Columnist.
The religious left feels left out. According to an article in The New York Times, liberal clergy feel excluded from the political arena and blame the religious right for occupying what they once believed was their exclusive territory. They are, according to the story's headline, "seeking to break right's grip on nation's moral agenda."
All politicians lie, because they are human and all humans lie. The question before us is this: If President Trump lied to FBI Director James Comey, should that "lie," lead to impeachment?
In television it's called a "loop," the replaying of the same scene over and over and over again.
For sheer hilarity and hyperbole it's hard to beat a recent headline on a Washington Post editorial opposing President Trump's decision to remove the U.S. from the nonbinding and unenforceable Paris climate agreement.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had enough of President Trump. Speaking last Sunday in a Munich beer hall, Merkel suggested that Europe may no longer be able to rely on the United States as a faithful ally and that the continent "really must take our fate into our own hands."
The terrorism scenario is always the same. Events repeat themselves, like in the film "Groundhog Day."
A policy forged in theology is not about to be changed by the urging of "infidels."
Trusting Saudi Arabia to combat terrorists and extremists and "drive them out," as President Trump called on the kingdom and other Arab and Muslim nations to do in his Riyadh speech, is akin to forging an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan to combat racism and anti-Semitism. Saudi Arabia has for years promoted the very evil they now "commit" to fighting through a newly established Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. Never forget that 15 of the 9-11 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia.
Roger Ailes was no genius, not in the league of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein. The founding chairman of Fox News Channel, who died last week from complications after suffering a fall, understood and respected Middle America from whence he came.
The ransomware cyberattack that wormed its way into at least 74 countries recently exposed new vulnerabilities in the UK's National Health Service (NHS), as if it weren't vulnerable enough.
During an interview last June in his New York office, I asked Donald Trump about his use of language that many considered insulting and divisive. "Will there be a pivot for you from the primaries to the general election campaign?"
Awards once meant something. There was a time not that long ago when they were given in recognition of important accomplishments. Today, we tend to value celebrity over steady achievement. Fame is paramount. It matters little how one attains it. The Kardashians are just one of many examples.
President Trump is about to score a religious trifecta, visiting Saudi Arabia, Israel and Rome, the "home" of three monotheistic religions. The president has said he wants to make the ultimate deal and achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
President Trump and I have something in common. We were both invited to last Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner and we declined.
The headline in the March 5, 1929 edition of the Chicago Tribune read, "Plain Citizen Coolidge Shuts Desk and Quietly Goes Home." Calvin Coolidge would write a newspaper column from Northampton, Massachusetts, for which he presumably was paid a pittance, but other than that he refused to exploit his notoriety or accomplishments as president for money.
President Trump did something Monday I have long advocated. He met with a small group of conservative journalists, pundits and radio talk show hosts. I was among them.
As is almost always the case, signs of trouble preceded the latest shooting in Paris, which left one police officer dead and wounded two bystanders before police killed the gunman, later identified as French national Karim Cheurfi, a known criminal with a long, violent record. ISIS claimed to be behind the attack. According to police, a note praising ISIS fell out of Cheurfi's pocket when he fell.
There was a moment at Press Secretary Sean Spicer's White House briefing Monday that was significant. Asked by a reporter about North Korea's missile launch last weekend, Spicer said the administration was aware of the launch and that "it failed." End of story. Next question, please.
President Trump has pledged to reform our tax code, which, to most people, currently reads like a foreign language. Trump said tax reform would be a top priority for his administration, but he is up against powerful lobbyists working for the tax preparation industry and also charitable and other organizations who want to keep things just as they are, since some donors would be less likely to contribute if they lose their ability to claim deductions on their taxes.
Nearly three dozen men sit on death row in Arkansas, where capital punishment has been suspended since 2005. Unless clemency is granted, seven of them, an eighth man was granted a temporary reprieve, will be given lethal injections all within a 10-day period, between April 17 and 27.
