Category: Column

For a number of years, I have owned and operated movie theaters. Today, my partners and I have 25 screens in four Midwestern locations. We hope to have more soon. Why did I get into the theater business? Like millions of other people, I love the movies. I love the big marquee letters, the flashing […]

By the middle of last week, the barrel price of oil on the global market was $64. Three months ago it was around $100 per barrel. It topped out, over the past year, at around $112 per barrel in late June. This is a precipitous drop in oil prices, and it is having a dramatic […]

Oh, woe is she. In an “exclusive” interview with People magazine this week, first lady Michelle Obama lamented the “sting” of “racist experiences” that she and her husband allegedly still suffer. My message for America’s Marie Antoinette? Cry me a river. To show how she’s down with The Struggle of post-Ferguson agitators, Mrs. Obama cited […]

Has there ever been a president more eager to make concessions to vicious regimes than Barack Obama? The opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba is the latest and, one fears, not the last in a string of preemptive concessions. Obama, with his blend of hard-left prejudices and vaulting solipsism, has sought throughout his presidency to […]

The first issue of Captain America came out on December 20, 1940. It shows Cap slugging Adolph Hitler in the mouth. Good stuff, but note the date. America wouldn’t enter World War II for about another year. At the time, many Americans wanted to stay out of another European war. And here was an American […]

Honestly, sometimes leftist thought police surprise even me, not so much with their unreasonableness, extremism and tyrannical tactics but with their brazenness in openly showing who they are. Each new day’s headlines trump yesterday’s. A few weeks ago, Fox News’ Todd Starnes reported on a Marquette University student’s encounter with his ethics instructor. The professor, […]

With a simple Facebook post, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush became the first person to express interest in the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He’ll have plenty of company in the near future, as nearly two dozen others have unofficially expressed similar interests. To say the race is wide open is an understatement. There are many […]

Earlier this week, Jeb Bush announced he was setting up a political committee to explore a presidential candidacy. Hillary Clinton has been exploring a presidential candidacy for months and perhaps years. Polls show Clinton with a wide lead for the Democratic nomination and Bush as a leading competitor for the Republican nomination. All of which […]

The attack on a cafe in Sydney, Australia, by a self-described Islamic cleric with a long police record, left two hostages dead, along with the cleric, one Man Haron Monis. He was an Iranian refugee who enjoyed the hospitality and protection of the Australian government. That incident, which was televised worldwide, was quickly eclipsed by […]

In an earlier column, I looked at the role the abortion issue would play in the 2016 election — not very much, I concluded — and promised another column on other cultural issues. Here goes. On anyone’s list of cultural issues that have been debated over the last decade, same-sex marriage ranks just behind abortion. […]

Jayne and Jon Cornwill, an Australian couple, recently came to America with a bit of trouble. The trouble? Boys. They have three little boys, and three rambunctious boys were quite enough for the Cornwills, thank you. What the Cornwills wanted was a little girl. But all they got were boys. And this led to what […]

Allow me to unite America’s left, right and center in just three words: No, Jeb, No. Former GOP Florida governor Jeb Bush made the obvious official this week when he announced on Facebook that he’s “actively exploring” a 2016 White House run. Of course, he’s running. That’s what inveterate politicians do. Well, I hate to […]

It’s the season for giving. That doesn’t mean it’s the season for government. Government creates loyalty in the minds of citizens by pretending to be Santa Claus, doling out gifts and favors. Politicians claim they help those unfortunates who aren’t helped by coldhearted capitalism. The truth is, government gets in the way of charity, making […]

Last week, the Obama administration announced new curbs on racial profiling by federal law enforcement. Before deciding whether this is good or bad policy, we might try to develop a description/definition of racial profiling or any other kind of profiling. A good definition of profiling in general is the use of an easily observed physical […]

Tear up the textbooks, a new pattern may be emerging among Latino voters. The conventional wisdom — that Hispanics habitually vote Democrat over the immigration issue — may be obsolete. Gallup found that support for President Obama’s amnesty order was primarily among the foreign born population — whether Latino or not. Hispanics born in the […]

If you want to know how your tax dollars will get spent next year, the answers are in Cromnibus — the 1,695-page bill that Congress hurriedly passed last weekend to fund the federal government through September 2015. Republicans won big with Cromnibus, along with farmers, political parties, incandescent bulb users, Blue Cross insurers, kids who […]

Anyone skeptical about entrusting ambitious tasks to the government was not stunned by the dismal rollout of the Affordable Care Act. It featured technical snafus, cost overruns and false advertising (“If you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep it.”). Things got so bad that President Barack Obama apologized and Health and Human Services […]

America’s Christophobes have been plenty busy lately. Maybe the Christmas season makes them especially nervous. A few weeks ago, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department Chief Kelvin Cochran was suspended for a month without pay for the unforgivable sin of self-publishing a Christian book in which he expressed his disapproving views about homosexual behavior, among other things. […]

Critics and defenders of the harsh interrogation methods applied to captured terrorists can argue forever over whether those methods were “torture.” But any serious discussion of a serious issue — and surely terrorism qualifies as serious — has to move beyond semantics and confront the ultimate question: “Compared to what alternative?” If you knew that […]

The stunning 40% drop in the price of oil over the past few months has scrambled global economic forecasts, changed the geo-political landscape, and has severely pressured many energy sector investments. Economists are scratching their heads to determine if the drop is good or bad for the economy or whether cheap oil will add to […]

Democrats are the masters of deceptive persuasion, meaning they will take our attention off something they have really screwed up and put it on something that’s not quite so bad. And chief among those masters is he who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. For example, let’s look at the bumbling idiot Jonathan […]

On Monday, Australian police stormed the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in Sydney, where an Islamist terrorist named Man Haron Monis had taken dozens of hostages and held them for 17 hours. Three people were killed, including Monis, and several others were wounded. Monis, an Iranian immigrant, had a long criminal record, including 40 charges for indecent […]

I have been devoting my columns this month to the Ten Commandments because we need a fixed moral anchor to solve the problem of evil. And nothing is as effective as the Ten Commandments. Two weeks ago PragerUniversity.com released 11 five-minute video courses — one for each Commandment and an introduction. It has received over […]

The intelligence was obtained illegally. The hackers presented a threat to workers and their families. Foreign operatives likely were behind the document theft. Any news organizations that report this ill-gotten information are, if not un-American, surely “morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable.” Are those the words of intelligence talking heads railing against National Security Agency leaker […]

If success at the state level were enough to recommend someone for president of the United States, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana would be among the frontrunners for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. According to the governor’s office, Pence has “signed into law $643 million in annual tax relief: That includes: $313 million for hardworking […]

The political class breathed a sigh of relief Saturday when the US Senate averted a government shutdown by passing the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill. This year’s omnibus resembles omnibuses of Christmas past in that it was drafted in secret, was full of special interest deals and disguised spending increases, and was voted on before […]

The story is told that when Tennessee frontiersman Davy Crockett served in the US Congress (between 1827 and 1835) he voted for a bill appropriating $20,000 for relief for victims of a fire that broke out in Georgetown. When he returned home, a constituent farmer chastised him for supporting the bill and for “giving what […]

Just two days before this year’s election, when it was clear there would be a Republican wave, the New York Timesran an op-ed that called for the abolition of midterm elections. Written by a college professor and one of his students, the piece was couched as being in favor of democracy because midterms have notoriously […]