“We will restore science to its rightful place … ” So intoned a “dismissive and derisive” President Barack Obama in his first inaugural. It’s been oft quoted in the five years since (frequently by me, I’ll confess) for its arrogance and condescension, which has continuing relevance, but before turning to the left’s latest departure from […]

There are two types of gold investors: those trying to make money on short-term market timing and those looking for long-term asset preservation. It was the fear-driven trading of the former that helped gold break $1900 in 2011, and for good reason – stormy markets steer investors to safe havens. But gold’s fortune has shifted […]

Is President Obama sleeping well on his Hawaiian holiday? I can think of many families of American soldiers who might not be enjoying the same bliss right now. That’s because 2014 opens with alarming news that the Afghan government will free an estimated 650 prisoners from a Bagram detention facility — including scores involved in […]

On Jan. 1, the Centennial State (it hasn’t yet changed its nickname to “The Rocky Mountain High State”) became the first place in the country to legalize marijuana sales for recreational purposes. And Brandon Harris is stoked. The 24-year-old Harris drove 20 hours from Cincinnati, along with a smoking buddy, to be the first Ohioans […]

A number of news items from the past few days underscore the painful reality that liberals are wholly unrepentant about their exploitation of the race issue and have no intention of changing their ways. John Nolte, on Breitbart, reported that MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel grotesquely lampooned a photo of Mitt Romney with his […]

In 1793, the envoy Lord Macartney appeared before the Qianlong emperor in Beijing and asked for British trading rights in China. “Our ways have no resemblance to yours, and even were your envoy competent to acquire some rudiments of them, he could not transport them to your barbarous land,” the long-reigning (1736-96) emperor replied in […]

Lots of things that should have happened in 2013 did not. We were supposed to have long ago reached “peak oil” and an age of always-higher gas prices. Wind and solar power — and a reduced lifestyle — were our dismal future. But someone or something did not cooperate with gloomy government predictions. After all […]

Michael Steele, then-chair of the Republican National Committee, criticized Obama’s stimulus plan as “a wish list from a lot of people who have been on the sidelines for years … to get a little bling, bling.” Steele, who wanted to expand the GOP’s appeal to young voters, used the expression to, in Steele’s words, “take […]

In his State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” Today, with roughly the same number of people below the poverty level as in 1964 and with many addicted to government “benefits,” robbing them of a work ethic, it is clear that the poor have mostly […]