Columnist.
The announcement by Donald Trump of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate had not yet been made official last Thursday, but that didn't stop the hard left from hauling out its familiar and overused rhetoric. Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, released a statement which said, "If Trump picks extreme right-wing Governor Mike Pence as his running mate, he will be doubling down on his divisive and hate-filled approach to politics." Funny how turning people against each other is, for the left, a one-way street. When the left wants to obliterate history, tradition, biblical teachings and even common sense it never sees itself as divisive. Conservatives are supposed to accept their agenda without complaint.
Is Britain's new prime minister, Theresa May, Margaret Thatcher reincarnated? There are similarities. May is certainly as tough as the Iron Lady. As home secretary for longer than any of her predecessors, she has strongly opposed uncontrolled immigration. The Home Office introduced visa restrictions that require non-European Union immigrants living in Britain for fewer than 10 years to minimally earn the equivalent of about $47,000 USD, so as not to be a drain on social welfare programs. With Britain's planned exit from the EU, that policy could be broadened to include all immigrants.
In just the last few days, two African-American men were shot and killed by non-African-American police officers in Minnesota and Louisiana and five non-African-American police officers were shot and killed in Dallas by an African-American man who declared he "wanted to kill white people, especially white officers." The gap in our racially divided country has never been wider. Immediately, familiar narratives came into play. The narrative for some African-Americans appears to reinforce the belief that racism and discrimination are responsible for whatever difficulties they face. For some whites recent events seem to reinforce the narrative, seen on local news, that African-Americans are violent criminals, welfare cheats or liberal politicians out for themselves instead of others.
FBI Director James Comey has given Hillary Clinton something better than a get out of jail free card. He's protected her from indictment by recommending to the Department of Justice that she not be prosecuted for her and her staff's "extremely careless" handling of emails on private servers that included documents classified as "top secret," "secret" and "confidential." Once again the Clintons have escaped the long arm of the law, which in their case is much shorter than the arm extended to other government officials who have been caught committing far fewer infractions.
Have you heard that Hillary Clinton is the "first woman" ever to be nominated for president by a major political party? Of course you have. The media have repeated the line so often it is broken news. Hillary Clinton's nomination and the euphoria in the press (one NPR female reporter said she has seen women weeping over the possibility of Hillary becoming president) eclipses any discussion about the real issues facing the country. To quote Clinton in another context, "what difference does it make" that she is a woman? A liberal is a liberal, regardless of gender, race or ethnicity.
Following a meeting between a group of evangelical leaders and Donald Trump last week, Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, was interviewed by Pennsylvania pastor Michael Anthony. Dobson told Anthony that Trump had recently come "to accept a relationship with Christ" and is now a "baby Christian." Dobson was vague about the details of Trump's supposed religious conversion, telling Anthony that while he knows the person responsible for "leading" Trump to Jesus, he would not name the person and couldn't specify the time or place. "I don't know when it was," said Dobson, "but it has not been long."
Maybe it was those college courses on the history of Europe that soured me on the idea of a united continent. How could a conglomeration of nation states noted for invading each other, pillaging and warring against each other form a union? How could a continent with different languages, cultures and money become a united states of Europe modeled after the USA? Unity is not union. As the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher observed: "European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy."
Ranking right up there with the line, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?" is this recent headline in The Washington Times: "Honesty issues aside, voters still back Hillary Clinton, poll shows." Though Clinton's negatives appear higher than that of any Democrat running for president in, perhaps, all of history — and Donald Trump's are even higher — honesty appears not to matter in this election, especially to younger voters. The Washington Times story is based on a poll taken by the technology company Morning Consult, which found that Hillary Clinton's "56 percent unfavorability rating is driven by the fact that 39 percent of Democrats and 47 percent of independents say she can't be trusted" and that "significant percentages of those who view her unfavorably also say she's flat-out corrupt."
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) recently disclosed that a congressional investigation has found at least 72 employees of the Department of Homeland Security listed on the U.S. terrorist watch list. In other news, President Obama used a memorial service for the victims of the Orlando massacre to advocate for more gun control laws. Anyone else see a contradiction in these two items? Interviewers frequently ask me why I don't favor more gun control laws. My response: Name one law that deters someone intent on breaking the law. Murder has been prohibited since the beginning of civilization, but people still murder. One might as well outlaw human nature.
"Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." — Frank Sinatra, as Maj. Bennett Marco
Credit President Obama for finally using the words he has desperately tried to avoid during his presidency. He correctly called the mass shooting in an Orlando gay nightclub Sunday morning, which killed 49 and injured 53, "an act of terror." It was, writes The New York Times, the "deadliest attack on a gay target in the nation's history."
If there is one explanation for Donald Trump's success it is this: Unlike most Republicans, he fights back. He may not have the late Muhammad Ali's finesse, but he sees himself as more than capable of dealing a "knockout" punch to Hillary Clinton in November. That ought to be the goal of any GOP presidential nominee. During an interview in his Trump Tower office Monday, I asked about his temperament, a subject often raised by critics. Hillary Clinton recently said he shouldn't be trusted with the nuclear codes and that he is so thin-skinned he might start a war.
Some believe that soon after Tuesday's final presidential primaries the FBI will interview Hillary Clinton about her handling of emails while she was secretary of state. What comes next is the subject of much speculation. One of the better speculators is Bradley Blakeman, who served as a member of President George W. Bush's White House staff. We spoke in the "green room" at Fox News before our separate interviews. The following is culled from our conversation.
My musical tastes do not include rap and hip-hop, but when Snoop Dogg comments on the "Roots" remake, saying he is tired of movies about slavery and would prefer a series "about the success that black folks are having," he is singing my song. The original "Roots" drew a phenomenal 130 million viewers when it aired on ABC in 1977. The remake, now playing on The History Channel, will probably draw far fewer viewers, just because it is on cable and most are familiar with the storyline. The filmmakers apparently are targeting a younger generation.
"Rules are made to be broken" is a saying that has many variations, but perhaps no one has summed up Hillary Clinton's attitude (and Bill's, too) about rules more than the late science-fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein, who said: "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
The frustration of many voters over the way presidential candidates are selected has come to a head with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees of their respective parties. If this is the best we can do, maybe we should consider a better way.
In releasing his list of potential Supreme Court nominees, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has begun to solidify his support among conservatives as perhaps no other announcement could do. The record of any of the 11 judges currently serving on federal or state benches may calm the fears of those who are not committed "NeverTrump-ers."
The popularity of the hit Broadway musical "Hamilton" offers us all an opportunity to consider the wisdom of one of our most prolific Founding Fathers — while we wait in line for tickets. Alexander Hamilton, like the rest of our Founders, provided the solution to dysfunctional, overreaching and costly government, long before it became dysfunctional, overreaching and costly.
Historically, when our nation has transitioned from one way of life to another, there has usually been some optimism about what was to come. That was true at the time of the American Revolution and it was true as we moved from an agrarian society toward the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th through mid-19th centuries.
Standing on principle, not to mention common sense, is so rare these days that when someone does it they make headlines. That's because you can quickly be labeled a "bigot" if you oppose a lot of the sludge dumped on us by the secular left, and few can withstand the onslaught. North Carolina's Republican governor, Pat McCrory, is unafraid.
