Columnist.
If I visit a kosher restaurant and order a pork chop, am I being discriminated against when the waiter says they don't serve pork? If an establishment requires that men wear jackets and women dress in what that establishment defines as an "appropriate way," does that constitute discrimination? When I visit the Vatican, the Swiss Guards won't let me in if I'm wearing shorts. They offer a cover-up. It is the same for women, if they bare too much flesh. Is that discrimination? What about the sign "no shoes, no shirt, no service"? Is that bigotry against the shoeless and shirtless? Should the government force any of these entities to violate their standards?
This being the 50th anniversary of the film "The Sound of Music," please permit me a poor adaption of a few of its song lyrics, which fit in nicely with our current political climate. How do you solve a problem like the Clintons? Their incessant vacuuming of cash and skirting (no pun intended) of laws and regulations would place lesser mortals in danger of prison, yet the Clintons' walk free, their money-making careers booming. "Dough, we fear, we need more, dear'Ray,' the name of a Clinton foeMe, a name that fits myselfFah, as far from law I runSo, I say when bending lawsLa, a shrug to follow soTee(off), with me for lots of 'bread'Which brings us back to dough."
"In your heart you know he's right," was Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign slogan in 1964. The critics of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who announced Monday he is running for president, are effectively saying of him: "In your head you know he's nuts." Even before his announcement, Cruz was labeled with the typical modifiers the left uses to scare people who don't pay much attention to politics -- extreme, far right, out of the mainstream. In the run-up to the next election, the left and their media colleagues will try to fool Republicans into nominating a mushy moderate from the party's establishment wing. You know, someone like "President John McCain," or "President Mitt Romney." They know that if the GOP falls for this line again, conservatives will stay home and Hillary Clinton will be the next president.
In 1982, during one of many visits to Israel, I had the opportunity to speak with Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who told me, "Israel needs friends." He added that in the end, his nation could not trust any nation with its fate and security. The protection of Israel, he said, was ultimately the responsibility of Israelis. Begin's comment was prophetic given the petulance of our current president, who behaves like an enemy of Israel when he attempts to impose a Palestinian state on Israel and negotiate a deal with Iran that can only lead to new threats against the Jewish state and further destabilize the chaotic Middle East. In his determination to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear weapons program (which Iran has denied exists, so what is the U.S. negotiating?), President Obama has traded history, facts and reality for a potential deal with a regime that promotes terrorism around the world and is busy attaching Iraq to its vision of a greater Persian Empire.
This week is "Sunshine Week," a nonprofit, nonpartisan national initiative launched by the American Society of News Editors to "promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information." What better time to focus on a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that allows the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to designate companies it deems "too big to fail" as "systematically important financial institutions" (SIFIs) subject to enhanced supervision and regulation by the Federal Reserve. It has done so with MetLife, the largest life insurance company in the U.S. MetLife rejects the SIFI designation, maintaining that it is a pillar of stability that, in the words of a source familiar with the controversy, "remained strong even during the 2008-09 financial meltdown -- during which time it neither requested nor received any bailout money."
Turn on the news and you expect to see people of different races and politics denouncing each other. That's why what happened last week on "The Kelly File," Megyn Kelly's Fox News program, was so remarkable. Following the expulsion of Parker Rice and Levi Pettit, two Sigma Alpha Epsilon members at the University of Oklahoma, upon the video release of a racist sing-a-long they led, Isaac Hill, the president of the university's Black Student Association, told Kelly the students should be forgiven. Kelly, who is normally in complete control, was stunned and nearly speechless. It was not what she -- or any of us -- expected. Judgment, retribution, rioting, censorship, shaming, loss of job and prestige are the norm, not forgiveness, especially when the offending students, at the time, hadn't asked for it.
Hillary Clinton finally met with reporters at the UN Tuesday to explain why she used a personal email account for the vast majority of her communications as secretary of state. The problem for any public figure attempting to testify to their innocence is that one's believability is directly tied to the public's perception of one's character. Like a bad case of the winter flu, character is something you either have or you don't. You can't be partially infected; neither can you be partially trustworthy. After so many years with Bill Clinton, who has trouble finding the word "truth" in the dictionary, Hillary Clinton's forced media appearance following weeks of hounding, some of it by fellow Democrats, was something less than a tour de force. In an "open letter to Hillary Clinton," Paul Waldman of the left-leaning publication "American Prospect" wrote: "You have to be better because of everything that's happened before."
I liked the movie "Selma," though it could have done without the rap song during credits that referenced "hands up, don't shoot," a slogan that emerged from the shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer whose actions the Justice Department recently determined did not "constitute prosecutable violations" of federal civil rights law. As President Obama marched last weekend in Selma, Alabama, along with others commemorating that seminal civil rights demonstration, it became clear that the time has come to stop focusing on marches and take a sober look at what really troubles the African-American community today and how to un-trouble it. We might ask: Are African Americans better off than they were 50 years ago when it comes to jobs, economic independence and especially intact families?
