Columnist.
At the National Prayer Breakfast last week, President Trump promised to "totally destroy" the so-called "Johnson Amendment," a law that prohibits churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status.
Just days into the Trump administration, the left's narrative is clear. First, it was that Trump is an "illegitimate" president because he didn't win the popular vote, claims about "voter fraud" notwithstanding. Then the left tried name-calling. Unfit. Immoral. Crude. High-handed. Fascist. His supporters stuck with him when similar tactics were tried during the campaign.
Republican members of Congress met in Philadelphia last weekend for what was called a retreat. It might have been more accurately labeled an advance.
President Trump's critics are finding it difficult to stay focused following a flurry of actions taken by the new American CEO. In just the first two working days of the new administration, the president has signed an executive order withdrawing from the negotiating process of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), aligning him with socialist independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who broke with former President Obama over the agreement. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama oppose withdrawal. Strange bedfellows, indeed.
President Donald Trump's inaugural address may not have risen to the rhetorical level of John F. Kennedy ("The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans" and "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country"), or Ronald Reagan's critique of government ("Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem"), or even Barack Obama's in 2009 ("On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord"), but the speech set out large goals, many details of which are yet to be revealed.
Some years ago a friend of mine wrote a book titled "The Seven Last Words of the Church, or, We've Never Tried It That Way Before." It is about what he regarded as the entrenched bureaucracies in his denomination that are reluctant — even hostile — to change.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development-designate, told a story. He said his mother was a domestic who cleaned beautiful homes. One day she asked him if he would rather live in those nice houses or the house in which he and his brother lived in Detroit. She told him that only he could decide the type of home he would eventually live in by how much he studied in school and the choices he made for his life.
Presidents from both parties have a long history of lying and attempting to dictate who should rule other nations.
Meryl Streep has played many roles in her long career and holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor. Among her portrayals was British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. At the Golden Globe Awards Sunday night, Streep behaved as if she actually had been elected to high office, entitling her to mount a high horse.
Many top U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed a secret intelligence operation for the purpose of discrediting Hillary Clinton, thereby helping Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election.
Chicago has come a long way from the idealized lyric "my kind of town, Chicago is," which Frank Sinatra made famous. True, Chicago has a history of gangland murders going back to the days of Al Capone, but 2016 set a new and lamentable record. According to CNN, citing figures released by the Chicago Police Department, Chicago experienced a surge in violent crime in 2016. There were 762 murders, 3,550 shootings and 4,331 shooting victims. This in a city with strict gun laws.
In his recent speech excoriating Israel for refusing to commit suicide by allowing a sworn enemy to have a state adjoining the Jewish state, Secretary of State John Kerry claimed the U.S. government "did not draft or originate" the UN resolution critical of Israeli "settlements."
A headline that would become famous appeared in the New York Daily News in October 1975 after then-President Gerald Ford denied federal assistance to spare the city from bankruptcy. It read: "Ford to City: Drop Dead." President Obama has told Israel much the same. By instructing his U.N. ambassador not to veto a resolution condemning Israel for building so-called settlements on disputed land, the president has aided and comforted that nation's enemies. The U.S. abstention will inevitably invite stepped-up attacks against Israelis, as well as calls for more boycotts by the European Union, whose ugly anti-Semitic past and present is well documented.
Recent terrorist attacks in Ankara, Turkey, and Berlin, Germany, add to a growing list of incidents that are becoming increasingly difficult to remember. Does one begin the list with the plane hijackings in the '60s and '70s, or the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, or the USS Cole attack in 2000, or the second World Trade Center attack in 2001, or Ft. Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris or Nice? And that's not all of them, nor will it be the end of them, if we don't have a better response.
Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. Not if it's a familiarity with Christmas. While America and much of the world are focusing attention on the coming of the new president, little attention is paid to a gift not even the world's richest person could pay for and which is even today not received by many to whom it is offered.
Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) once said that, "Those who travel the high road of humility will not be troubled by heavy traffic." That descriptive and funny line came to mind after I heard what first lady Michelle Obama told Oprah Winfrey last week in a TV interview. Because of Donald Trump's election, she told the former talk show host, "We are feeling what not having hope feels like."
Mainstream media are suddenly concerned about "fake news." It used to be that phony stories were easy to spot. They usually focused on space aliens or mysterious creatures found wandering deep in the woods. My personal favorite in this genre was a 1992 "story" in the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News that claimed the bones of Adam and Eve had been discovered in Colorado. A "leading archaeologist" was quoted, presumably to add credence to the fake story.
When Mike Pence becomes the 48th vice president of the United States next month, he will take on the role of a political lobbyist for Donald Trump's activist agenda.
The consensus in Israel is that the relationship between the Jewish state and the United States is going to improve in a Trump administration, says former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Zalman Shoval.
Only five of the 335 men who survived the unprovoked attack that sunk the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941 remain alive. Donald Stratton, 94, is one of them. He has added to the historical knowledge of that day and the beginning of America's entry into World War II in a new book, "All the Gallant Men: The First Memoir By a USS Arizona Survivor."
