Category: Column

One of the oldest notions in the history of mankind is that some people are to give orders and others are to obey. The powerful elite believe that they have wisdom superior to the masses and that they’ve been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Their agenda calls for an […]

The Nov. 23 New York Times reported that redistribution has become the unmentionable word at the Obama White House. Former Chief of Staff William Daley says that redistribution is “a loaded word that c0njures up all sorts of unfairness in people’s minds.” He notes that it is a word that in the political world, you […]

This week, President Barack Obama doomed Israel to a choice between unpalatable options: either striking at Iran’s nuclear facilities in its own defense and thereby internationally isolating itself, or watching as its most ardent enemy goes nuclear. The deal, put into place with Iran by the Obama administration, allows Iran to continue developing nuclear-enrichment processes, […]

“I’m not a particularly ideological person,” President Obama told an audience of donors in Seattle over the weekend. He added (in Reuters’ words) that “pragmatism was necessary to advance the values that were important to him.” This is an old refrain of Obama’s. As he said in his first inaugural, “The question we ask today […]

PARIS — Remember when you were a kid and you would open a full refrigerator right after mom’s latest grocery-shopping trip, only to complain that there was nothing to eat and that she was starving you to death? Well, that’s Iran right now. Iran has enough energy to light up the entire planet several times […]

Herd mentality can be as frustrating as it is inexplicable. Once a crowd starts moving, momentum can be all that matters and clear signs and warnings are often totally ignored. Financial markets are currently following this pattern with respect to the unshakable belief that the Federal Reserve is ready, willing, and most importantly, able, to […]

“Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams wants to kill Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Ted’s widow. He also wants to kill my husband, author and anti-assisted suicide activist Wesley J. Smith — and me, because I, too, oppose assisted suicide. “If you’re a politician who has ever voted against doctor-assisted suicide, or you would vote against it in the […]

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which is representing 41 organizations in a federal lawsuit challenging the IRS, said today the new: regulations: proposed by the IRS aimed at tax-exempt organizations places the free speech rights of Americans at even greater risk.:  “These proposed new regulations put the First Amendment rights of Americans at even […]

Random thoughts on the passing scene: Many people take pride in defying the conventions of society. Those conventions of society are also known as civilization. Defying them wholesale means going back to barbarism. Barbarians with electronic devices are still barbarians. After the government shutdown crisis, the one thing that Congressional Democrats and Republicans finally agreed […]

After months of the feds doing everything they could to distance themselves from the origin and launch of the controversial Common Core State Standards, more and more of Washington’s tentacles are surfacing through public rage, implementation revelations and the White House’s own foot-in-mouth disease. After Education Secretary Arne Duncan cast bigoted blame on “white suburban […]

Does anyone with credibility like this deal Obama’s team made with Iran? I’m not seeing much encouragement as I scan the news covering the subject. Ask yourself this: What was so urgent about securing a deal that will allow Iran to pursue nuclear development in exchange for our releasing the sanctions? Did you do a […]

There are individual haters on the right and individual haters on the left. But there is no large-scale hatred in the United States of America today that compares with the hatred of the left for the right. Whereas the right regards the left as wrong — even destructively wrong — the left regards all those […]

Ninety percent of the American opinion elite will fall for the old “historic breakthrough” conceit every time. The appeal of getting enemies in a room together, where they will shed their animosity and “reason together,” is so profound that nothing as tiresome as experience can diminish its allure. Don’t talk to Secretary of State John […]

Seeking to create an analogy with the deal the United States negotiated with Iran to supposedly limit further production of its centrifuges, Secretary of State John Kerry chose to recall disarmament agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union. A better analogy would be the 1938 Munich Pact, which gave Hitler part of Czechoslovakia […]

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard by now that 52 Senate Democrats voted to end the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees after eight years of employing it against President George W. Bush. The hypocrisy is award-worthy. And unless you can’t get cable or radio signals under that rock, you’ve no doubt […]

I have lined up my Christmas presents this year for our President, Barack Obama, and for his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. I will send them both a copy of the last book written by one of greatest economists of the last century, and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in […]

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln called a nation divided by war to join together in a time of corporate thanksgiving and repentance when he proclaimed that Americans “set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Lincoln went […]

We humans like to divide time into neat little boxes based on dates, but the case can be made that the styles, policies, manners and mores of one ten-year period usually spill over into the next. The 1929 Wall Street crash would not be fully felt for a few years, thereby carrying much of the […]

Last week, when Bill Clinton said President Obama should allow people to keep their health-insurance coverage – an early attempt to distance Hillary and himself from ObamaCare – I began to worry that the Clintons may be serious about another run at the White House. I surely don’t want Hillary to be our next president, […]

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you,” declared Nietzsche. Lying to Republicans and conservatives is fine sport for partisan Democrats and liberals. Lying to the millions of Americans who trusted you to bring them affordable government-controlled health insurance ends the romance. The reason that […]

Come on, Oprah. You’re way too smart to be this stupid. When are you going to get off this kick about Barack Obama being disrespected more than previous presidents just because he is a black man? It’s getting embarrassing, Oprah. You’re one of America’s great talents and greatest success stories. You’re a self-made billionaire, an […]

Last week, something unprecedented happened in Congress. The Speaker of the Republican-controlled House, John Boehner, authorized one of his California representatives, Jeff Denham, to measure support for the Democrats’ immigration bill, H.R. 15. Boehner allowed Denham to circulate a letter among his fellow Republicans to gauge their interest in co-sponsorship of a Nancy Pelosi-led bill. […]

The defects of the Obamacare website have become well known. But the problems with the law go further than the website. These problems are not incidental, but central to its design and the intentions of its architects. Many Obamacare backers, including Barack Obama, would prefer “single-payer” health insurance. The government would pay for everything and […]

Senate Democrats, in a desperate attempt to change the subject from their willful destruction of health insurance coverage for millions of Americans, decided to destroy the basic principles of the Senate that have served the country well for over 200 years. We can look forward to a new era of even more divisive, bare-knuckled partisan […]

The latest issue roiling the Republican Party is Medicaid, specifically whether Republican governors should expand Medicaid with federal Affordable Care Act money — especially if they want to be on the GOP national ticket in 2016. It’s a hot issue because Obamacare allows states to expand their pool of eligible Medicaid recipients. For the first […]

Common Core, the initiative that claims to more accurately measure K-12 student knowledge in English and math, also encourages children to step up their “critical thinking.” That didn’t stop Education Secretary Arne Duncan, one of Common Core’s salesmen, from telling a group of school superintendents last week that it is “fascinating” to see opposition to […]

To say the ObamaCare rollout has been difficult for President Obama is an understatement. It is the epitome of a disaster. Obama has been in damage-control mode since: October 1. : The release of his signature legislation, the misnamed Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), has been disastrous. : Bureaucratic incompetence is on full display as the website slows, freezes […]