Columnist.
Now that all of my inside-the-beltway, elitist, morally superior friends and colleagues have weighed in with their self-righteous denunciations of Donald Trump, it's my turn. After initially opposing his candidacy for president, I have come around to another point of view. The election of Hillary Clinton will perpetuate and probably worsen everything many people hate about our bloated and dysfunctional government, collectively and derisively known as "Washington." The election of Donald Trump will offer an opportunity — perhaps the last for decades — to "fire" or at least isolate the elites, returning the country to its constitutional boundaries.
In Florida Monday, following the bombings in New York and New Jersey, Donald Trump referred to the captured bombing suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, as an "evil thug." He then added, "Hillary Clinton is a weak and ineffective person and I will tell you, if you choose Donald Trump, these problems are going to go away far, far greater than anybody would think." Whatever one thinks of Trump's rhetoric, his is a voice of certainty at a time when a growing number of Americans appear fed up with a seemingly ineffective government, weak statements and even weaker responses. Example: Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on CNN: "What I can tell you is that we are, when it comes to ISIL, we are in a fight, a narrative fight with them, a narrative battle."
Next week's presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could determine the outcome of the election. As polls show Trump leading in some swing states and closing the gap in others, it appears the only burden he must overcome is the one Ronald Reagan shared, looking presidential enough that voters trust him with so much power. The way these debates have usually gone in the past is that the Republican candidate is asked about abortion, gay rights and other social issues and the Democratic candidate is asked about subjects that appeal to a wider range of voters. Lester Holt, the "NBC Nightly News" anchor, will moderate the first debate. Here are some questions he should ask: For Clinton: You once supported traditional marriage, but now favor same-sex marriage. Polygamists now want to be next in line to receive legal and cultural approval. Do you oppose polygamy, and if so on what basis? If elected president, how would we know you wouldn't change your mind on this issue?
In 1996, The New York Times columnist William Safire diagnosed Hillary Clinton's real problem. He called her a "congenital liar." Congenital is defined as "having by nature a specified character." Following Hillary Clinton's health scare Sunday in New York, we may have reached the conclusion author Mary McCarthy did when speaking of playwright Lillian Hellman: "Every word [Hellman] writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." A person's character is a clue to the entire person and both Clintons have displayed over many years severe character deficiencies. Abraham Lincoln said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
Every now and again secular progressives rip off their mask and tell conservatives what they really think of them. At an LGBT fundraiser last Friday in New York, Hillary Clinton one-upped President Obama, who said of conservatives during the 2008 presidential campaign: "And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." That came to be known as the "bitter clingers" speech.
One wouldn't think Hillary Clinton and former President Richard Nixon would have a lot in common, but in responding to FBI investigators that she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to retention of federal records or handling classified information," Clinton took a page straight out of Nixon's playbook. In a March 23, 1973 meeting with top aides Bob Haldeman and John Dean to discuss what Dean should say during testimony before a grand jury looking into the Watergate affair, the following exchange took place.
Economics was not one of my favorite subjects in college, so I avoided economic courses. But I do know a few things about human nature. If you tax income at too high a rate, corporations will look elsewhere for relief. Take Ireland. In 1991, Apple Corporation cut a deal with the Irish government so that only a certain bracket of its earnings would be taxed, giving it, writes Business Insider, "...a dramatically lower tax rate than it would have to pay in the U.S." In return, Apple promised jobs, lots of jobs, which it provided. The company currently employs 4,000 at its Cork campus and announced in November that it will expand that number by 1,000 by 2017. It is estimated there are 18,000 Apple jobs across the country, including over 5,000 direct Apple employees.
Loyalty oaths have been tried in the past, but eventually were struck down by the courts as either too vague, or an unconstitutional violation of free speech. These applied, as far as I can tell from reading their history, only to American citizens. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested something different. He wants to screen people coming into America to see if they share American values. Trump says he would exclude not only people who sympathize with terrorists and believe in Sharia law, but those "who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred." Think of it this way, would the NAACP admit a member of the KKK? Who would deny them their right to turn racists away?
The prize quote of this incendiary political year may go to Hillary Clinton. In response to Donald Trump's charge that the Clintons set up a pay-for-play arrangement that granted big contributors access to Clinton while she was secretary of state, Hillary Clinton said, "My work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces. I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right to keep Americans safe and protect our interests abroad." She added, "I know there's a lot of smoke, and there's no fire." Can there be smoke without fire? I asked an expert. My son, Jay Thomas, has spent most of his professional life as a firefighter. He tells me: "Very simply put, where there is smoke there is, or was, fire. Smoke is a byproduct of combustion. There are three stages of fire: smoldering, incipient and free burning. Each one (emits) smoke."
"He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them "Mankind" when they were created. (Genesis 5:2 NIV) Poor God. He, or maybe I should say, "It," was so behind the times. If the deity had only gone to Princeton University and had its consciousness raised... Princeton, that once great school whose purpose at its founding in 1746 was to train ministers and whose motto remains Dei Sub Numine Viget (Under God's Power She Flourishes), has, like other schools of "higher" learning, jumped into the deep end of the pool of political correctness. Just in time for the fall semester, Princeton has issued "Guidelines for Using Gender Inclusive Language." The guidelines, approved by the university's Office of Human Resources and Office of Communications and endorsed by the Orwellian-like Institutional Equity Planning Group as a preferred University practice, show you where this is headed.
