Category: Column

Hey, who’s up for a stiff dose of “See, I told you so?” For the past several years, medical professionals have warned that the federal electronic medical records mandate — buried in the trillion-dollar Obama stimulus of 2009 — would do more harm than good. Their diagnosis, unfortunately, is on the nose. The Quack-in-Chief peddled […]

The U.S. presence in the Middle East, which for years provided some control over one of the world’s most volatile regions, appears to have dissolved into chaos. By removing Saddam Hussein from power, the U.S. removed his tyrannical but stabilizing hand from the powder keg that always existed in the poorly designed nation state of […]

Heading into a presidential election year, it’s important to remember that political involvement is but one of many ways we can work together to solve problems. Sometimes it’s the best approach; sometimes it’s not. When our political system is broken beyond repair — as it is today — there’s a need for other approaches in […]

How is it that people – supposed political experts – can’t figure out why Joe Biden isn’t running? On the radio yesterday, Sean Hannity opened his show with utter astonishment over the announcement by crazy Uncle Joe that he would not be running for president.   Sean said he couldn’t understand what the last several […]

“It’s about what these women will let guys get away with.” You may not expect to hear commentary like that at your garden-variety think tank panel discussion, but it got pretty lively at the American Enterprise Institute discussion on the topic “Do Healthy Families Affect the Wealth of States?” Megan McArdle of Bloomberg View is […]

Is there such a thing as being too politically correct in San Francisco? Yes — but a public official has to overreach drastically to hit that mark. Everett Middle School principal Lena Van Haren did just that when she chose to withhold the results of her school’s Oct. 9 student council election because students had […]

“Gun control advocates,” reports Politico, “frustrated by repeated failures to pass even moderate restrictions on gun ownership, are trying to forge an alliance with Black Lives Matter and the criminal justice reform movement in a strategy shift aimed at overcoming the lobbying power of the National Rifle Association.” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently said: […]

With apologies to Bob Dylan, you can’t tell which way the wind is blowing without a weather vane, particularly if you are indoors looking out. We had no way of knowing what was happening in the bowels of the Justice Department and the White House before Joe Biden decided not to run. Now, we know: […]

A recent New York Times headline read, “Raising Taxes on the Wealthiest Would Pay for Bold Plans.” The story says that by soaking the rich “the government could raise large amounts of revenue … while still allowing them to take home a majority of their income.” Nowhere in the story, nor in the endless promises […]

You may not have noticed, but Lincoln Chafee, the erstwhile Republican U.S. senator and Independent-turned-Democratic governor, had one penetrating comment at the Democrats’ debate Tuesday night. “But let me just say this about income inequality,” he said toward the end. “We’ve had a lot of talk over the last few minutes, hours or tens of […]

One of the most depressing features of modern American life lies in the left’s total war on every facet of our shared culture. It isn’t enough to produce movies with Steve Carell and Julianne Moore and Ellen Page about lesbian partners seeking legal protection for conveyance of property. Now, even comic books must be hijacked […]

Combating bad ideas would be much easier if they were all backed by ill intent. More often than not, however, the opposite is true, and the worst government policies are enacted with the intention to help. Such is apparently the case with the aggressive campaign by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to eliminate the payday […]

In the sadistic era of fraudulent Hope and Change, inspectors general inside the federal government have been kicked, neutered and starved of the authority and information they need to do their jobs. It’s transparently clear: President Obama loathes and fears independent watchdogs. Accountability is an empty talking point without whistleblower protection and investigative autonomy. That […]

In a democracy, citizens must be able to criticize their leaders. It’s a reason America’s founders put free speech in the Bill of Rights. I assumed that right is safe in the United States. So I was shocked to learn what happened in Wisconsin. Before dawn, Deborah Jordahl was awakened by the sound of cops […]

Here’s my question to you: If an evil person is guaranteed that he can inflict physical pain upon others and guaranteed to never suffer pain himself, what happens to his willingness to inflict pain? You say, “What do you mean, Williams?” OK, I will make my question more concrete. Suppose a young punk knows that […]

Someday, the mysterious Individual A in the Dennis Hastert $3.5 million hush-money case may come forward and tell stories about Hastert, the former Republican House Speaker. I figure he’ll show up on some network TV morning show, wedged in between recipes and celebrity news. And then we’ll learn why the former speaker felt the need […]

Obamacare is heading toward a death spiral. The Obama administration is having trouble selling insurance plans to healthy people. That’s a big problem: When the young and healthy don’t enroll, premiums have to be hiked to cover the costs of older sicker people, discouraging even more young people from signing up. Last Thursday, the administration […]

PARIS — Going through some old emails recently, I came across a note dated May 29, 2001, from one Justin Trudeau, a 29-year-old schoolteacher at West Point Grey Academy in my hometown of Vancouver and the eldest son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. (This anecdote does nothing to dispel the myth that everyone in […]

Bring along lots of dry statistics — it’s the very best sauce a humorous book can have. Ingeniously used, they just make a reader smack their chops in gratitude. – Mark Twain   If you were betting on a hike in interest rates by the Fed this year, so far— as in years past —you’ve […]

In recent months there have been a series of cases reported in the media, where some teenage thug — white, black or Hispanic in different cases — has been stopped by a policeman for some routine violation of the law and, instead of complying with lawful instructions, such as “show me your driver’s license,” chooses […]

There are many opinionated people on each side of the political spectrum, including me, but I haven’t heard of any conservatives trying to muzzle leftists. Liberals on the other hand? Ha. Man-made global warming liberals ridicule skeptics as corrupt or brain-dead deniers, and their advocate in chief, President Obama, habitually derides conservatives for rejecting his […]

If you want to understand today’s Democratic Party, a word search of the Democrats’ debate last week provides a pretty clear picture. Here is how many times key words were spoken: Wall Street: 23 Tax: 20 Inequality: 9 Wealthy: 7 Now, compare the number of times other national concerns were mentioned: ISIS: 4 Terror/ists/ism: 2 […]

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, speaking in San Francisco, a town infamous for its sanctuary city policies, said last month that sanctuary city rules are “not acceptable” and “counterproductive.” Where, then, does Johnson stand on the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, introduced by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to withhold some federal grants […]

When President Obama meets in Washington November 9 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I would imagine Netanyahu’s main concern will be to find out exactly what the U.S. means by “infringement” as it applies to the Iran nuclear agreement. What exactly will the U.S. do when, not if, Iran violates the deal? What if […]

Rupert Murdoch got the predictable avalanche of liberal pushback when he recently tweeted, “Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black president who can properly address the racial divide? And much else.” What? Murdoch is suggesting our current president is not a “real black”? Soon, following the explosion of liberal outrage, another tweet […]

Remember all the way back in February of this year when Rudy Giuliani  http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/rudy-giuliani-president-obama-doesnt-love-america-115309 said this? “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way […]

Both proponents and opponents of San Francisco’s “Airbnb measure” — Proposition F — see the November ballot initiative as a David vs. Goliath contest. Both sides also see themselves as David. And both sides have a point. The measure would impose additional restrictions on short-term rentals. Supporters can claim to be the little guys because […]