Columnist.
Looking for someone — anyone — to blame for the rise of Donald Trump, a rise fueled by angry white males who feel left out and rejected by the elites and special interest groups that disparage their race, mock their faith, criticize their patriotism as xenophobia, excoriate their traditions and protect everyone's rights but their own? Look no further than the culture beast that is primarily responsible for the fundamental transformation of America, as President Obama once put it.
In the film "Girl, Interrupted," the character played by Winona Ryder is watching TV in a psychiatric hospital. There is a news report about a demonstration and the narrator says: "We live in troubled times. The institutions we once trusted no longer seem reliable." As I begin the laborious process of doing my income taxes, I am again reminded — thanks to withholding and other payments I must make to the government — that I am paying for so many things that aren't working. The D.C. that follows Washington could easily stand for "dysfunctional city."
I was going to write about how the Republican presidential campaign has become gutter politics, but given Donald Trump's horrid statements, the gutter would be a step up, because things have descended into the sewer. Never in modern times has there been a presidential candidate who has hurled more personal insults and hurtful accusations at his fellow candidates and others who disagree with him. It should embarrass a normal person, but Trump appears beyond embarrassment.
Everyone knows the meaning of the word "hypocrite" and no one can claim absolute constancy when it comes to living a life consistent with one's stated values. But in this election year, hypocrisy is on full display. It is now being practiced with neither shame nor irony by leading Democrats, who once forcefully argued positions they have now abandoned. Definitions help focus the mind and so here is one for "hypocrite" from dictionary.com: "a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, especially one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements."
Since religious language has again infected this unpredictable and turbulent political season, here is a verse that could describe the followers of Donald Trump. It is found in Paulâs second letter to his protege Timothy (or as Trump might call it, Two Timothy): "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." All politicians tell voters what they want to hear. It is one reason for the anger many voters feel for members of both political parties. These voters believe Washington has let them down, promising things it has not, or cannot, deliver in exchange for their support.
Few people in modern history have fulfilled their oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" more than the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia was so well respected that the Senate voted 98-0 in 1986 to confirm him. These days it would be difficult to get a unanimous vote in support of Mother's Day. It doesn't take a fortune teller to predict the scenario that would present itself if the political dynamics were reversed and a Republican president were in the White House with a Democratic Senate majority. Democrats would be demanding no justice be confirmed until the next president takes office and they would make it a major campaign issue. That is what Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said in 2007: "We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court, except in extraordinary circumstances." That was 19 months before the 2008 election. It is a little more than eight months away from the next election.
Envy is defined by Dictionary.com as "a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc." That perfectly characterizes the entire political philosophy of the Democratic progressive left. Listening to presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, I often hear the principles I grew up with and practiced being disregarded, even denounced. In his victory speech following his New Hampshire primary win, Sanders said America was founded on the principle of fairness. No it wasn't. You don't find the word "fairness" in the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. The word you do find is "liberty." The Founders wanted Americans to be liberated from oppressive, intrusive, dictatorial government and to be free to pursue happiness, according to their definition of the word.
In a day when the most innocuous thing can quickly become political, a Doritos Super Bowl commercial has upset some people who want abortion to be an unrestricted right. For those taking a bathroom break or watching "Downton Abbey" instead of the football game, here's the scenario. A pregnant woman is receiving a sonogram in her hospital bed. The screen shows the baby. The father is snacking on Doritos and he notices the child's arms moving in the direction of the chip, as dad takes it from the bag and puts it in his mouth. Finally, the baby can stand it no longer and emerges from the womb to grab his own chip.
Watching last Thursday's debate between Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders one might have thought a Republican had been in the White House for nearly eight years. Hearing their complaints about the economy (bad), discrimination (rampant), health care (too many without it), unemployment (too many not working, or working at low-paying jobs), it appeared hope had died and change is all we have left in our pockets. To hear these two ultra-liberals tell it, we are a horrible, miserable, evil nation. We are bigots, we are greedy because we won't surrender more of our income to the government gods, we hate anyone who isn't white, male and heterosexual, and we want to deport everyone who isn't a Christian.
"A society cannot be unified if it preserves different cultures and cultural identities within itself."
Just as radar warns of approaching storms, so does the flood of migrants entering Europe warn us of a deluge yet to come, not only for Europeans, if they continue to allow unrestricted immigration, but for the United States. Reports that women in Cologne, Germany, have been groped and robbed by men described by authorities as having "a North African or Arabic" appearance should be warning enough, but there are other and more ominous warnings that suggest worse lies ahead, unless the problem receives immediate attention and action. And it's not just Cologne.
