Category: Column

The most effective move in electoral politics is to rebut an opponent’s charges and show how they are misrepresentations and falsehoods. Media guru Tony Schwartz once said, “Everyone likes a fighter, but nobody likes a dirty fighter.” Negatives have their place in every campaign. But when one of them is an obvious stretch, twisting facts […]

Religious faith is a source of strength in many people’s lives. But religious faith when taken too far can prove ludicrous — or disastrous. On Oct. 22, 1844, thousand of Millerites, having sold all their possessions, climbed to the top of hills in Upstate New York to await the return of Jesus and the end […]

We have entered a new phase of the endless Occupy Wall Street sleepover. Not working is hard work. After a month of tying up the police, generating mounds of trash, railing against Jews while holding up “Nazi Bankers” signs, grappling with pervs, rapists and thieves in their ranks, communing with avowed communists, and hobnobbing with […]

What are we to think about a president and vice president who blow nearly a trillion dollars in borrowed money, accept no responsibility for it and then traverse the nation trying to convince Americans that if we don’t spend half that much again, people will die from dilapidated bridges and women will be raped because […]

Networks hungry for viewers know the cheapest way to nab eyeballs is to produce a “reality show” with no stars and often uber-sleazy, supposedly-unscripted-but-in-reality-very-scripted content. But in the rush for the prized 18-49 adult viewers, what about the millions of youngsters, the audience aged 11 to 17, who are also lured into the soup? The […]

The Occupy Wall Street folks tell us to blame Wall Street for the nation’s financial troubles. Notice the no-fly zone over President Barack Obama. Where are the anti-President Barack Obama signs or the verbal chants denouncing the President? Imagine the protests/sit-ins/rallies/mass marches on Pennsylvania Avenue — not Wall Street — if after two years of […]

We’ve been hearing a lot about immigration on the campaign trail, most of it based on outdated assumptions and echoing the arguments made when Congress was considering so-called comprehensive immigration reform bills in 2006 and 2007. But up on Capitol Hill, there appears to be progress — bipartisan progress, even — toward changing our immigration […]

Dear Lady and Gentlemen, As you all know, we are living in parlous times, the most economically precarious since the Great Depression and the most militarily threatening since the fall of the Soviet Union. Many of our citizens fear this great country of ours is on the edge of collapse. Desperation stalks the land. Yet […]

President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have led increasingly successful efforts to pit Americans against one another through the politics of hate and envy. Attacking CEO salaries, the president — last year during his Midwest tour — said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” Let’s look at CEO salaries, […]

What’s there to say about Occupy Wall Street? The answer isn’t so simple. Some complain about taxpayer bailouts of businesses. Good for them. In a true free market, failing firms would go out of business. They couldn’t turn to Washington for help. But many protesters say they’re against capitalism. Now things get confusing. What do […]

Walter Cronkite’s longtime producer Leslie Midgley once wrote that, “News is what an editor decides it is.” News today is what TV producers decide can help President Obama. News that hurts isn’t news at all. In the last week, network anchors like Brian Williams repeated endlessly that the Occupy Wall Street protests are “increasingly resonating.” […]

For the past few years, fear of China’s predatory mercantilism has been steadily growing in America, both amongst the public and in elite business and political circles. But last week, for the first time, one could discern the genuine possibility that America might actually do something about it — even if it means a trade […]

“David Axelrod, President Barack Obama’s senior campaign strategist, pushed back against negative media accounts surrounding the president’s approval rating and said recent polling shows the majority of Americans agree with Obama’s plan to create jobs.” — CNN Question: President Barack Obama is proposing a new affordable jobs plan that is supported by economists* and is […]

One of my son’s Suzuki violin teachers had a wise twist on an old saying: “If at first you don’t succeed, try something else.” The corollary? “When you do succeed, don’t stop. Do it again.” The White House could use some remedial Suzuki lessons in economics. They’ve got everything completely bass-ackward. In February 2009, President […]

In 1980, facing a terrible economy, Ronald Reagan called for a new tax program: 10-10-10. : Based on the Kemp-Roth bill, he called for 10 percent cuts in income taxes for three years. : He got it, and it kindled 20 years of prosperity. Now Herman Cain understands that we need fundamental reform to get our economy […]

I feel like a disappointment to my boyfriend of seven months. I’m 28; he’s 35 and Mr. Smart. He is a Brit and was a top student at Cambridge. He says everyone expected him to become Prime Minister, but he decided to buck their expectations and become a portrait painter. Although he earns a good […]

One of the ongoing discussions we hear is that of family values. There are some who try to identify them; others say there are no established family values. The reason people have been unable to isolate and identify family values, in my opinion, is very simple: There are no “family” values because the values that […]

Random thoughts on the passing scene: Like so many people, in so many countries, who started out to “spread the wealth,” Barack Obama has ended up spreading poverty. Have you ever heard anyone as incoherent as the people staging protests across the country? Taxpayers ought to be protesting against having their money spent to educate […]

As I recently tweeted (@chucknorris), I read through the book “The Miracle of Freedom: Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World,” by Chris and Ted Stewart. I highly recommend it. Immediately afterward, I started reading their other book, “Seven Miracles That Saved America,” and I have been equally inspired by it. But it has prompted […]

The major difference between Hitler and the Communist genocidal murderers — Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot — was what groups they chose for extermination. For Hitler, first Jews and ultimately Slavs and other “non-Aryans” were declared the enemy and unworthy of life. For the Communists, the rich — the bourgeoisie, land owners, and capitalists — […]

President Obama acts as though he merely sympathizes with the Wall Street occupiers’ “broad-based frustration” about how America’s financial system works, but he’s doing a lot more than sympathizing. He’s fanning their flames. Perhaps we should take a look at what, exactly, Obama is supporting and contrast it with the tea party movement he so […]