Category: Column

There is nothing like a little heat from a third political party to get the attention of career politicians who wish to stay in office. Nigel Farage, leader of the upstart UK Independent Party (UKIP), has been turning up the heat on British Prime Minister David Cameron over the issue of migrants who come to […]

Remember “The Ox-Bow Incident”? No? It’s positively ancient, and it’s easy to see why it’s been forgotten. For one thing, it’s in black-and-white. And it offers no eye candy: no explosions or moaning flesh, or fast cars or epic battles. But I’ve been thinking about it lately, especially now, with what’s going on in Missouri, […]

If real estate mogul and deep-pocketed White House donor Terry Bean were a Republican, he’d be a household name by now. Bean’s face would be splashed all over the covers of grocery-stand newsweeklies. The garrulous hostesses of ABC’s “The View” would be haranguing the GOP to return his campaign contributions. Child-welfare advocates would be demanding […]

Want to bet on tomorrow’s NFL game between Chicago and Dallas? I do. Newspapers and websites all over America tell their readers that Dallas is favored by three points. That’s the “spread” posted by bookies. Millions will be bet on that game, and billions will be bet on other games this weekend — college football, NBA games, […]

In the medical profession, there is the admonition primum non nocere, the Latin expression for “first, do no harm.” In order not to do harm, at the minimum, requires accurate diagnostics. Suppose a patient presents with abdominal pains, and the physician diagnoses it as caused by the patient’s ingrown toenails. If that isn’t the cause, […]

After a grand jury in St. Louis, Missouri, voted against the indictment of Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of 18-year-old black man Michael Brown, President Obama gave a short address to the nation. In it, he said he understood why some would feel disappointed at the verdict — an odd statement, given that all […]

Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System in which vets needing medical care languished on secret lists, finally got sacked last week. She was the face of the VA scandal. Yet firing her took seven months. Unions have the Department of Veterans Affairs in a headlock, and nothing in the phony reform […]

PARIS — There’s no doubt that we are now well into a time when wars are won and lost on intelligence efforts. In an era of budgetary constraints, low appetite for overt foreign intervention, and highly asymmetric insurgency — the likes of which we’re currently seeing in Syria and Iraq — trading a clunky mass […]

Rolling Stone has published an incredible story about a rape at the University of Virginia, sending shock waves around the country. But when I say the story is incredible, I mean that in the literal, largely abandoned sense of the word. It is not credible — I don’t believe it. I’m not saying that the […]

Everyone seems to have an opinion about the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri. But, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say, “You’re entitled to your own opinion but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” Soon after the shooting death of Michael Brown, this 285-pound young man was depicted as a “gentle giant.” But, after […]

  For days, nearly every news media outlet has been consumed with the Ferguson fallout. From coast to coast, pundits and populations have been debating the efficacy of justice and demonstrations. But maybe a true solution for Ferguson — and every other social skirmish like it — can only be found in changing the narrative. […]

I wish there were a way to address the Ferguson controversy without generating further controversy. But that’s not an easy task. I have believed for some time that the Obama administration has fanned the flames of racial tension in this country rather than attempt to extinguish them, despite its claims to the contrary. President Barack […]

Ask almost anyone to recite the commandment in the Ten Commandments that prohibits taking a life and you will be told, “Thou Shall Not Kill.” That is the King James translation of the sixth commandment. It is a magnificent translation. But this one has led to much moral confusion. Yesterday, PragerUniversity.com, which has had more […]

Even as Republicans are about to regain a majority in the Senate after eight years in the minority, the conventional wisdom around Washington is that Democrats are likely to win back that majority again in 2016. That’s certainly possible, but it’s short of a slam dunk. Superficially, the field of Senate seats up in 2016 […]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t become majority leader until next month, and already he is cracking the whip. He’s making senators work on Fridays — or at least they’re supposed to work on Fridays, as the Senate will be in session. Roll Call first billed the Fridays-included-week as part of an “aggressive schedule.” A […]

No matter whose side you are on in the upheaval following the killing of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, everyone should agree on the profound sadness of it all: sadness that an 18-year-old boy-man walked a path that led to his destruction; sadness that a police officer felt the need […]

Enough with The Ferguson Pandering In all the media coverage of the riots in Ferguson, an annoying false premise has been allowed to stand as though it were an unquestionable truth. Talking heads on the left and right are saying while rioting is not the way, there is a need for change in America. What […]

Bonjour, America! Have you heard the good news? Under President Obama, the U.S. ranking for personal freedom has slipped below that of France! According to The Washington Examiner, the Legatum Institute just released its sixth edition of its Prosperity Index. It measures entrepreneurship, opportunity, education and social capital – aspects of prosperity that typical gross […]

Outside of perhaps a drum circle or Phish concert, there are few things progressives enjoy more than dead people. It’s a fetish … It’s what makes some people love feet and makes Bill Clinton a chubby-chaser. The foot-fetish people are at least consistent – they are in to virtually all feet. But progressives’ fetishizing of […]

A Black To Giuliani: “Right on brother. Way to go Rudy!” All heck broke loose in the media when white former Mayor Rudy Giuliani smacked down black race pimp Micheal Eric Dyson with the truth about black on black crime during a TV panel discussion. As an American who happens to be black, I say, […]

We hand a man a gun and ask him to protect us. If something goes horribly wrong, perhaps in a flurry of panic, we don’t rush to punish him. We make sure a criminal justice system meant to protect all citizens also protects him. We blanket him in the presumption of innocence. It’s the reason […]

#Blacklivesmatter is a new hashtag activism campaign that claims to be “a response to the ways in which [black] lives have been devalued.” This socially virtuous campaign has gained considerable momentum recently as the country awaited the results of the grand jury investigation into whether enough evidence existed to indict officer Darren Wilson for committing […]

On Tuesday, the day after it was announced that Officer Darren Wilson would not be charged in the slaying of Michael Brown, the president for a second time called for calm. His statement was measured, careful and responsible. He condemned violence and looting while acknowledging the legitimate concerns animating the protestors. He wasn’t all that […]

For many in the media, the St. Louis County grand jury’s decision was going to confirm the existence of deep American injustice one way or another. If it found there was insufficient evidence for an indictment against Darren Wilson — the white police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, a black teenager, in August […]