Category: Column

While many have long seen America as the global bad boy, everybody likes Canada. If Uncle Sam tucks his pack of Marlboros under his T-shirt sleeve and plays by his own rules, the Canadian moose — or whatever their Uncle Sam equivalent is — always wears his blue blazer and school tie and does his […]

How can anyone take President Obama seriously when he tells us our national debt is no big deal? Well, we have to take him seriously, because, unserious thinking or not, he has serious power, including the power to obstruct progress on reducing the debt. I’m not making this up, of course, which is too bad […]

James Carville famously kept the 1992 Clinton campaign on message with the simple refrain, “It’s the economy, stupid!” That’s just as true for politicians today as it was two decades ago. However, many politicians, particularly Republicans, tend to misunderstand all that Carville’s phrase encompasses. It’s not just about economic growth. Fairness is a big part […]

Like the proverbial monkey typing for infinity and getting Shakespeare, Mayor Bloomberg’s obsession with reforming New Yorkers’ health has finally produced a brilliant ad campaign. Posters are popping up in subway stations and bus stops giving statistics about teen pregnancy that show cute little kids saying things like, “Honestly, Mom … chances are he won’t […]

Sometime in the new millennium, “global warming” evolved into “climate change.” Amid growing controversies over the planet’s past temperatures, Al Gore and other activists understood that human-induced “climate change” could better explain almost any weather extremity — droughts or floods, too much heat or cold, hurricanes and tornadoes. Similar verbal gymnastics have gradually turned “affirmative […]

Is Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg really complaining — in 2013 — that “only” 14 percent of executive officers are female, that women earn 77 cents compared to a dollar earned by men, and that women hurt their own advancement by failing to “lean in” and become more assertive? Is this 2013 or 1953? In her […]

Pamela Geller, most famous for fighting what she called the “ground zero mosque” in New York, bought ads on the sides of 10 San Francisco buses that feature hateful quotes from Osama bin Laden, accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad — under the headline “My Jihad.” “Jihad, holy […]

Since the Motown sound went silent — except on oldies stations — and General Motors and Chrysler (but not Ford) required life support from Washington, there has been little to recommend Detroit, Mich., to visitors, much less its residents. The recent conviction of Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit, on multiple charges, including racketeering, […]

No worries, America. Debt is a preoccupation of the fringe, a mere distraction for anyone interested in progress. And anyway, as President Barack Obama explained this week, “we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next 10 years, it’s going to be in a sustainable place.” That’s a pretty […]

The College of Cardinals met in conclave on Tuesday to begin the process of electing a new pope. The cardinals have been getting plenty of advice from American journalists. The Catholic Church, they say, should open up the priesthood to women and allow priests to marry. It should abandon its ban on contraception and endorse […]

The twin developments of the death of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio may offer a turning point for Latin America. Chavez had established an eight-country empire of minions willing to do his bidding including Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Cuba. In addition, the Dominican Republic […]

The Beltway is buzzing over President Obama’s likely nomination of Thomas E. Perez as the next head of the U.S. Department of Labor. But when Americans find out whom Perez has lobbied for most aggressively over the course of his extremist leftwing social justice career, they’ll be wondering which country Obama’s pick really plans to […]

Celebrities are now upset about fracking, the injection of chemicals into the ground to crack rocks to release oil and gas. With everyone saying they want alternatives to foreign oil, I’d think celebrities would love fracking. I’d be wrong. Lady Gaga, Yoko Ono and their group, Artists Against Fracking, don’t feel the love. Yoko sang, […]

A new poll taken by Mexico’s leading public opinion researcher shows that U.S. citizens of Latino descent are potentially strong allies of the Republican Party. The survey found strong indications that Latinos in the U.S. are deeply worried that the Democratic Party may lead their new country down the same path of debt and dependence […]

PARIS — A chess piece has fallen in Latin America. The road to prosperity and peace for the citizens of many countries — probably even yours — runs through the recent death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and a counterintuitive deal between two nations. Depending on whom you speak to, Chavez was either a jerk […]

When Israel took action against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last year, the world media did its damndest to try to paint the Jewish state as a human rights violator. One of their chief cards in this effort was a photo of BBC video editor Jehad Misharawi holding his son Omar’s body. Supposedly Omar had […]

I hope I’m not too late to the fight. Last week, freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) held an old-fashioned filibuster against the nomination of John Brennan to head the CIA. Paul’s stated reason for taking to the floor and talking for 13 hours was that the Obama administration wouldn’t give him a straight answer on […]

There are so many fallacies about race that it would be hard to say which is the most ridiculous. However, one fallacy behind many other fallacies is the notion that there is something unusual about different races being unequally represented in various institutions, careers or at different income or achievement levels. A hundred years ago, […]

A registered sex offender and convicted child rapist is being observed by South Carolina cops in the presumed deaths of two young women, including a New York teenager who disappeared while on spring break in Myrtle Beach nearly three years ago, Fox News just reported. Each year, more than 1.5 million students go on spring […]

There are three major factors that stand in the way of entitlement reform and the other responsible budgetary measures that must be taken to avert an eventual national financial catastrophe, and they have a common source. The first is that too many American people remain, amazingly, in the fog about the scope of the problem. […]

Denver television station CBS4 reports that Colorado has seen a sharp spike in marijuana use among teenagers since Colorado voters passed Amendment 64 last November legalizing recreational use of the drug. As described in The Economist, along with a Washington State measure also legalizing marijuana, Amendment 64 is “an electoral first not only for America […]

Only a small suffix separates the two major health care programs run by the federal and state governments, but their relative political, budgetary and equity considerations are miles apart. When Obama lumps “entitlements” together, he inevitably means Medicare and Social Security. But the entitlements that need reining in are neither of these: They are Medicaid, […]

American education is in a sorry state of affairs, and there’s enough blame for all participants to have their fair share. They include students who are hostile and alien to the education process, uninterested parents, teachers and administrators who either are incompetent or have been beaten down by the system, and politicians who’ve become handmaidens […]

The folks at the American Conservative Union did not get the memo about the GOP’s painful election loss of 2012 — so the group forgot that you win elections through addition, not subtraction. Thus, the conservative’s conservative organization did not invite New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to its annual Conservative […]

Given his track record on marital fidelity, former President Bill Clinton is not the person I would consult about “committed, loving relationships.” Clinton used those words in a Washington Post op-ed last week, urging the Supreme Court to overturn the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as the legal union of one […]

This is not the latest Lifetime TV reality show, but the state of affairs in the nation’s largest city. The past few years New York City has taken some pretty big “Nanny State” steps. They have eliminated smoking indoors and at outdoor stadiums, stopped the use of Trans fat, reduced salt in cooking, and most […]

It was on St. Patrick’s Day 1988 when an unexpected visitor arrived at Pat Troy’s Irish pub in Alexandria, Va – President Ronald Reagan. For 27 years, it’s been a favorite watering hole for Washington insiders. Some of Reagan’s advance men had been regulars. They secretly arranged the president’s visit. Just before noon, the pub […]