Category: Column

A story is told of Natan Sharansky, before he was arrested in the former Soviet Union for the crime of studying Judaism and wanting to emigrate to Israel. On July 14, 1978, Sharansky stood before a Soviet court about to sentence him to fifteen years in prison and said, “For 2,000 years the Jewish people, […]

Like teenagers on vacation with their parents, Republicans from blue states and Democrats from red states don’t want to be seen with party elders. “I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Mitt Romney,” Elizabeth Emken, the Republican who will face off against Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November, recently told me. “That’s the […]

A story is told of Natan Sharansky, before he was arrested in the former Soviet Union for the crime of studying Judaism and wanting to emigrate to Israel. On July 14, 1978, Sharansky stood before a Soviet court about to sentence him to fifteen years in prison and said, “For 2,000 years the Jewish people, […]

Each party convention usually produces a bounce in the polls of 6-10 points, though they often cancel each other out. But this year, there will be a difference. The Republicans will gain much more from their convention than the Democrats will from theirs. This year, there will be no offsetting bounces; the advantage will be […]

Interesting that in an email centric world, the United States Postal Service continues to push the importance of direct mail: —: “Direct mail creates a one-on-one connection that’s hard for other media channels to match,” says Tom Foti, manager, Direct Mail and Periodicals for USPS. “The average household receives only two pieces of direct mail a day […]

The recession officially ended all the way back in 2009.: Yet… Household income is down sharply since the recession ended three years ago, according to a report released Thursday, providing another sign of the stubborn weakness of the economic recovery. From June 2009 to June 2012, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 4.8 percent, to $50,964, according […]

No matter how loudly the American people shout about illegal immigration, thegovernment never seems to listen. Ten officers and agents for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) including ICE Agents Union President Chris Crane, today filed a lawsuit against Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton challenging […]

Mike Huckabee built up so much indy cred with Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day and he’sthrowing it all away on Todd Akin.   The Party’s leaders have for reasons that aren’t rational, left [Akin] behind on the political battlefield, wounded and bleeding, a casualty of his self-inflicted, but not intentional wound. In a Party that supposedly stands […]

Breaking news: The Fishwrap of Record has finally discovered that the Obama administration gives its Chicago corporate pals special access to power and regulatory favoritism. On Thursday, The Not-So-New York Times published an A1 story titled “Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility.” Everyone, put on your shocked faces! “With energy an increasingly […]

Todd Akin’s idiocy appears to be infectious. The evil genius of the Missouri congressman’s comments is that they lend themselves to such broad interpretations — and misinterpretations. By now his remarks are familiar, but just in case … Akin told a local TV interviewer: “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from […]

When Republicans formally nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan next week, the race against President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be officially underway. Yet while the two teams represent different ideological views, different upbringings, different faith backgrounds and different experiences, neither of them has yet inspired any confidence among voters. Just 32 percent […]

Count on the United Nations yet again to be fools. : The Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is attending the nonaligned movement’s annual meeting next week, to be held in: Iran. : What a public relations victory for: Iran: — absurd and asinine behavior by the UN as usual. Continued kudos to: Jay Sekulow: and the ACLJ who are working with: Israel: todefend: Israel: and pressure President […]

At what point do you: go so far past diversity that you’re just being quirky? The Department of Justice is certainly testing those limits with its hiring practices. The PJ Tatler has obtained documents from the Justice Department detailing efforts to recruit attorneys and staff who are dwarfs or who have “psychiatric disabilities” or “severe intellectual […]

Is there anything, anything at all that Americans can do without having some government busybody sticking his nose into it? Apparently,: not even birthday parties are safe. Pitchfork-wielding Virginia farmers rallied to support a woman who claims local officials came down on her for, among other things, hosting a children’s birthday party on her spread. Martha […]

What does it say about our country that we semi-regularly see reports of phony “hate crimes”: like this one: in the media? The lesbian who claimed three masked men broke into her home last month, tied her up, carved anti-gay slurs into her body and tried to set her house on fire will be arrested, after police […]

Relying on Todd Akin’s sense of decency has not worked. Within hours of his idiotic comments about “legitimate rape,” Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS pulled out millions of dollars in funding for the Missouri Senate race. Akin didn’t get the hint. Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, withdrew all funding from the Missouri race. […]

As gas prices climb back toward $4 a gallon, the Obama administration — facing a tough re-election campaign and rising Middle East tensions — is once again considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. For years, administrations have bought and stored oil for emergencies, in fear of a cutoff of imported oil, as happened during the […]

The American system of democracy is under threat. It’s under threat from an Obama campaign that seeks to polarize Americans along race and class lines. It’s under threat from a Democratic Party that seeks to pit those who pay taxes against those who don’t. But most of all, it’s under attack from America’s public sector […]

Rep. Pete Stark, 80, has seven children; three are minors, the product of his third marriage. He once told the Los Angeles Times that he calls the three youngest his “second litter.” Lucky Stark. Thanks to a dated Social Security system, he enjoys a “second-litter” subsidy. As Carolyn Lochhead wrote in The Chronicle, Stark has […]

Readers with long memories may recall that Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors and nominee for secretary of defense, got into trouble when he told a Senate committee, “What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and what’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” That was in 1953, […]

It’s trapping season. The targets are Republicans, whom the Democratic-friendly media (the trappers) hunt in order to smear — especially the Romney-Ryan ticket — forcing them off message. The bait in the latest case is the issue of abortion in cases of rape. The hunter’s target was Rep. Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican, who is […]

In the face of growing fears of a renewed global plunge into economic depression and a climate of low apparent price inflation, investors might expect commodities and precious metals to be falling in price. Instead, gold continues to hover around a relatively high $1,640 an ounce and silver at $29. At the same time, central […]

The Zionist Organization of America, one of the oldest and largest Pro-Israel organizations in the US is urging the: Democratic National Convention (DNC) to cancel Jimmy Carter’s scheduled address to the gathering.: The ZOA has pointed to President Carter’s decades-long hostility towards, and defaming of, Israel and advocacy of negotiations with Hamas, a terrorist organization that calls […]

Even if Keynesian stimulus worked – and the historical evidence overwhelmingly shows that it doesn’t –: this doesn’t seem very ah…stimulating. The Labor Department paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus funds to a public relations firm to run more than 100 commercials touting the Obama administration’s “green training” job efforts on two […]

Over at: The Root, it was asked: Does Paul Ryan’s Black Ex-Girlfriend Matter? As reported on Twitter by CNN’s Pete Hamby, Ryan said he has a black sister-in-law, but perhaps even more interesting, his “college sweetheart” was African American. So here is the million-dollar question: Is the fact that Ryan has dated interracially a noteworthy detail to […]

Of course, given the shape that Detroit is in, would it look all that different after a nuke? All right, all right, that’s hyperbole, but: this story: is not just ridiculous, it helps explain what’s gone wrong with Detroit, Michigan, and the American auto industry. Despite having no horses, the water and sewerage department for the city […]

Can we stop calling the hosts of the presidential debates “moderators”? They’re left-erators. It’s time for the old media godfathers to end the pretense that they’re fair and neutral observers of the American political scene. And it’s time for the GOP to stop perpetuating these rigged exercises in futility. Last week, the Commission on Presidential […]