Category: Column

“Waaaaa! You’re not playing fair!” “Waaaaa! You’re going to bankrupt America!” “Waaaaa! You guys started it!” The crybabies in Washington are at it again. Arguing, name-calling and throwing heated rhetoric around like “extortion” and “blow the whole thing up,” our so-called leaders are acting like out-of-control little kids in a sandbox. They haven’t begun hitting […]

Reasonable people compromise. Unreasonable people do not. Instead, they trample over those around them to selfishly get their way. And the government is shut down this chilly October day in 2013 because unreasonable Democrats behaving like spoiled children would rather refuse treatment to terminally ill children, ravage the economy, disparage veterans and make the rest […]

One fact in the endless immigration debate is unarguable: the more entitlements California makes available to illegal aliens, the more beckoning the state becomes. Earlier last week, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that will allow illegal aliens to obtain drivers licenses. He also signed bills that would permit illegal immigrants to practice law, and […]

What to make of all the polls on the government shutdown? You know, the ones that say that, to varying degrees, congressional Republicans are being blamed more than Democrats and Barack Obama. Let me give a roundabout answer, based on a theory that people sometimes try to send messages through their responses to poll questions. […]

It was Cory Booker’s constant sneering attack in the first New Jersey U.S. Senate debate – Steve Lonegan is a “tea party leader.” What does that mean? It’s true, Steve Lonegan has long been one of the Garden State’s strongest leaders for fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and constitutional government – the core values of the […]

The new NBC poll has sent shock waves through the political world. This government shutdown is triggering a disastrous decline in Republican fortunes and has left President Obama largely unaffected. –GOP approval is down to 24 percent, the lowest ever and a drop of ten points in two weeks. Democratic Party approval is 43 percent, […]

The popular take on the current debt ceiling stand-off is that the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party has a delusional belief that it can hit the brakes on new debt creation without bringing on an economic catastrophe. While Republicans are indeed kidding themselves if they believe that their actions will not unleash deep […]

Everybody who has studied the situation will tell you that there is no real way that the U.S. would default on any of its debts. With $250 billion of tax revenues coming in, on average, each month and debt service, including interest, averaging only $25 billion each month, how is a default possible? We don’t […]

Behold the Hollywood bubble. This week, actress Olivia Wilde starred in an Obamacare propaganda video targeting young people. “You can sign up for health care online in 10 minutes,” her co-propagandist chirped as she cheered. Cue the laugh track. Back on planet Earth, Americans nationwide are still struggling with the $634 million online health care […]

Last week I wrote a column accusing the president of having a vindictive streak — of deliberately trying to make the lives of average Americans worse just so he could score ideological and political points. We already knew from how he handled the budget sequester that Obama liked this approach. He ordered Cabinet secretaries not […]

I respect — but disagree with — those who believe that the Republican Party is on a suicide mission by refusing to agree to either a continuing resolution or a lifting of the debt ceiling without some meaningful inroads into Obamacare. If I understand it correctly, they are convinced that it’s a dead-end mission guaranteed […]

Read the tea leaves: 1. President Obama says he’s willing to sign a short-term continuing resolution and a limited increase in the debt limit lasting a few months. Of course, he says the bills must be clean, without conditions, but that is a good place to start serious moves. 2. Obama is breaking his splendid […]

Republicans and conservatives are clearly in the mood for a fight. That martial spirit is part of what has brought us to the standoff in Washington. It’s odd then, that the battle for the governor’s mansion in Virginia, which pits a solid conservative attorney general against a Democratic moneyman and back-scratching liberal Clinton pal, should […]

Not long ago, the conventional wisdom in official Washington held that the so-called sequester spending cuts would be a disaster for the Republican Party. They were expected to rise up in vehement protest once the “cuts” went into effect. Instead, nobody outside of Washington noticed. Today, the conventional wisdom suggests that the so-called government shutdown […]

In the current fight over the government shutdown, Republicans are simply representing the views of the American people. Americans didn’t ask for Obamacare, they don’t want it, but now their insurance premiums are going through the roof, their doctors aren’t accepting it, and their employers are moving them into part-time work — or firing them […]

The founts of wisdom on the Affordable Care Act spent the past year anguishing over whether “young invincibles” — young adults with low medical costs and no health coverage — would buy policies under the act. If young adults instead chose to pay the $95 fine, experts predicted, Obamacare would falter. Since the Oct. 1 […]

So far Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s peace ruse is still bearing some fruit. President Obama was eager to talk with him at the United Nations — only to be reportedly rebuffed, until Obama managed to phone him for the first conversation between heads of state of the two countries since the Iranian storming of the […]

As his battle with the Republicans focuses more on the debt limit and less on Obamacare, the president has invented a new vocabulary to suit his political needs. “Seeking to raise the debt limit” is out. “Preventing an economic shutdown” is in. Debt is never mentioned. The word is “obligations.” This is not an effort […]

A national network reporter, during an interview about about the government shutdown, actually told me: “Democrats believe government should do some: things. Republicans don’t believe government should be doing anything.” Where had we heard that characterization of the GOP? “‘Anarchist’? Why in the world wouldn’t I use the term anarchy?” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, […]

It’s the 40th anniversary of Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying,” which some have described as a breakthrough book for women and for modern feminism. Reduced to its common (and I do mean common) denominator, the book, which was written in the appropriately named “Me” Decade of the ’70s, encourages women to behave like promiscuous men, […]

Back in 1987, a young demagogue named Al Sharpton leapt onto the national scene, accusing a New York assistant district attorney, Steven Pagones, of raping a 15-year-old girl, Tawana Brawley. Actually, Sharpton claimed that Pagones had raped Brawley, anally raped Brawley and then scrawled the initials “KKK” on Brawley’s torso in feces. “We stated openly […]

Could this be the end of Monument Syndrome? Across the country, ordinary Americans are rising up in revolt against the old Washington tactic of closing public parks and memorials during selective government “shutdowns” to score political points. Tax-paying tourists are tossing off the orange traffic cones and “Barrycades.” Enough is enough. The movement started with […]

Government wants you to play a role in the “shutdown” of the federal government. Your role is to panic. Republicans and Democrats both assume that shutting some government is a terrible thing. The press concurs. “Shutdown threatens fragile economy,” warns Politico. “Federal workers turn to prayer,” laments The Washington Post. If the public starts noticing […]

Trade-offs apply to our economic lives, as well as our political lives. That means getting more of one thing requires giving up something else. Let’s look at some examples. Black congressmen and black public officials in general, including Barack Obama, always side with teachers unions in their opposition to educational vouchers, tuition tax credits, charter […]

Why didn’t anyone else think of it? Scott Pruitt, the Attorney General of Oklahoma, acting on the research of Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. Cannon published in the Case Western Reserve School of Law Journal, has brought a new lawsuit, on behalf of the state, against Obamacare. Unlike the suit brought by 26 state […]

Negotiating with Republicans has never been in Obama’s playbook. Three days after his inauguration in 2009, President Barack Obama silenced Republican lawmakers who voiced concerned about the enormity of spending in his stimulus bill by uttering two brash words, “I won.” That was his governing philosophy, as he rammed through the American Reinvestment and Recovery. […]

PARIS — Over a year ago, I sent my fingerprints for a standard foreign background check to the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., along with a money order. Both promptly disappeared, never to be seen again. A personal survey of those around me suggested that this was standard operating procedure — which is why […]