Category: Column

While many Americans were distracted by the controversy over a taped private conversation between a billionaire and his mistress, some very scary news from the Bureau of Economic Analysis went largely unnoticed.According to this federal agency’s report, the U.S. economy grew at a paltry 0.1 percent (annualized) during the first quarter of 2014. While the […]

For those of you who haven’t heard, Chipotle Mexican Grill, which for years allowed local laws to dictate policy for the restaurant chain regarding open or concealed weapons, has decided to “ask” customers not to bring firearms into its restaurants after some zealous gun owners paraded around with “military-style assault rifles” at a Chipotle in […]

A government that fails to secure its borders is guilty of dereliction of duty. A government that fails to care for our men and women on the frontlines is guilty of malpractice. A government that puts the needs of illegal aliens above U.S. veterans for political gain should be prosecuted for criminal neglect bordering on […]

Hillary Clinton is in a pickle. She’s a shoe-in for her party’s presidential nomination because of Barack Obama’s failures. But those failures might keep her from getting the job. Her husband’s “law of politics” is that elections are always about the future, but she’s stuck in the past. In 2008, Obama pandered to liberal hopes […]

The wheels are coming off the bulldozer that is the Obama administration. But that’s not a particularly new development. What’s new is that some Democrats and liberal media figures are beginning to speak out. These groups previously have unquestioningly supported Obama. They’ve gone to astonishing lengths to protect him and conspired with him to deceive […]

In this week’s release of the minutes from its April 29-30 meeting, Federal Reserve policymakers made clear that they see little chance of inflation moving past their 2% target for years to come.: In order to make such a bold statement, Fed economists not only had to ignore the current data, but discount the likelihood that […]

Heading into the 2014 elections, some Democrats think they have found a way to minimize the political fallout from the president’s health care law. They have convinced themselves that voters are more interested in fixing the law rather than repealing it. A few even believe that Obamacare may someday be popular with voters. Rhetorically, they […]

This story has a very troubling start, but a pretty satisfying conclusion — if it really is the conclusion. Among the contemptible episodes of student/faculty heckler’s vetoes at commencement ceremonies this year (Condoleezza Rice, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christine Lagarde and others have been disinvited from leading universities following ignorant and aggressively intolerant protests), one of […]

The New York Times has been touting a study purporting to show that 4 percent of death row inmates have been “falsely convicted.” “Falsely convicted” is not “innocent.” But after being processed through the lawyer-to-journalist telephone game, “insignificant procedural errors” quickly becomes “27 guys didn’t do it!”What the study actually shows is that those sentenced […]

Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki cannot get a handle on the recent scandalous treatment of veterans in VA hospitals, where more than 40 sick men were allowed to die without proper follow-up treatment. A cover-up allegedly followed. When the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal broke under the George W. Bush administration, heads rolled. So […]

“San Francisco, open your Golden Gate. You’ll let nobody wait outside your door.” Those are the lyrics of the city’s signature song, but now somebody should call “rewrite.” On Tuesday, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency voted to bar nonresidents’ cars from the crooked part of Lombard Street on Saturday and Sunday afternoons between June […]

I’m old enough to remember when only black people called black people “Uncle Tom.” Democrats, however, long expanded the category of who can play the race card and on whom. Call them equal opportunity race-card players. As with black race-card hustlers — say the Revs. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or any given host on MSNB-Hee-Haw […]

PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland — President Obama Wednesday replayed a familiar scenario when dealing with scandal, in this case delays for treatment, deaths, alleged cover-ups and other acts of malfeasance reported at Veterans Administration hospitals in the United States: first express outrage, next announce an investigation and then say he won’t comment on the scandal until […]

Just off of the James C. Lodge Freeway in Detroit is Eight Mile Road. The stretch near the freeway is just east of the famed area that provided the basis for the Eminem film of the same name. To its north lie predominantly white suburbs — over 77 percent of those who live in Oakland […]

