Category: Column

It obviously doesn’t bother President Obama a whit to usurp congressional power to impose more draconian environmental regulations — and probably not much more to do so in an election year, even when his action will hurt Democrats. What’s he going to do now, you ask? Well, his Environmental Protection Agency, in deference to and […]

Speaking to graduates at West Point (New York), President Barack Obama tooted on his toy horn, “al-Qaida’s leadership on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been decimated.” Even that slender boast — just on the border regions? — is now vitiated. The five Taliban terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Sgt. […]

Last week I set out a 2016 nightmare scenario for Republicans — not one that seems likely, but one that can be extrapolated from current polling. In that spirit, let me set out a 2016 nightmare scenario for Democrats — again, not likely but a plausible extrapolation. It assumes, first of all, that Hillary Clinton […]

No day passes without a Democratic politician, a left-wing commentator, or, if I may be excused a redundancy, a left-wing academic labeling Republicans and conservatives racist. Given the power of repetition, one consequence is that many Americans, especially young ones, believe that one side of the political spectrum — the right — is racist. Having […]

In the aftermath of a terrible tragedy we always look for someone or something to blame. In the case of the Isla Vista, California, massacre in which six college students were murdered and 13 others wounded, the blame game started almost immediately. Most of the criticism was misdirected. This mass murder was not due to […]

Euphoria over the Taliban’s release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was quickly tempered by media reports that Bergdahl had abandoned his post and that his father made comments opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bergdahl’s father tweeted, “I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death of every […]

The Commerce Department reports that first quarter GDP contracted by one percent. The Wall Street Journal notes that a contraction of GDP during a time not in recession is rare. So we continue in the slowest economic recovery since the end of World War II, with unemployment, in the 6th: year of the Obama regime, at […]

Students, faculty, family members and friends, it is my great honor to deliver your commencement speech today.It is my opinion that our society must take every opportunity to praise our young people for their hard work and accomplishment, and that is why ceremonies such as this are so important to our country’s future. It was […]

Progressives have long called for reparations–payments to blacks for the horrors of slavery. These were routinely dismissed because they’re absurd — those who suffered the injustice of slavery and those who perpetrated it are long dead, and most Americans of every national origin had nothing to do with it. But the push for reparations truly […]

Sheesh, China, you sure know how to kick a country when it’s on its way down.: I speak of recent reports that your state-sponsored computer whizzes have allegedly been using their skills to steal intellectual property from American businesses.:  I admit that I am envious of your pluck – how you’re so full of pep and […]

If only gun bans or background checks could have kept Elliot Rodger from murdering six innocent people.He passed three background checks for gun purchases despite having seen mental health counselors for years. This in a state where people are banned from having access to a gun if they are institutionalized, even briefly, or make specific […]

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has found the court of public opinion to be far more receptive than a court of law. He conducts the occasional interview with seemingly sympathetic journalists. NBC News aired one such interview with anchorman Brian Williams on Wednesday night. “Do you see yourself as a patriot?” Williams asked. “I […]

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has suddenly reversed its support for biofuels. The panel now admits growing crops for fuel “poses risks to ecosystems and biodiversity.” Scientists–and many Green activists–turned against ethanol and biodiesel years ago because it took too much land. However, the United States: and EU governments have kept their farmer […]

You all know who he is.But I’m not going to repeat the name of the 22-year-old crazy person who stabbed or shot six young people to death near the UC Santa Barbara campus last week. I’m not going to quote from his insane 137-page “manifesto,” either.It just spews his pathetic reasons for why he planned […]

The opinion pages, economic journals and liberal websites are atwitter (a-Twitter?) these days over French economist Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.” Left-wingers cite Piketty’s statistics showing growing wealth inequality — though some have been challenged by the Financial Times — in support of Piketty’s policy response, huge taxes on high incomes and accumulated […]

Some of you may believe partisanship is a healthy organic reflection of genuine disagreement in the nation, but for the well-known political scientist Norm Ornstein, there is nothing more devastating than inaction. Nothing. So years after lamenting the existence of partisanship, he’s come up with another way to deal with our dawdling government: term limiting […]

Like millions of other American parents, my husband and I received a warning letter from the BMI police last week. Our active, healthy 8th-grade daughter is “very lean,” according to her school-administered “Fitnessgram.” The national student body monitors think this is a public health problem. The obesity report card lectured that because our daughter’s body-mass […]

Can we please stop holding the country hostage to crazy people? Every year a tiny number of mentally ill people go on horrific killing sprees. It just happened in California. I won’t name the person because I think the media attention lavished on these horror shows encourages some of these young men — and they […]

Here’s a not-so-bold prediction: After the press loses interest in the Veterans Affairs scandal, after the investigations have been completed and one or two officials have resigned, nothing will change. Is this cynicism? Not really. It comes down to one’s view of how much government can achieve by bureaucratic, top-down management. The progressive project has […]

Have you heard about “trigger warnings,” the latest thought control lunacy that has found its way onto college campuses? I weep for our children as they try to navigate the insanity in our society fronting as being protective of their interests. Trigger warnings are disclaimers that are attached to literature or other content to alert […]

There can be little doubt that Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the 21st Century has struck a nerve globally. In fact, the Piketty phenomenon (the economic equivalent to Beatlemania) has in some ways become a bigger story than the ideas themselves. However, the book’s popularity is not at all surprising when you consider that […]

For people who’ve ever struggled to find a taxi, Uber is great news. If you’re in a decent-sized city, download its app, register, and you’ll never wait for a taxi again. When you need a ride, all you have to do is pull out your phone, enter your request, and a car will be waiting. […]

Mass murder at a sunny college campus in a beach town would normally be considered “newsy,” but Elliot Rodger’s massacre at the University of California-Santa Barbara last Friday is getting surprisingly little press. This is not a good case for liberals: The killer was an immigrant, a person of color, and the majority of his […]

Seventy years ago this June 6, the Americans, British and Canadians stormed the beaches of Normandy in the largest amphibious invasion of Europe since the Persian king Xerxes invaded Greece in 480 B.C. About 160,000 troops landed on five Normandy beaches and linked up with airborne troops in a masterful display of planning and courage. […]

Elliot Rodger’s story is not one of an untreated, mentally ill, white mass-killer who illegally acquired fully automatic “assault weapons.” This mixed white and Asian 22-year-old bought his firearms legally, did not use a long-arm or “high-capacity” weapon and had been in therapy since the age of 8. Half his murder victims were killed by […]

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — While Tea Party candidates underperformed against establishment Republican incumbents in recent U.S. primary elections, in Europe their conservative cousins have just scored some spectacular victories. Commentators are calling elections for seats in the European Parliament and local council seats in Britain a “political earthquake” and “revolution” as strongly conservative candidates made […]