In the beginning there was a combative media. Dating back to Colonial America, as Eric Burns has chronicled in his book, "Infamous Scribblers," politicians and journalists have mostly had a love (for Democrats)-hate (for Republicans) relationship. It is television and the advent of the celebrity culture — from "TMZ" to "Entertainment Tonight," to now even broadcast news — that has taken the process to new depths. The first televised presidential debate in 1960 between Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon began the shift from substance to the superficial. As numerous journalism students have been taught, people who listened on the radio thought Nixon had won on substance, but those who viewed the debate on TV decided Kennedy was the winner because he looked better than the perspiring, uncomfortable, five o'clock shadow Nixon.
For anyone whose knowledge of history extends beyond the current season of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" or the latest instant replay of an NFL game, the four days of meetings involving Iran's president Hassan Rouhani, European leaders and businesses should remind people we have seen this show before. Rouhani's state visit, the first by an Iranian president in nearly 20 years, follows the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran, the world's leading supporter of terrorism. Corporate giants and politicians are salivating at the prospect of doing business with a regime led by a man who has referred to Israel as "an old wound" that "should be removed."
When the publisher of National Review Magazine, Jack Fowler, called and asked me to write 300 words on why I oppose Donald Trump for president of the United States, my first thought was about the derision that was sure to come from Trump supporters. I was not disappointed, or rather I am disappointed that no one who reacted negatively rebutted any of the arguments I, or the other contributors, made about why we think a President Trump would not pursue conservative goals.
Every American should be glad that American hostages have been freed by the tyrannical Iranian regime and are being reunited with family, friends and co-workers. Less satisfying is the return of Iran's $400 million trust fund, used to buy military equipment, which was frozen in 1979, along with its diplomatic relations with the U.S. (plus what President Obama ludicrously called "appropriate interest" of $1.3 billion), all returned to what the U.S. State Department branded the world's "preeminent sponsor of terrorism." Expecting Iran to use this windfall for purposes other than terrorism would be like expecting a kidnapper to donate the ransom money to a children's hospital.
Movie sequels are rarely as good as the original films on which they're based. The same dictum, it appears, holds for finance. The 2008 housing market collapse was bad enough, but it appears now that we're on the verge of experiencing it all again. And the financial sequel, working from a similar script as its original version, could prove to be just as devastating to the American taxpayer. The Federal National Mortgage Association (commonly referred to as Fannie Mae) plans a mortgage loan reboot, which could produce the same insane and predictable results as when the mortgage agency loaned so much money to people who had neither the income, nor credit history, to qualify for a traditional loan.
It's happening again. The "inevitability" of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy may not be so inevitable after all. Unlike eight years ago when Barack Obama beat her for the Democratic nomination and ultimately won the office Hillary and her supporters believed she was entitled to, this time her main opponent is not just Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, it is Hillary Clinton herself. Serious media and congressional investigations into Richard Nixon's Watergate crimes did not begin until after his landslide win in 1972. In Hillary Clinton's case, damaging investigations are occurring in the middle of her campaign.
In sports, if a game plan is not working, the coach changes it. In medicine, if a course of treatment does not cure a disease, doctors try a different approach. In government, failure means nothing. Government keeps cash flowing with little regard for results. In government, failure endures. In an attempt to change our approach to poverty and to combat the long-held liberal accusation that conservatives care only about tax cuts for the rich and cutting programs for the poor, the Jack Kemp Foundation sponsored a forum last weekend in Columbia, South Carolina.
I'm still waiting; waiting for someone to show me how laws stop a person intent on breaking them. Daily on the roads I see people breaking speed limits despite the possibility that cameras will catch them and send a ticket in the mail. In one of his last gasp efforts to "fundamentally change" America, President Obama is taking executive action — because he knows he never would get Congress to agree — to keep guns out of the hands of people he claims should not have them.
Ever since the miniseries "Roots" was shown on ABC in 1977, Americans have demonstrated a keen interest in finding out more about where they came from and the names and circumstances of their ancestors. Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is fulfilling that longing in the latest installment of the PBS series "Finding Your Roots." Next to "Downton Abbey," which is again drawing large audiences in its sixth and final season, Gates' program (premiering Jan 5) is the best and most compelling television you will ever see.
