchens railed against those who believe in God. While an original writer, and smart, there was nothing original […]

President Obama doesn’t suffer from amnesia, but apparently he hopes the public does. In his latest in a series of interviews on “60 Minutes” last Sunday night, the president took positions that are the polar opposite of what he was saying as recently as last spring. One wishes all of those “fact-checkers” who point out […]

For weeks the media has complained that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been shielded from probing interviews. The criticism is valid. With the exception of a recent Bret Baier interview on Fox News Channel, Romney’s staffers have tried to preserve what they believe to be his inevitable nomination by allowing other GOP candidates to […]

In a season in which there is very little “peace on Earth” and even less “good will towards men,” it is a particularly tough time for Jews, who may be finding it more and more difficult to tell who their real friends are. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta fired an unusually harsh salvo across the Israelis […]

We live in a bipolar culture. We allow ourselves to be drenched in sexual images in movies, on television and on the Internet and then defend First Amendment protection to even the most graphic of them. Then, when a politician acts out what culture promotes, we criticize him, especially if he’s conservative, branding him with […]

Seventy years ago this month, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and brought America into a war that had begun in Europe in 1939. In his masterful new book “December 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World,” Craig Shirley takes readers back to a very different America. Through hundreds of stories and advertisements […]

During the presidential campaign of 2000, George W. Bush was criticized by some conservatives for calling himself a “compassionate conservative.” Some believed the term to be redundant. Now we’re in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign and candidate Newt Gingrich has called for a “humane” policy on illegal immigrants. Gingrich wants illegal residents who […]

For more than half my life I was a 99-percenter. I kept my first pay stubs in the news business to remind me where I came from and what was necessary in order to get where I am today. In 1975, while working at a TV station in Houston, I wrote a letter to a […]

Now it’s Newt’s turn. Having risen to the top in some opinion polls, the former speaker of the House is taking heat for large consulting fees paid to him by the government-sponsored mortgage company Freddie Mac for wisdom a New York Times editorial said was so simplistic it might have come from a fortune cookie. […]

Since the congressional super committee appears unable, or unwilling, to take a lesson from Indiana or Virginia — where Republican governors have made spending cuts and delivered budget surpluses without damaging the social safety net — members might wish to consider Puerto Rico and what its governor, Luis Fortuno is doing. Fortuno is Puerto Rico’s […]

Since the congressional super committee appears unable, or unwilling, to take a lesson from Indiana or Virginia — where Republican governors have made spending cuts and delivered budget surpluses without damaging the social safety net — members might wish to consider Puerto Rico and what its governor, Luis Fortuno is doing. Fortuno is Puerto Rico’s […]

“Success with Honor” is the motto of Penn State’s athletic program. They got it half right. The alleged sexual abuse of young boys by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is disgusting, outrageous, and immoral. That so many at the school’s highest level allegedly engaged either in covering up serial abuses, or turned a blind eye […]

If ever there was a time when “see, I told you so” was warranted, it is now as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports this week that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon. That so many in the State Department over several administrations could deceive themselves into believing claims by the Iranians […]

In 2007 when she was running for president, Hillary Rodham Clinton told a fundraising event in Carson City, Nev., “I sure don’t want Democrats, or the supporters of Democrats, to be engaging in the politics of personal destruction. I think we should stay focused on what we’re going to do for America.” Clinton’s husband, the […]