Category: Column

How is it possible that the FBI agent who shot and killed an associate of a suspected Boston Marathon bomber has been pocketing more than $50,000 annually in disability benefits since he retired as an Oakland, California, police officer in 2004 at age 31? On May 22, 2013, Ibragim Todashev of Orlando, Florida, allegedly had […]

The Democrats have it all wrong when it comes to one of their choices for a new President Barack Obama bumper sticker: “Like a Boss.” The Democrats foolishly think the phrase derives from an old rap song denoting cool competence. “Like a bowse” is how the young people pronounce it. “‘Like a Boss’ is rockin’ […]

Behold Canada and America. One country supports the efforts of a U.S. special forces soldier’s widow to hold accountable the jihadist who killed her husband and the father of her two young children. The other country helped free that jihadist from Guantanamo Bay in a shady deal that appeased his far-left allies. Guess which side […]

It’s easy to scare people about what’s in their food, but the danger is almost never real. And the fear itself kills. Take the panic over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Ninety percent of all corn grown in America is genetically modified now. That means it grew from a seed that scientists altered by playing […]

What would you think if your 8-year-old came home and told you that “white privilege is something that white people have, meaning they have an advantage in a lot of things and they can get a job more easily”? You would have heard that at the recent 15th annual White Privilege Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, […]

The 2016 presidential election is shaping up as another close race, like the last four. From 2000 to 2012, both major parties’ nominees received between 45 and 53 percent of the vote. Historically, that’s a narrow range, not seen since 1880-1892. It suggests something close to parity between two highly competitive parties. Polls for the […]

Why, some Republicans are asking, should we focus on winning the Senate? What will it achieve as long as Barack Obama is still president? We won’t get 67 votes to override his vetoes or even 60 votes to overcome filibusters. Why bother? Here’s why winning the Senate, while not a complete answer, is still worth […]

Vladimir Putin, with the aid of his vast propaganda machinery, has convinced many Russians that the interim government in Ukraine is expressly Nazi and fascist. And while there were some neo-Nazi goons among the protesters who brought down the corrupt government of Victor Yanukovich, and there are definitely ultranationalists among the coalition resisting Moscow, it’s […]

Encouraging vets on Medicare to use civilian care instead of Veterans Affairs’ could cut the patient backlog at the VA by as much as half, solving a national crisis. Almost half of vets are older than 65, and nearly all vets using the VA have Medicare coverage. Often, they’d be better off getting their bypass […]

On the day before Memorial Day, President Barack Obama secretly flew into Afghanistan for a surprise visit to the troops. “We’re going to stay strong by taking care of our wounded warriors and our veterans. Because helping our wounded warriors and veterans heal isn’t just a promise, it’s a sacred obligation … I’m here to […]

PARIS — An intriguing social phenomenon prompted a horrific killing spree in Santa Barbara, California, last week, and the same phenomenon might help explain the surprising results of last weekend’s European Parliament elections. The suspected Santa Barbara killer, 22-year old Elliot Rodger, left behind a 141-page diatribe and multiple online videos expressing frustration over a […]

Random thoughts on the passing scene: Will the Veterans Administration scandal wake up those people who have been blithely saying that what we need is a “single payer” system for medical care? Delays in getting to see a doctor have been a common denominator in government-run medical systems in England, Canada and Australia, among other […]

Combat veteran Kryn Miner, 44, served 11 deployments in seven years. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury after a bomb blast in Afghanistan in 2010 threw him into a wall. It was one of 19 blasts he endured over two decades of service to his country. On April 29, Kryn […]

Last week, on my radio talk show, I received a call from Jeff, a 21-year-old in North Carolina. I have abridged it and edited it stylistically. JEFF: I wanted to respond to your question about America being feared in the world. You brought up Syria. I think it’s a little naive, and maybe that’s not […]

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — In the 1970s, while working as a low-paid cub reporter in Houston, Texas, I always looked forward to the annual Christmas catalogs from Neiman-Marcus and Sakowitz, a local luxury department store. Both contained outrageously expensive things that only the super-rich could afford — his and hers Thunderbirds stick in my memory. […]

Talk about Republican Party differences between the “establishment” and the Tea Party is taking attention from where it really needs to be focused – on the real issues facing the nation. With all our differences, Americans agree that we’re on the wrong track. The latest Gallup poll asking “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the […]

Hurricane Isabel struck Washington, D.C. hard that night.: â€¨â€¨It was Sept. 18, 2003. I lived in Alexandria, Va., at the time. I rode out the storm reading a book and enjoying a glass of wine.: â€¨â€¨At the Arlington National Cemetery, just a few miles from where I sat, the sentinels who stand guard at the Tomb of […]

Since White House Spokesman Jay Carney and most of the media can’t seem to bring themselves to do it, I thought I’d write a transcript for an honest press briefing. It’s a satirical look at this daily dance, which you can tell by the fact that most of the questions are ones that should be […]

President Obama is going to make me rich.That’s because the Obama administration, which has done everything in the government’s power to hamper economic growth, just loosened lending standards so that people with poor credit can buy homes. Why not? It worked out well for some people the last time the government loosened lending standards.“The Obama […]

1: Express surprise that your policy (Fast and Furious gunrunning, IRS targeting conservative groups, Benghazi gunrunning to Al Qaeda in Syria, Obamacare policies gouging Americans, canceling their good policies and denying them their doctors and hospitals, watching veterans die while Veterans Administration officials put them on secret waiting lists) has even occurred. 2: Express anger […]

If his story were a movie, then Gus’ tale would start before he was born in December 2009. It would begin in a fertility clinic, where actor Jason Patric donated sperm so that his ex-girlfriend Danielle Schreiber could have a baby. Later, his parents would reunite and then split up and then, after a contentious […]

Behind the green curtain is where my world began to end. It was where my innocence was forever washed away in a porcelain pan filled with developer. Grainy images brought into strong relief on white paper that would become forever etched on my soul.It all began at the age of eight when my mother enrolled […]

For a five-week period that began on May 15, Arlington Cemetery will hold a series of lectures and tours as part of its 150th Anniversary celebration.: The national cemetery, the final resting place for more than 400,000 veterans and their families, opened its commemoration with a wreath-laying tribute at Army Pvt. William Christman’s gravesite, Arlington’s first […]

Gummit don’t work good. That conclusion, often that inelegantly expressed, seems to be more and more common, not only in the United States but around the world. It is certainly the verdict of John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge in their new book “The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State,” although expressed, as […]

The Supreme Court struck down Obamacare’s mandatory Medicaid expansion as an unconstitutional commandeering of the states, setting off bruising battles over the issue in state capitals. No place has been more brutal than Maine, where a liberal attack group actually sent out a mail piece criticizing Dale Crafts, a wheelchair-bound state legislator, because he “failed […]