Category: Column

Oh, the injustice of fivejustices wearing black robes, so overwhelmingly endowed withspecial superpowers, they can read what’s not written and createsketchy laws out of thin air, declaringsomething as a fundamental right, though it can’t be backed by verbiage in the Constitution, according to Chief Justice John Roberts. But now, “it’s the law.”   America’s founders […]

It says something about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign that it was big news that she submitted herself to an interview with a cable news journalist. It also says something that the journalist selected for this honor, Brianna Keilar of CNN, was recently a guest at the wedding of the director of grassroots engagement for the […]

“The rise of Bernie Sanders is proving awkward for the Democratic Party,” contends Politico in a recent piece about the surprisingly popular socialist presidential candidate. Well, maybe it’s not that surprising. And it’s probably not that awkward. Politico could have just as easily declared: The rise of Bernie Sanders is a completely predictable outcome of the Democratic Party’s […]

There’s a regular feature in grocery gossip magazines titled “Stars: They’re just like us!” Supposedly “candid” photos show actors and starlets taking out the trash, dropping off their kids at school and walking their dogs to emphasize their Everyday Peoplehood. But we all know it’s another manufactured Tinseltown myth. Routine outbreaks of celebrity tantrum-itis remind […]

Hillary Clinton lies. This is a widely acknowledged fact among people who pay attention and aren’t on her payroll. Nearly 20 years ago, New York Times columnist William Safire wrote: “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role […]

Many years ago, I visited Cambodia with my family. One day, a local resident took us to a small village of 53 huts far off the beaten path. In many ways, it was closer to the 13th century than the 21st. It was truly an eye-opening experience. As was the custom, we first presented ourselves […]

When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall at the close of the Constitutional Convention, a lady asked him what kind of government had been formed. Franklin reportedly responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Franklin’s answer has always been interesting because it revealed that he well understood the profound difference between a pure democracy […]

President Obama seems on the verge of the most abject diplomatic capitulation in American history — to Iran, our bitterest enemy — and Republicans are arguing about Donald Trump? The prospect of a deal with Iran is dumbfounding and infuriating, as the U.S. held all the cards in the protracted negotiations and yet executed serial […]

I’ve found a way to stop the deadly national epidemic of blithering idiots who text while driving. Oh, it might be a tad controversial, since a few Americans will invariably get squashed like pulpy bugs. But can you make an omelet without breaking an egg? The answer came to me as an obnoxious little bike […]

Democrats now will say anything to distance themselves from sanctuary city policies, even though they have supported these policies for years. In an exclusive CNN interview Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked about San Francisco’s refusal to hand over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement seven-time convicted felon and five-time deportee Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. He stands […]

One of the most boring classes I took in college was on accounting. Over the years, however, I’ve come to understand the importance of proper and transparent accounting. As the disastrous examples of Greece, Puerto Rico, Detroit and Chicago demonstrate, dodging long-term obligations with rosy forecasts or risky assumptions usually ends badly. Faulty accounting can […]

The random, heartless murder of a young tourist on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by a five-time illegal alien deportee who benefited from the “progressive” city’s sanctuary policy has law-abiding Americans, law enforcement officials and political opportunists of all stripes up in arms. But for decades, feckless government leaders ignored the pleas of families who suffered […]

Nearly 10,000 people turned out to hear Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin. Why? Apparently, many Democrats want socialism. Sanders is the Vermont senator who is running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Sanders calls himself a “democratic socialist,” not to be confused with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s preferred label, “social democrat,” but both […]

Let’s list major problems affecting black Americans. Topping the list is the breakdown in the black family, where only a third of black children are raised in two-parent households. Actually, the term “breakdown” is incorrect. Families do not form in the first place. Nationally, there is a black illegitimacy rate of 72 percent. In some […]

As Bernie Sanders creeps up on Hillary Clinton — closing to within 8 points in New Hampshire and holding her to 52 percent in Iowa — handling this new and unanticipated threat presents an important challenge to Clinton. Unfortunately for her, she has no good choices. Her current strategy of ignoring Sanders has failed abysmally. […]

After my 85th birthday last week, I looked back over my life and was surprised to discover in how many different ways I had been lucky, in addition to some other ways in which I was unlucky. Among the things I did not know at the time was that I was adopted as an infant […]

On Monday, President Obama spoke about his new strategy to take on the terrorist entity Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In doing so, he explained that the battle against that terrorist group — a group he had once termed “JV” — would amount to a “generational struggle.” Why would defeating a ragtag army of […]

Driven out by whistleblowers, Veterans Affairs Acting Inspector General Richard Griffin finally resigned last week. Good riddance. Griffin had whitewashed and concealed information about inadequate care and phony waiting lists and tried to retaliate against truth-tellers. But don’t expect real improvement at the VA. Griffin’s successor is another bureaucratic lifer, Lin Halliday. She’s been collecting […]

Poor Donald Trump. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. For years, wherever The Donald went, he met people who told him he should run for president. His retinue of sycophants surely saw little to gain from explaining that “birthers,” celebrity worshippers and devotees of “The Apprentice” are not a statistically meaningful sample of the […]

America’s Trump Card Trumping the Left Catching bits of the news, my wife asked, “Did Donald Trump say something against Mexicans?” I replied, “No, Trump simply dared to state statistical facts exposing the high criminal element among the illegals flooding across our border.” I’ve read horrific articles about the torture, rape and murder of Mexican […]

Discussions of racial problems almost invariably bring out the cliche of “a legacy of slavery.” But anyone who is being serious, as distinguished from being political, would surely want to know if whatever he is talking about — whether fatherless children, crime or whatever — is in fact a legacy of slavery or of some […]

Lately I’ve shared my lament that in America today we are witnessing a surreal transformation of the greatest nation in history. Last week, a spate of headlines made this point better than I could make it on my own. I was minding my business, mind you, surfing the Internet to check out the news and […]

“Words mean what they say,” I wrote in my Washington Examiner column one week ago. But, as I added, not necessarily to a majority of justices of the Supreme Court. The targets of my column were the majority opinions in King v. Burwell and Texas Department of Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project. In […]

Did San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance contribute to the senseless shooting death of Kathryn Steinle, 32, as she was out for an evening stroll on Pier 14 last week? This is a national story, because the federal government released accused shooter Francisco Sanchez to a San Francisco jail in March and the jail released Sanchez […]

In the matter of the “culture wars,” evangelical Christians are asking, “what do we do now?” The question is being raised in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down state laws reserving marriage for heterosexual couples.   The “culture wars,” while well-intentioned, were a mistake from the beginning. Evangelical Christians, whose Leader said, […]

As we celebrate our independence this weekend, we probably also should mourn it. No, we aren’t reverting back to British subjects, but we are becoming subjects again. There is a new hierarchy dominating much of our discourse and social interaction that creates a coveted status for victims. When once we declared our independence because of […]