Author: Cal Thomas

Karl Rove, the bete noir for Democrats (and some Republicans), has dared to raise questions about Hillary Clinton’s health. The New York Post first reported a conversation between Rove, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Dan Raviv of CBS News about Mrs. Clinton’s fall and concussion in December 2012. Rove was quoted as […]

Once, Social Security was the “third rail” of politics. Touch it and face political death. Now it is homosexuality. Criticize anything gay people do and you risk ostracism, fines, suspension or loss of your livelihood. Michael Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted by a National Football League team — the St. Louis […]

I have great respect for the humility displayed by Pope Francis, but in his latest call for the “legitimate” redistribution of wealth, he has it backward. Instead of taking more money from those who have earned it, he should advocate for creating new wealth. If the money I have earned, saved, invested and spent responsibly […]

  Ever since the Supreme Court ruled organized prayer and Bible study in public schools unconstitutional in the early 1960s, conservative Christians have been trying to re-enter the secular arena.   Take Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The case, The New York Times wrote last year, “…challenged a 1968 Pennsylvania law that reimbursed religious schools for […]

Most people, perhaps even the super-wealthy, who are usually accountable to auditors, want to know where their money goes. This is especially true when they detect money for which they can’t account. Not so with the federal government.  Some recent headlines reflect a disturbing pattern that has contributed to our $17 trillion debt and to […]

Faith is making a comeback among liberal Democrats, but they still have a way to go. First, some history. Hoping to attract some Evangelical Christian votes more than 20 years ago, former vice president Al Gore wrote that the biblical story of Noah and the Ark could be paraphrased in modern terms, “Thou shalt preserve […]

You know things are bad when you can’t wait for the return of a TV character to demonstrate what resolve and leadership really look like. Yes, after a four-year hiatus, the show “24,” featuring Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland), returns May 5 to the Fox network. Bauer displays many of the traits once found […]

Honestly, unless you are a big government liberal, how many people think the federal government should have more power than it already exercises over its citizens? Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 94, thinks the Constitution needs at least six amendments in order to bring the country more in line with what he believes […]

One of the reasons our political structure has become dysfunctional no matter which party is in power is that too many of us are living in the moment. The closest we get to history is the instant replay. It is as if there is nothing the past can teach us; no wisdom that might be […]

The cult centered on “global warming” alarmism is getting hot under the collar. People seem to have stopped paying attention and polls show “climate change” barely registers on a list of voters’ concerns. This can only mean, as losing politicians like to say, that their message isn’t getting through. What to do? Why shout louder, […]

Dictionary.com offers two definitions for scapegoat: “1. A person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place; 2. Chiefly biblical. A goat let loose in the wilderness on Yom Kippur after the high priest symbolically laid the sins of the people on its head. Lev. 16:8,10,26.” Both definitions […]

After his spectacular, but predictable, failure to move forward the “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinian side, Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States will now “evaluate” its role in the Middle East. Let me help: The peace process in the Middle East isn’t working and it can’t work when one side […]

The Fiscal Times reported last week that the State Department has missing files or incomplete files for more than $6 billion in State Department contracts. Steve Linick, State’s inspector general, issued a “management alert” warning that “significant financial risk and a lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted for […]

When people speak of a legacy, they usually mean something other than what the late economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, left behind, namely the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (edchoice.org).   The foundation has just released a small book entitled “The ABC’s of School Choice: The comprehensive guide to every private school choice […]

It wasn’t so long ago that conservative Christians believed Hollywood to be evil and some preachers instructed their congregations not to go to movies lest they be tempted beyond their ability to resist. Now Christians are debating film content. That’s progress of a sort. The main complaint from critics of the film “Noah,” which opened […]

“Well, then,” Jesus said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” (Mark 12:17 Living Paraphrase) When considering what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, what happens when the federal government seeks to replace God by defining “church” and when life begins to have value, the […]

My parents taught me never to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Fred Phelps, who died last week at the age of 84, I think they would have made an exception. The man, who will be referred to in this column without the modifier “reverend,” because there was nothing reverent about […]

What is it about Western leaders from Neville Chamberlain to George W. Bush who want to find good in men of bad character? Acting as if he were endowed by special insight bestowed upon no one else, President George W. Bush declared in 2001 that he had looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and “was […]

What happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may eventually be discovered, but there is something else that has been missing for much longer and its “disappearance” has far greater implications for America. It is our foreign policy. Can anyone say what it is? With Russia’s Vladimir Putin behaving like a modern Catherine the Great in […]

Every year we are subjected to lists. Forbe’s magazine lists the world’s wealthiest individuals. Time magazine lists the most “influential” people, though real influence is difficult to define or quantify. What I’ve never seen is a list of satisfied people, much less stories about how they attained satisfaction. Arianna Huffington is trying to fill that […]

OXON HILL, Md. — The first “people” I recognized on arriving at last week’s Conservative Political Action Committee gathering just outside Washington were two “stormtroopers” and a Wookiee from the 1977 film “Star Wars.” Some of the speeches also expressed sentiments from the past, though not as cleverly as those in costume: Obama is a […]

The Obama administration is showing it can be tough on foreign policy. Unfortunately, that toughness is not directed at Russia and its incursion into Crimea, but at Israel, America’s ally. In an interview with President Obama, prior to the Washington arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg.com writes that the president planned […]

In Arizona has come a test of the motto conservative Christians like to invoke: “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” Republican Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed the “religious freedom bill” passed by the Republican legislature. While there is no mention in the bill of same-sex marriage, or even homosexuals, most people believe same-sex marriage and […]

What you think of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) depends on who you believe. Is the freshman senator on an “ego trip,” putting himself before country (Dana Milbank, The Washington Post), or is he standing on his principles (Cruz’s conservative supporters)? ABC chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl says Cruz is “so hated” among GOP senators […]

After much criticism from conservative quarters, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided, at least for now, to withdraw plans for its proposed study of how media organizations gather and report news. The expressed goal of the survey was to determine if the “critical information needs” of the public are being met. In making the […]

Kathleen Willey is back. For people who have forgotten, she is the former volunteer aide to President Bill Clinton who claims he sexually harassed her 20 years ago. She wrote a book about it called “Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton.” What, you say you didn’t read it? Neither, it seems, […]

With less than a year left in her fourth and final term in Congress, it’s a little early for an exit interview, but not too early to get the views of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on issues dear to a “founding mother” of the Tea Party movement and on how to beat Hillary Clinton in […]

“If at my convenience I might break them (laws), what would be their worth?” — Charlotte Bronte, “Jane Eyre” We’ve come a long way since Justice Charles Evans Hughes remarked a century ago, “…the Constitution is what the judges say it is.” Or have we? According to the Galen Institute, a nonprofit public policy research […]

Most people accept the notion that politicians don’t always tell the truth. Some lies are harmless enough; others more consequential. Lyndon Johnson skirted the truth when he promised during the 1964 presidential campaign not to send any more American troops to fight a land war in Southeast Asia. He knew then that American intervention would […]

In a world where Woody Allen can get a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes at the same time his adopted daughter accuses him of sexually abusing her when she was a child (Allen has repeatedly denied it), and where a film “The Wolf of Wall Street” sets a record for use of the […]