Category: Column

By now the script should be familiar. A bombing or a mass shooting occurs and the media immediately look for a simple cause. Invariably, they turn to talk radio or some other conservative pit of “intolerance.” Within recent memory are tragedies like the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 1999 massacre at Columbine, the 2007 Virginia […]

Who would have ever thought that: a single mother of 14 would be reduced to this? Come to think of it, just about everybody. Nadya Suleman, better known as “Octomom,” upset many Americans with the announcement that she had decided to go on welfare back in April. The mother of fourteen, eight of whom she gave […]

Just yesterday it seemed like Greece was the Western European nation going down the tubes and, of course, it still is. However,: these scenes from Spain seem awfully familiar, don’t they?? Thousands of jobless Spaniards marched through Madrid Saturday in the latest angry demonstrations against economic crisis cuts, as fears rose for the country’s financial stability. […]

Is there anyone on the Left who actually cares about the law anymore or is the Left fine with a President asserting dictatorial powers as long as he’s a liberal? Judging by this: column at the Huffington Post: by Robert David Jaffee, it’s the latter. President Obama has said that he would rather be a good one-term […]

I would venture to guess that the folks filing in to see the latest Batman installment in Aurora, Colorado last Thursday evening didn’t figure on over 70 of them getting shot before the credits rolled. The last count I received before filing this column was 12 dead and 59 wounded. As the news starting pouring […]

This is a tale of two cities. No, not Dickens’ phlegmatic London and passionate Paris. Nor the two neighborhoods Charles Murray contrasted in his recent bestseller “Coming Apart” — prosperous but isolated Belmont (actually, Mitt Romney’s home for decades) and needy and disorganized Fishtown. These two cities have names you may not recognize but which […]

After he booby-trapped his apartment with explosives, James Holmes walked into a theater Friday night and opened fire on a crowd waiting to see the first showing of the new Batman movie. He shot scores and murdered a dozen. Holmes acted for reasons unknown, but his actions were pure evil. His actions also were his […]

As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, the son of Penny Waga who was born in a DP camp in Poland, I always have struggled with checking the box labeled “white” when asked about “race”. The Jews are a people of our own — and it’s a complex issue, and just came across an interesting article […]

In January, prosecutors would not believe Eliana Lopez when she said her husband, San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, did not hurt her when he bruised her arm during a Dec. 31 argument on the dubious grounds that as a battered woman, she was effectively brainwashed to rationalize the abuse. In July, as Mayor Ed Lee […]

The media: loves to report on psychological studies that confirm its existing biases: and if it requires a sensational headline that isn’t even remotely justified by the study, well, that’s just the price the media has to pay to get attention. Study: Girls As Young As 6 Are Thinking Of Selves As Sex Objects A new study […]

Over at Forbes, there is: speculation from Andrew McAfee that in the future, it’ll be the humans who become obsolete instead of the machines. To articulate the core of his argument, McAfee draws from the concept of exponential growth patterns. The numbers at the beginning of any exponential curve (1+2+4+8+16….etc) are easy to comprehend. It isn’t […]

There was a time, within living memory, when the achievements of others were not only admired but were often taken as an inspiration for imitation of the same qualities that had served these achievers well, even if we were not in the same field of endeavor and were not expecting to achieve on the same […]

When it comes to soldiers, breast-feeding moms, toddlers and grannies, the Transportation Security Administration is not just hands-on, it’s hands-all-over. But when it comes to illegal alien pilot trainees, our homeland security bureaucracy’s policy is still stuck in pre-9/11 mode: Hands off, blinders on. This week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report on […]

“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. … If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. […]

Someone recently asked me what campaign advice I would give Mitt Romney if I were in his inner circle. Let me respond. First, let me say that though I have been concerned that Romney has not been aggressive enough to date, we have begun to see a different side of him in the past few […]

Over the past few weeks, President Obama and his campaign team have launched a furious attack on Mitt Romney’s record as head of Bain Capital, a highly successful venture capital firm. There is clear evidence that the attacks have had some impact. Forty-one percent of voters now see Romney’s record in the private sector primarily […]

If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. —: Barack Obama

You’ve probably already heard: about the Democratic politicians skipping their national convention: because they’re afraid it’s going to be an anchor around their waist at election time. Over the past few days, a handful of Democratic candidates and elected officials have announced, through their campaigns, that they will not attend the 2012 convention in Charlotte, to be […]

Did you know that if American immigration law had been followed, there wouldn’t have been a 9/11? You don’t hear that said very often because it steps on the pro-illegal immigration agenda so many people in the media have, but: it’s absolutely true.. Sens. Jon Kyl and Pat Roberts said in a report that “the answer […]

Before taking the oath of office, Barack Obama vowed to fundamentally transform the United States. He has certainly done so. For example, Obama has: — destroyed the job market; — sent billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street, companies overseas, his campaign contributors and public sector unions; — forced the passage of a wildly unpopular […]

In the Arabic media, there are reports that Muslim clerics — energized by the sudden emergence of Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood — are now agitating to demolish the Egyptian pyramids. According to agitated imams, the Pharaohs’ monuments represent “symbols of paganism” from Egypt’s pre-Islamic past and therefore must vanish. Don’t […]

Stephen Covey, the management guru who died this week, would have had a hard time selling his books in Benjamin Franklin’s America, or Abe Lincoln’s. His best seller “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” would have been considered a self-evident truth, one drummed into earlier Americans by schools, churches and the Puritan ethic. Today, Covey’s […]

In the wake of the terror attack on Israelis in Bulgaria that killed seven people and wounded 30 on the anniversary of the18th anniversary of an attack on the Jewish community in Buenos Aires, Israel debates what comes next.: : On days like this, one wonders what is the future? This situation of Jews being hunted and […]

It seems that one of Mitt Romney’s top surrogates, John Sununu, recently gave us a guided tour of the life cycle of a political gaffe. First, he wished that President Barack Obama “would learn how to be an American,” and then he amended the comment with a “what-I-really-meant-was” clarification, and finally, he surrendered, as they […]

Perhaps the rain made the teleprompter unreadable. That’s one thought I had on pondering Barack Obama’s comments to a rain-soaked rally in Roanoke, Va., last Friday. Perhaps he didn’t really mean what he said. Or perhaps — as is often the case with people — when unanchored from a prepared text he revealed what he […]

“Why is the modern Republican Party so opposed to allowing the rich to pay just a little bit more in taxes to help solve the debt and deficit problem in this country that they would prefer no deal at all?” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked at The Brookings Institution on Monday. First off, Murray should […]

Barack Obama’s great rhetorical gifts include the ability to make the absurd sound not only plausible, but inspiring and profound. His latest verbal triumph was to say on July 13th, “if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.” As an example, “Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business […]