Author: Doug Patton

Dystopian science fiction has many works to recommend it. Huxley’s “Brave New World,” Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle,” and, more recently, Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” are prime examples. However, two of my personal favorites have always been George Orwell’s well-known “1984” and D.F. Jones’ much more obscure “Colossus.” In 1948, Orwell peered four decades […]

As Michelle Obama treated herself to an additional week in paradise as a 50th birthday present at taxpayer expense, her husband returned from their multi-million dollar, 17-day vacation in Hawaii to badger Republicans in Congress over whether to continue to pay people not to work. Then his former defense secretary, Robert Gates, announced the publication […]

Despite the fact that he has more academic alphabet soup behind his name than anyone else I know, including a doctorate in education, my baby brother often surprises me with the breadth of his common sense and the depth of his wisdom. A few years ago, I gave him a plaque bearing a quote from […]

Paul Ryan is now polling first in Iowa for the next presidential election. If Ryan is encouraged by this news, he is not much of a student of recent political history. Polling first in Iowa more than two years prior to the state’s overhyped, first-in-the-nation caucuses is a bit like being told by the guy […]

“Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.” – Matthew: 15:11: (NKJV) The truth in Christ’s words was never more evident than when MSNBC’s Martin Bashir made his recent disgusting remarks about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Of course, the carefully prepared comments were not […]

As I have done at Thanksgiving for many years, I want to proclaim some of the things for which I am thankful on this uniquely American holiday. First and foremost, I am thankful to God, who gives me what the Bible calls “a peace that passes all understanding.” This is especially true this year as […]

We humans like to divide time into neat little boxes based on dates, but the case can be made that the styles, policies, manners and mores of one ten-year period usually spill over into the next. The 1929 Wall Street crash would not be fully felt for a few years, thereby carrying much of the […]

In “The Godfather, Part II,” mafia boss Michael Corleone tells a corrupt politician, “We are both part of the same hypocrisy, senator.” Similarly, the same may now be said of Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Let me qualify that opinion by stating that while there still remain a few Republicans whom I would support, there […]

A decade ago, my son, a talented writer in his own right, with a dry, self-deprecating sense of humor, published as his senior university thesis a series of original short stories, which he dubbed with the tongue-in-cheek title, “All the Things in the World.” Similarly, I occasionally feel there is so much on which to […]

In the 1980s, the media seemed amazed at how the public never seemed to turn on Ronald Reagan. They even coined a phrase for it: the Teflon Presidency. More amazing by far is the continued support Barack Obama receives from the adoring segment of the voting public that refuses to give up on his unworkable […]

A friend recently called and asked, “So when do you think Obama will declare martial law?” Until last week, I would have dismissed such speculation as conspiratorial. Now I’m not so sure. Before this phony government “shutdown,” if you had asked whether I believed that American military and law enforcement personnel would follow an order […]

Predictably, my column last week, which expressed my extreme displeasure at the images of World War II vets being barricaded from visiting their memorial on the National Mall, produced a flurry of reactions, both positive and negative. According to the latest Associated Press poll, 37 percent of America, against all odds, still supports Barack Obama […]

Imagine you are a veteran of World War II approaching your 90th birthday. This may be your last opportunity to visit the memorial that was erected to honor your service. You have come to your nation’s Capital, only to find that your president has ordered that memorial barricaded to keep you out. As a teenager, […]

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” – Two of the biggest lies so far in Barack Obama’s mendacity-filled presidency On Halloween Day, 2008 – appropriately enough, since his tenure as president has been a nightmare that makes […]

On September 11, 2001, I wrote a column entitled “Now We Know How Israel Feels.” Now, 12 years later, with a community organizer in the White House who has no idea about the proper use of America’s military might, who believes our only real ally in the Middle East, Israel, is the cause of all […]

“Speak softly and carry a big stick.” – Teddy Roosevelt “The buck stops here.” – Harry Truman “I didn’t set a red line.” – Barack Obama Barack Obama is, without question, the most embarrassing president of my lifetime – and that is saying something, since my life so far has encompassed 12 presidencies, some of […]

Barack Hussein Obama is either the most inept president ever to sit in the White House or he is an enemy of the Republic. He could be both, but I defy anyone to suggest a logical third alternative. For the last ten years, I have watched this man’s uncanny rise to the pinnacle of power […]

I was fifteen in 1963, and I vaguely remember breaking my summer routine to notice that the largest crowd of Americans ever to congregate on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., had gathered to demand their civil rights. They were led by a 34-year-old black preacher from Georgia. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been […]

Imagine you are a teenage boy who feels an attraction to other males. Imagine further that you detest having those feelings, feelings for which you would like to seek professional help to overcome these proclivities and lead what you consider to be a normal life. Well, if you are, in fact, that poor, confused teen […]

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” – Pogo What’s more chilling than a people oppressed by a Hitler, a Mao or a Stalin? A people that voluntarily oppresses itself, a reality that has now afflicted America. We have watched over the last 40 years as American women have gone – willingly in […]

Anyone who has even bothered to read my columns over the last decade-plus knows I was never a huge fan of George W. Bush. I have always believed that the 43rd president was a decent man who tried to do the right thing but often failed, either because of bad advice or flawed ideology – […]

First, a disclaimer: I love Steve King. Steve King is a good friend of mine and has been for a decade, ever since I was privileged to work for him during his first term in Congress. That said, I would defend him whether he was a friend or not. My hometown newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald, […]

The late-night comedians have not had this much material since Bill Clinton wagged his boney finger at the television cameras and declared, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” and then sent Hillary out to declare that the whole thing was the work of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” With Anthony Weiner […]

While the media has remained obsessed with the trial of George Zimmerman, they systematically ignored the stories of three other men simultaneously being brought to justice. In a courtroom in Boston, the Islamic radical who set off lethal bombs at the Boston Marathon was being arraigned. Meanwhile, the editors at Rolling Stone magazine decided it […]

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” – […]

As I listened to the convoluted legal gobbledygook passing for erudite Constitutional expertise from the United States Supreme Court as they attempted to justify same sex marriage, my mind was flooded with the haunting words of some of the great men of history. I thought of Aristotle, who said, “Political society exists for the sake […]

The political and cultural stupidity emanating from the television air waves on the embarrassing little NBC News cable outlet known as MSNBC has become absolutely astounding. One can only rationalize any audience at all for this network by realizing that apparently a tiny group of small minded people is driven more by hatred than by […]

You’ve seen them on television and heard them on the radio, those commercials boasting that “conservatives” like Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan are working to make sure we have a tough, enforceable immigration system that closes our borders and makes all those illegals go to the back of the line to await possible future citizenship. […]

Few members of the United States Congress are willing to risk their careers to state the truth to the American people. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is one, but unfortunately she has announced she is calling it quits after four terms in the House. In the ten years I’ve known him, Iowa’s Steve King has never […]

The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah: 5:20, KJV) Sixteenth century theologian Martin Luther once said, “Send your good men into the clergy, but send your best men into politics.” […]