Category: Column

Domestic violence just doesn’t happen on elevators. And it’s not just committed by former NFL running backs. But don’t tell that to the people who’ve been calling for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to quit over his fumbling of the Ray Rice case. Based on what’s been on TV all week, you’d think pro football and […]

On Thursday, Australian authorities claimed they thwarted a plot by supporters of the Islamic State to grab random people off the street and then behead the captured citizens on videotape. Australia’s attorney general said that the massive raid, the largest counterterrorism operation in the nation’s history, involving more than 800 police officers and raids of […]

In my new book, “Jesus on Trial,” I explain how the Bible itself serves as its own apologetic. Holy Scripture, if we’ll give it a chance, can bring us to faith. So one of the main goals I have with my book is to encourage people to crack open this amazing book and give it […]

Rather than waiting until specifics about the Michael Brown case are known — such as autopsy results, detailed officer reports, toxicology or other details regarding his death — some Ferguson residents, Brown supporters and various hangers-on decided to act. Learning nothing from the Trayvon Martin case, people took to the street with demands for “justice” […]

The so-called Islamic State has left destruction everywhere that it has gained ground. But as in the case of the tribal Scythians, Vandals, Huns or Mongols of the past, sowing chaos in its wake does not mean that the Islamic State won’t continue to seek new targets for its devastation. If unchecked, the Islamic State […]

After some hand-wringing over British citizens who have chosen to fight with ISIS, Prime Minister David Cameron said he thinks one reason for the defection is that too many of the defectors have forgotten what it means to be British. As a means of fighting the radicalization of young people, he wants all of Britain’s […]

While many economists and market watchers have failed to notice, we have entered a new chapter in the short and checkered history of central banking. This paradigm shift, as yet unaddressed in the textbooks, changes the basic policy tools that have traditionally defined the sphere of macroeconomic decision-making. The job of a central banker is […]

One of the striking ironies of our modern economy is that government bonds are considered safe-haven investments, while gold is a “barbarous relic” to be avoided at all costs. Since the 2008 financial collapse, the bond market has been on a tear, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s endless interest rate suppression. This has only served […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that in Germany, multiculturalism has “utterly failed.” Both Australia’s ex-prime minister John Howard and Spain’s ex-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar reached the same conclusion about multiculturalism in their countries. British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that multiculturalism is fostering extremist ideology and directly contributing to homegrown Islamic terrorism. UK […]

While recently commemorating the World War I centenary at an Italian military cemetery, Pope Francis declared: “Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction.” The pope’s observation begs the question: If World War III has already started, would […]

By all means, let’s destroy Islamic State, but let’s talk about it first. We are in a very strange place right now. President Obama is rushing into a war he doesn’t want to fight. He can barely bring himself to call it a war. Obama didn’t merely ignore the threat of Islamic State for the […]

Having studied and taught history, I tend to look at things with a slightly longer view and in a broader context than most people.  Most people tend to view the political world map as always having looked the way it does, but that clearly is not the case.  The fact is that every couple of […]

Anyone who knows what anxiety, and sometimes anguish, parents go through when they have a child who is still not talking at age two, three or even four, can appreciate what a blessing it can be to have someone who can tell them what to do — and what not to do. That someone is […]

The CIA reported this past Thursday that the number of Islamic State fighters is actually three times what previous government estimates were, according to Fox News. A spokesperson for the intelligence agency explained that the radical Islamic group boasts between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria. Those numbers fly in the face of […]

Iraq, immigration, inversion. On all three of the issues referred to, President Obama finds himself forced by events to do something he dislikes — and he’s in trouble with much of his Democratic Party base for doing so. Obama seemed ill at ease before the camera and teleprompter on the evening of Sept. 10. Sending […]

Can President Barack Obama lead a coalition to degrade or destroy the terrorists of the Islamic State? He stared resolutely into the camera from the White House last week, talking of war and threats. He’s a good talker. He enunciated. But the ideas weren’t clear. And that lack of clarity is frightening. And after the […]

On November 30th, voters in Switzerland will head to the polls to vote in a referendum on gold. On the ballot is a measure to prohibit the Swiss National Bank (SNB) from further gold sales, to repatriate Swiss-owned gold to Switzerland, and to mandate that gold make up at least 20 percent of the SNB’s […]

Prior to his annual steak fry, retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said this about Hillary Clinton to Dan Balz of The Washington Post: “…she is much more progressive in her thoughts and her inclination than most people may think.” Liberals have embraced the word “progressive” because it sounds more forward-looking than “liberal,” which has a […]

This is my third consecutive column about the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black youth, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. I have focused on this because the circumstances that led to this tragedy point to more than narrow, parochial concerns of low-income minority communities. They point to things fundamentally wrong in […]

Remember the Terminator movies and the evil electronic overlords of Skynet – the computer system that became self-aware and launched the war against humans? We aren’t there…yet. But we are fast approaching the point where people simply aren’t necessary to conduct a significant amount of business and life. There won’t be a single day – […]

Miraculously, President Obama has conjured a strategy to wipe the Islamic State from the face of the Earth! Just two weeks after confessing he had “no strategy” for dealing with this formidable terrorist organization, he is dribbling out pieces of his “comprehensive” plan. First of all, someone should tell the President that this caliphate of […]

Supervisor David Chiu wants San Francisco to become the first American city to oppose any ban on sex-selective abortions. It apparently has not occurred to him why no other city has chosen to do so. Journalist Mara Hvistendahl, author of “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men,” […]

The only person in Mexico who can’t get into the United States is Marine Sergeant Andrew P. Tahmooressi. Others can just walk in, surrender to a Border Patrol Agent, claim fear of persecution, be reunited with their illegal alien families and demand amnesty. Sgt. Tahmooressi has no such luck. For the better part of six […]

“Twentieth-century technology,” writes economic historian Joel Mokyr in the Manhattan Institute’s excellent City Journal, “was primarily about ‘large’ things.” Large in physical size, that is. Mokyr’s examples include the diesel engine and the gas turbine, shipping containers, communications satellites launched by giant rockets, oil-drilling platforms, massive power stations, giant steel mills and huge airplanes. Most […]

Troubling facts concerning health risks related to the wave of illegal immigrants who are crossing our southern border are coming to light despite efforts by the government to keep Americans in the dark. The usual tactics of crying racism and implying those wanting answers are selfish and lack compassion have been used to silence those […]

We are, as it always seems, “at a pivotal moment in American history.” At least that’s what Sens. Tom Udall and Bernie Sanders maintained in a melodramatic Politico op-ed last week as they explained their efforts to repeal the First Amendment. Let me retort in their language: It’s true that building the United States has […]