Look out, everyone: The nation’s school lunch lady, Michelle Obama, is mad. With her federal nutrition program under fire across the country and now on Capitol Hill, Mrs. Obama put out a “forceful” call to arms this week to “health activists,” according to The Washington Post. She’s cracking the whip. Her orders are clear: There […]

Are you worried about the future? It’s hard not to be. If you watch the news, you mostly see violence, disasters, danger. Some in my business call it “fear porn” or “pessimism porn.” People like the stuff; it makes them feel alive and informed. Of course, it’s our job to tell you about problems. If […]

From the Nazis to the Stalinists, tyrants have always started out supporting free speech, and why is easy to understand. Speech is vital for the realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation. Basic to their agenda are the tools of indoctrination, propagandizing, proselytization. Once they gain power, as leftists have at many universities, […]

The former secretary of state has characterized her place in history as akin to a runner in a relay race, taking the baton, running her laps as best she can, and then handing it off to John Kerry, her successor. But the actual record indicates that, rather than a relay, Hillary Clinton’s role in Iranian […]

With the Russians on the prowl, the Chinese hacking into our computers, Boko Haram in Nigeria triggering fear and celebrity hashtags, the last thing America needs is to lose a trusted ally: England. But the great Anglo-American alliance is threatened by the reality TV show “I Wanna Marry ‘Harry,’” which premiered Tuesday on Fox and […]

On May 7, the Obama administration boasted that Obamacare was improving health care quality for seniors, pulling out a bag of statistical tricks to prove it. But a closer look shows that they’re not improving care. They’re skimping on it, socking seniors with unexpected bills for “observation care” and likely shortening their lives. President Barack […]

PARIS — The U.S. Justice Department filed charges this week against five Chinese military officers, accusing them of hacking American companies to steal secrets, including the nuclear energy company Westinghouse. In March, reports surfaced that the National Security Agency had hacked and spied on the Chinese telecom company Huawei. Hard power hitting soft targets: This […]

Trigger warning: I am going to make fun of “trigger warnings.” Of course, if you’re the sort of person who takes trigger warnings very seriously, you probably don’t read this column too often. So maybe my mockery will miss its target, sort of like making fun of the Amish on the Internet — it’s not […]

The Food and Drug Administration has just loudly re-endorsed perhaps the oldest truth in science–that the dose makes the poison. Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, told us 500 years ago, “All substances are poison. There is none which is not a poison. The right dose makes the difference between a poison and a remedy.” Even […]

Many years ago, in upstate New York, there was a lady who was caught in a fierce snow storm that produced conditions called a “whiteout.” That’s when the snow is falling so thick and fast that all you can see in any direction is just sheer white. This lady wandered around in the storm, struggling […]

I am at a loss to understand what constructive purpose first lady Michelle Obama (and Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and others) hopes to achieve by constantly talking about the race issue. Last Friday, Michelle Obama chose to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling — in […]

Academia is hell. In the latest higher-education fad, students want “trigger warnings,” according to The New York Times. It appears that some students are so fragile that they want university staff to protect them from big bad ideas. Students around the country say they want “explicit alerts that the material they are about to read […]

One of the biggest questions at the end of 2013 was how the Treasury market would react to the reduction of bond buying that would result from the Federal Reserve’s tapering campaign. If the Fed were to hold course to its stated intentions, its $45 billion monthly purchases of Treasury bonds would be completely wound […]

Is the election of a pro-business, pro-American, growth-oriented prime minister in the world’s largest democracy good news or bad news for the world’s oldest democracy? We in that oldest democracy are currently governed by the Democrats, a party that has more in common with the defeated Congress party in India than with the victorious Bharatiya […]

Karl Rove, the bete noir for Democrats (and some Republicans), has dared to raise questions about Hillary Clinton’s health. The New York Post first reported a conversation between Rove, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Dan Raviv of CBS News about Mrs. Clinton’s fall and concussion in December 2012. Rove was quoted as […]