Ka-ching! Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot soared to $1.5 billion as get-rich-quick mania seized America this week. But you don’t need to wait for the drawing to know who’ll score the royal payoff. The biggest winner of the multistate numbers game is — drumroll, please — Uncle Sam. Powerball is a government-sponsored gambling racket in 44 states, […]

In the commercial that President Obama released prior to his final State of the Union address, Obama said he would tell Congress how “optimistic” he is about America’s future. Good. Politicians and the media are at their most dangerous when they try to scare us, telling us disaster is on the way unless we follow, […]

Michael Hiltzik, a columnist and Los Angeles Times reporter, wrote an article titled “Does a minimum wage raise hurt workers? Economists say: We don’t know.” Uncertain was his conclusion from a poll conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets, at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, of 42 nationally ranked economists on the […]

Last week a major diplomatic crisis developed between Saudi Arabia and Iran over the Saudi execution of Nimr al Nimr, a charismatic Shiite cleric and anti-Sunni political activist. Nimr’s execution was an important political decision. On its face, it served to increase tensions in the developing struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional influence, […]

Bush V. Gore decided a single election. But the case heard by the Supreme Court on Monday could impact elections for many years. The Justices’ remarks during arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association point to a major setback looming for public unions. The Court will likely rule that teachers and other unionized public workers […]

PARIS — Western Europe’s mindless and zombie-like prioritizing of humanitarianism over self-preservation is beginning to have alarming consequences. More than 500 women filed police complaints after a New Year’s Eve celebration in Cologne, Germany, with about 40 percent of the women alleging sexual assault. Of the 32 suspects identified by police, 22 are asylum seekers, […]

Last year, there were 452 suicide terror attacks across the world. Four hundred and fifty of them were committed by Muslims. Last month, Muslims pledging allegiance to ISIS murdered 14 people in San Bernardino, California. Last week, thousands of Muslims around Europe, from Germany to Sweden to Switzerland, sexually assaulted hundreds of young women on […]

According to conventional wisdom, the GOP nominates the guy whose turn it is, while the Democrats look for a savior. As Bill Clinton once said, “In every presidential election, Democrats want to fall in love. Republicans just fall in line.” George H.W. Bush came in second to Ronald Reagan in 1980. As the sitting vice […]

The NFL playoffs will be on TV in millions of American homes this weekend, and the games begin. Mom and dad in their jerseys, kids in their team gear, snacks on the coffee table, beer in the fridge, everybody reaching for something, the eyes of the family eager for impact, a truly American scene. Advertisers […]

USA Today wrote http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/10/syrian-refugee-state-of-the-union-address-guest-of-first-lady/78523490/ on Sunday that “President Obama is taking a dramatic step to show he opposes Republican efforts to slow or halt the admission of refugees over terrorist concerns: He has invited a Syrian refugee to attend his State of the Union Address.” Is the refugee going to be seated next to the empty “Gun Violence” chair?   […]