Every election cycle we must endure challenges and allegations about fraud (conservatives) and discrimination (liberals) when it comes to voter ID laws. This year is no different. A federal court ruled that the Texas Voter ID law passed in 2011, requiring voters to present official photo identification, discriminated again poor, minority and disabled voters and ordered a judge to approve new interim rules for the Nov. 8 election. The new rules will broaden the list of acceptable forms of ID. Voters will now be able to present, among other things, an expired ID, a government check or a current utility bill. "Supporting documents don't have to have a photo, reports The Austin Chronicle, "but if they happen to, then voters will need to present the original. Otherwise, they can present a copy."
Growing up, I watched a lot of Westerns. In addition to the cowboy hero, the town sheriff was almost always a model of integrity. He stood for law and order against bank robbers, cattle rustlers and horse thieves all trying to disrupt the peace. A contemporary and real-life version of those fictional characters is Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Clarke has been trying to restore law and order after several nights of rioting following the shooting death of 23-year-old Sylville Smith by a Milwaukee police officer. Smith had a lengthy criminal record, longer than some people's resumes. He should have been in prison.
While we shouldn't live in the past, we can certainly learn from it. We are not the first humans to walk the Earth and yet too many, especially the young, suffer from the conceit that history is just a boring subject in school. PBS is rerunning episodes on its award-winning series "American Experience" on modern presidents and the challenges they faced. Each episode retraces what presidents believed to be good ideas at the time -- from Lyndon Johnson's program to wipe out poverty and defeat the communists in Vietnam, to George W. Bush's toppling of Saddam Hussein. In each episode, historians, as well as members of those administrations, are interviewed and provide perspective only hindsight can give.
Reacting to Donald Trump's speech Monday to the Detroit Economic Club, Hillary Clinton said her Republican opponent tried to "make his old, tired ideas sound new." As opposed to her old, tired ideas of higher taxes on the wealthy with government as redistributor. Let's consider some important quotes from the economic club speech. "... the most direct and significant kind of federal action aiding economic growth is to make possible an increase in private consumption and investment demand -- to cut the fetters which hold back private spending."
You've probably heard the very old riddle: When is a door not a door? When it's ajar. An updated version might go like this: When is a ransom not a ransom? When the Obama administration says it isn't. President Obama and his State Department want us to believe that $400 million in foreign cash that was flown into Iran under cover of darkness on an unmarked cargo plane was merely money "owed" to the world's No. 1 sponsor of terrorism from a failed arms deal negotiated with the Shah of Iran more than 35 years ago.
Since Mel Gibson's 2004 blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ" grossed more than $600 million worldwide, Hollywood has slowly begun to look at faith-based movies as a way to fatten their bottom lines and reach a demographic they have mostly ignored for decades. Last week in Los Angeles, the show business publication Variety co-sponsored another of its occasional programs called "PURPOSE: The Family Entertainment and Faith Based Summit." The summit's goal is to encourage filmmakers to make more movies with faith content from a mostly Christian perspective. Recently there have been some modest box office successes with films like "Heaven is for Real" and "God's Not Dead."
Environmentalists should be pleased with Hillary Clinton's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, because it was largely recycled talking points we have heard for decades. Putting aside the theatrics designed to make Hillary Clinton appear to be something she is not -- the white pantsuit was a nice touch, as white is traditionally the color of purity and also the color of the suffragettes — we've heard it all before. First there was the charge that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump cannot be trusted with the nuclear codes. The same was said about Ronald Reagan in 1980. Democrats called him a "cowboy" who might blow up the world. Instead, he rebuilt America's military, as Trump has promised to do, and helped bring down the Soviet Union. Can Hillary be trusted with classified documents?
Thanks to WikiLeaks, which has released nearly 20,000 emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee — with promises of more to come — we have proof the party that styles itself as inclusive, diverse and tolerant isn't. Among the delectable tidbits on which Republicans are feasting are these: one male DNC staffer wrote another male staffer saying "I love you" and added "no homo." Another DNC email referred to Latino voters as "taco bowl outreach." Now ousted DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is exposed as a liar for falsely claiming she was not working behind the scenes to defeat Sen. Bernie Sanders and secure the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was too long — 75 minutes — and too loud. Modulation is the key to good public speaking. One's voice should rise and fall like the tide, which allows really important points to be made whether the volume is low or high. His adult children are better speakers. Having said that, Trump hit mostly high notes — the country is on the wrong track. The latest Real Clear Politics data shows 69.3 percent of those surveyed believe we're on the wrong track. One has to go back to the '70s and Jimmy Carter to see similar numbers.
In 1926, speaking about the Declaration of Independence on its 150th anniversary, President Calvin Coolidge noted the unique philosophy behind the creation of the United States: "We cannot continue to enjoy the result, if we neglect and abandon the cause." Speaking at a news conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, following the murder of three police officers and the wounding of three others, East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux said, "...this is not so much about gun control as it is about what's in men's hearts. And until we come together as a nation, as a people, to heal as a people, if we don't do that and this madness continues, we will surely perish as a people." Considering the anti-police rhetoric coming from so many groups and individuals, he is right. The question is how do we heal men's hearts? Isn't that the primary calling of the clergy?
