Category: Column

Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing. Jihadists never go on furlough. While shutdown theater preoccupies Washington, terror plotters remain on the clock. The question is: Will America keep hitting the post-9/11 snooze button? At Los Angeles International Airport, two dry ice bombs exploded this week, and two others were found in a restricted area of the […]

These days, being seen as a victim can be useful. You immediately claim the moral high ground. Some people want to help you. Lawyers and politicians brag that they force: others to help you. This turns some people into whiners with little sense of responsibility. Joe Biden’s niece was arrested recently for throwing a punch at […]

Last week’s column discussed the political trade-offs made by black politicians and civil rights organizations that condemn whole generations of black youngsters to failing schools (http://tinyurl.com/6mmlsf).: Similar political trade-offs in labor markets condemn many blacks, particularly black youths, to high rates of unemployment and reduced economic opportunities. Let’s look at this, starting with a few historical […]

This week, massive crowds of veterans descended onto Washington, D.C., to protest the Obama administration’s vindictive shutdown of open-air memorial sites — sites that require no guards but were fenced off simply to make Americans miserable as a bargaining chip in the government shutdown negotiations. Veterans, including many wheelchair-bound veterans from World War II, overturned […]

Polls show the nation growing impatient. The public wants Washington politicians to get a deal done now to raise the debt ceiling and open the government. Rushing is a mistake. The urgency of the debt ceiling is exaggerated, while the drastic consequences of a deal that fails to curb spending are being ignored. Here are […]

PARIS — From the same people who brought you the “National Security Agency Spies on Foreigners” shocker, we now have the “Canada Is Secretly Devious” spectacle. Apparently it’s a shock for some people — namely, journalist Glenn Greenwald, the buddy of NSA contractor turned Russian defector Edward Snowden — to discover how the world has […]

: “Welcome Home!” This simple message is the core of INSP’s new branding initiative with the introduction of the network’s new 2013 fall lineup. The announcement was made today by: David Cerullo, Chairman and CEO of The Inspiration Networks. “Millions of Americans have made INSP their television home, responding enthusiastically since it was re-branded in 2010,” Cerullo […]

The nomination of Janet Yellen to become head of the Federal Reserve System has set off a flurry of media stories. Since she will be the first woman to occupy that position, we can only hope that this will not mean that any criticism of what she does will be attributed to sex bias or […]

A July USA Today article titled “Churches boost security as violent incidents grow” reported that “the number of deadly episodes at sanctuaries has soared over the last decade, and mass shootings at schools, malls and movie theaters have left Americans feeling like it could happen anywhere.” As I noted last week, there were roughly only […]

Every time we have a congressional impasse over budgetary issues, we hear from liberals predicting Shutdown-mageddon. Why don’t they ever join us in expressing concern over the inevitable financial collapse that will result from their policies? We always seem to hyperventilate over these mini-crises involving the temporary shutdown of small parts of the precious federal […]

The Republican Party is paying a steep price for the House Republicans’ decision to follow Sen. Ted Cruz’s self-destructive crusade to partially shut down the government in a reckless gambit to defund Obamacare. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll completed Oct. 9, 70 percent of respondents disapproved of congressional Republicans, whereas President Barack Obama’s […]

This past Saturday, the New York Times published an article, “Behind Flurry of Killing, Potency of Hate,” on the roots of monstrous evil. The article largely concerned a former paramilitary member of the Irish Republican Army, and as such was informative. But when it ventured into a larger discussion of evil, the moral confusion and […]

It’s clear to all but the most blinkered that the “Defund Now!” strategy for blocking the implementation of Obamacare has been worse than a failure. Obamacare will be funded, but the fight has exacerbated the already low standing of the Republican Party. Obama’s approval rating has ticked up during the shutdown, while Republicans are now […]

A new Associated Press-GfK poll reveals some troubling statistics for members of both major political parties, if they can be troubled, given what looks to be their lack of concern for what they are doing to the country. The poll finds fewer people approve of President Obama’s job performance (confirmed by a new Gallup Poll, […]

Some bad news for America, not on the political front this time, but on what corporate executives call human resources. It’s from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s report on adult skills, based on 166,000 interviews in 24 economically advanced countries in 2011 and 2012. The verdict on the United States: “weak in literacy, […]

If 40 million Americans don’t have health insurance by: January 1, they will be fined. But they can’t sign up. The ObamaCare website is broken, the Obama Administration can’t fix it in time, and Americans will pay billions of dollars in tax penalties. How can the Obama Administration require Americans to have health insurance when the […]

Numbers are slowly emerging, and they aren’t good for the president’s “signature piece of legislation.” The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has been an unmitigated disaster. After: three years and $634 million, healthcare.gov has proven itself unable to handle even the traffic a local supermarket website would get. In other words, it’s not a problem of […]

We ought to think about the cultural roots of the budget crisis in Washington. The political left says the shut down is all about an ideological tantrum of a handful of Republicans. Certainly Tea Partiers have an ideology and vision about what ground rules would produce a more prosperous, freer, and fairer America. But let’s […]

Boy, is technology making us ruder. I read with great delight a Wall Street Journal story about a couple of Boston lawyers. One, a 24-year-old woman, sent an e-mail to an older, established lawyer declining a recent job offer. The older lawyer, miffed the woman would e-mail a rejection after she’d already accepted the job […]

Predictably, my column last week, which expressed my extreme displeasure at the images of World War II vets being barricaded from visiting their memorial on the National Mall, produced a flurry of reactions, both positive and negative. According to the latest Associated Press poll, 37 percent of America, against all odds, still supports Barack Obama […]

The latest news in the never-ending battle between American patriots and immigration extremists is more stomach-turning than the most grizzled political observer could ever have imagined. After a weekend of nationwide marches and demonstrations, on October 8 pro-amnesty radicals led by House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi rallied at Washington’s National Mall. When it comes to […]

I remember when a billion used to be a number so big nobody could comprehend it, though it is still a massive number. According to Snopes.com 1 billion seconds equals 31.7 years. A billion seconds have elapsed since 1981. One billion minutes is equal to 1,901 years – which would take us back, almost, to […]

“Republicans are terrorists!” “Arsonists!” When President Obama chastised Americans to show restraint in political discourse, he obviously wasn’t talking to his own party … or himself. And why should he? While conservatives are reading Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke and William F. Buckley, liberals read Saul Alinsky. Saul Alinsky, whom Buckley noted may be the greatest […]

The European Union’s top climate official says the EU is pursuing the right renewable energy policies–even if the scientists are wrong about the cause of global warming! Why? Connie Hedegaard, the EU Climate Minister, recently told the London Telegraph, “Say that 30 years from now, science came back and says, ‘Wow, we were mistaken then, […]

To some outside California, Gov. Jerry Brown always will be kooky Gov. Moonbeam, no matter what he does. To California Democrats, however, Brown is the political mastermind who persuaded voters to approve a ballot measure to increase taxes — no small feat, considering that 65 percent of voters rejected a similar measure by Gov. Arnold […]

American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ),: a constitutional law firm based inWashington, D.C., said today the National Park Service decision to re-open the World War II Memorial in: Washington: “for First Amendment activities”: is a significant constitutional victory The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a constitutional law firm based inWashington, D.C., said today the National Park […]