Columnist.
Taking stock is a tradition observed by Jews at Yom Kippur and others who examine their lives at the end of a year and vow to improve in the new year. One group needs to take stock perhaps more than any other: the mainstream media. They continue to lose readers and viewers, but close their eyes and ears to complaints from the public, guaranteeing continued decline in revenue, along with buyouts and layoffs.
President Obama and members of his administration assure us we have nothing to fear when it comes to terrorism. Whether you accept this, or not — and opinion polls show a majority do not — there is another fear that in large part is behind the phenomenon known as Donald Trump. It is the fear we are in danger of losing America. Speaking as a member of a group that will in this century become a minority in America — that would be white people — I don't fear minority status. I fear that those who will soon make up the majority will not embrace the values and traditions that have built and sustained America through wars, economic downturns and other challenges to our way of life.
Not for a long time has the world seemed so removed from the angelic proclamation of 2,000 years ago: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14). Millions have died in countless wars over the last 100 years. People continue to die today as the result of worldwide terrorism and daily shootings in too many American cities.
Since nearly everyone else seems to be employing "Star Wars" metaphors these days, permit me to use some of my own. To conservatives, the Republican congressional majority was supposed to be the good side of "The Force," as opposed to what they regard as the Democratic "dark side." And yet, unlike the film, "dark side" Democrats have triumphed again in the latest budget battle, which was no battle at all. The supposed good guys surrendered without a fight against the relentless onslaught of the Democrat "stormtroopers" and their media enablers.
Each of the Republican presidential candidates brings something good to the race for the GOP nomination and some things not so good. In the fifth and final GOP debate of the year, the candidates on the main stage, and even a few on the "undercard," presented ideas and positions that many Republican voters would consider far better than those we have now under the president we have now.
If representatives of the nearly 200 nations gathered in Paris for the UN Conference on Climate Change had instead formed a coalition to fight a real threat — Islamic terrorism — they might have accomplished something useful. Instead, what they came up with is a document that even Secretary of State John Kerry, in a rare moment of candor, confessed is pointless.
Set aside for a moment the violent incidents associated with people claiming to act under the authority of their Islamic faith and consider instead what passes for normalcy. Some in Britain would like to elevate to the level of wide-scale acceptance Sharia law, an Islamic legal system predicated on the religious tenets of Islam. "A number of Sharia councils operate in the UK to offer resolution to disputes," writes The Express, but currently "they have no jurisdiction in criminal matters." Not yet, anyway. There is a campaign underway to make a UK suburb Britain's Sharia-law zone.
Wisdom can often be found in unexpected places. During debate in the House of Commons on whether Britain should join the U.S. and Russia in bombing ISIS targets in Syria, Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary of the liberal Labour Party, delivered a speech that approached Winston Churchill in its vision.
More than a decade after my 19th trip to Israel and the Middle East, this 20th visit shows how some things have changed, but the important ones remain the same. What one notices first is the large amount of new construction, which suggests a certain Israeli permanency against religious opposition, hatred and threats of annihilation perhaps no other country has had to endure. Second are the many prosperous Arab neighborhoods, which defies much of the propaganda broadcast to the world about how Israelis mistreat Arabs and Muslims, locking them in poverty.
In an ironic twist, Germany, which in the last century twice invaded other countries, contributing to two world wars, is now being invaded by hordes of Muslims. According to Pew Research Center, there are 4,760,000 Muslims in Germany, about 5.8 percent of its population, and that number is steadily growing. The Wall Street Journal writes, "The government estimates that about 800,000 foreigners will seek asylum in Germany this year, almost four times as many as last year."
President Obama has put a new twist on the Islamic invasion now taking place across Europe and the United States. Speaking to reporters last week during his visit to the Philippines, the president compared Syrian refugees to "tourists," saying they are no bigger a threat than people who come to sightsee and visit attractions.
College campuses are again in turmoil. According to The New York Times, "Racist, sexist and anti-Semitic incidents on and near college campuses from Dartmouth to Wisconsin to Stanford this fall have provoked worries by education and civil rights leaders that such acts are on the increase." That wasn't a story in yesterday's newspaper. That was a story in the Times edition of October 31, 1988. Most campuses where these incidents occurred were noted for their liberalism. They included such bastions of feminism as Smith and Wellesley colleges, Amherst and Mount Holyoke, as well as Yale and Dartmouth and even what many regard as ground zero of liberal academia, The University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Just hours before the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, for which ISIS has claimed responsibility, "Good Morning America" broadcast an interview with President Obama. In it, the president told host George Stephanopoulos, "I don't think they're gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq, and in Syria they'll come in, they'll leave, but you don't see this systemic march by ISIL across the terrain."
Unlike last month's contentious GOP debate on CNBC, the event staged by Fox Business Network and The Wall Street Journal was thankfully less about the moderators and more about the candidates. It was about content, not about which moderator could ask the best "gotcha" question. We are moving beyond the "who won" stage in these Republican debates into the "who would you be most comfortable with as president" and "who is best equipped to defeat Hillary Clinton?" The answer to both questions seems to be Sen. Marco Rubio.
President Obama's unilateral rejection of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline that would have brought petroleum and jobs to the U.S. is another in a long list of issues dominated by politics rather than common sense, economics and science. After seven years of dithering on Keystone, the president said he was following the recommendation of Secretary of State John Kerry that the pipeline was not in the country's national security interest, which he said includes being a global leader in the "climate change" campaign.
It was George H.W. Bush who reportedly dismissed an idea from a friend that he should spend time at Camp David thinking about what he might do should he become president. According to a January 26, 1987 article in Time magazine, Bush is said to have dismissed the suggestion with this line: "Oh, the vision thing." Now comes the new speaker of the House, Rep. Paul Ryan, who is not only embracing the "vision thing," but is accusing his fellow Republicans of not having any vision at all.
In Washington, most stories that make the newspapers and evening newscasts are about scandals and political infighting. Rarely is there one about redemption. In his new book, "I Should Be Dead: My Life Surviving Politics, TV and Addiction," Bob Beckel, the longtime Democratic Party political operative, tells a deeply personal story about searching for life's meaning through political power, drugs, physical abuse as a child, womanizing, hardball politics and finally a change of heart and direction.
Shortly after signing a bill allowing assisted suicide in California, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed another measure that forces pregnancy crisis centers to "offer information about affordable contraception, abortion and prenatal care." The information is to be displayed in the form of a sign tacked to the crisis center's door and must include a phone number to the nearest county services office where family free or low-cost family planning services can be obtained.
A special House committee investigating the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012 that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans may have helped Hillary Clinton become president of the United States. The former secretary of state refused an invitation to testify in private, as other witnesses had done, probably because she thought her appearance would benefit her presidential prospects in at least three ways: She could make the Republican committee members look inept; the major media would protect her, and average people would not pay attention; if they did, they would believe what the media told them. She was right on all three counts.