Pop star Taylor Swift has donated $50,000 to the New York City public school system. Swift, who was named the world's sixth most powerful celebrity by Forbes magazine, has commendably performed numerous acts of charity since moving into her $20 million Tribeca residence last year, including visits with sick children at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The age and cultural divide notwithstanding (she's 25, I'm not, and Elvis was my adolescent icon), I like Taylor Swift, but her money would have been better invested with much higher returns somewhere other than the dreadful New York City public schools, whose problems are not the result of insufficient funding. According to the Huffington Post, citing U.S. Census Bureau data, "New York spent $19,076 per student in the 2011 fiscal year, as compared to the national average of $10,560." In 90 of the cityâs public schools, Families for Excellent Schools found that not a single African-American or Hispanic student received a passing grade on state tests.
The White House opposes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to Congress, but not because the speech has political implications, coming as it does just two weeks before Israel's March 17 election. If the administration truly had political concerns it would not have dispatched a team of Obama loyalists to Israel to help defeat Netanyahu. No, many believe the real reason the administration opposes Netanyahu's speech is because he will tell the truth about Iran's nuclear threat and the administration wants to cover up what could ultimately become a very bad deal. Iran wants nuclear weapons. And yet the U.S. is promoting the fiction that despite past behavior and the apocalyptic statements by its leaders, Iran will agree to stop its nuclear program. It will not.
Washington is such a phony city. Maybe that's why it has such a good relationship with Hollywood. In the sequel to a "film" we have seen many times before, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may "shut down" Saturday because of a dispute between the Obama administration and the new Republican congressional majority over funding for the president's immigration orders, which writes The Hill.com, would "provide deferred deportations and work visas to illegal immigrants." In essence, the orders would grant them the equivalent of squatter's rights. DHS doesn't have to shut down. Most employees will show up for work, though they might have to go without pay for a while, at least until Congress gets its act together, as it has in previous politically motivated closings. But the appearance of closing the agency will allow Democrats and their media flatterers another opportunity to blame Republicans and gain short-term political advantage.
Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, is taking some heat -- and winning praise in some quarters -- for remarks he made at a private dinner last week at which he questioned President Obama's love for America. Speaking at Manhattan's upscale "21 Club" at a gathering of economic conservatives hosting potential Republican presidential candidates (Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker attended this one), Giuliani said: "I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country." The White House fired back, agreeing with Giuliani that it was a horrible thing to say.
"...the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God." (John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961) It isn't often that a member of the media reveals the philosophy behind his political ideology, but last week, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo outed himself. In an exchange with Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore about Moore's refusal to adhere to a federal appellate judge's order to ignore the state constitution and begin granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Moore said "...our rights contained in the Bill of Rights do not come from the Constitution, they come from God." Cuomo disagreed: "Our laws do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man."
President Theodore Roosevelt said, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." More than a century later, President Barack Obama speaks loudly (and incessantly) and carries a twig. Like Nero of ancient Rome, Obama fiddles, takes selfies and does Internet interviews while the world burns. Is he trying to distract himself, or us? To use a sports analogy, is he trying to "run out the clock" and leave office before terrorist fires consume us? We have a president who is mismatched to the times in which we live. He is unserious when seriousness is required. The tyrants of the world have taken notice and rightly calculated they can pretty much do what they want without paying a heavy penalty.
Gov. Bobby Jindal's name is not first on most people's list of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but maybe we should at least start paying attention to him. If one's political enemies are any indication of potential strength, Jindal of Louisiana may be a more formidable force than some people realize. During a visit to Washington Monday, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank couldn't wait to attack Jindal and his record. Why bother with someone he and others consider a lightweight from a small Southern state, unless there is more there than the elites think? In an interview with me, Jindal gave long and rapid-fire answers. The governor, ineligible for re-election due to term limits, seemed in a hurry. He said he'd decide in "two to three months" whether to run for president.
There was a time when the 63-year-old National Prayer Breakfast was a rather mundane affair. It rarely made news. Speakers -- evangelist Billy Graham spoke at most of the early ones -- talked about Jesus and salvation. Presidents, beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower, would follow with unremarkable comments mostly ignored or relegated to the religion page by the secular press. In recent years the breakfast's higher purpose has sometimes been tainted by politics from a lower kingdom, not by the choice of the Senate and House members who alternate organizing the event, but by some speakers who have used it to promote personal agendas. Mother Teresa spoke against abortion at the 1994 breakfast and announced that any pregnant woman who didn't want her child could send the child to her. That made headlines and I wrote approvingly of her remarks, noting they fit into a moral-spiritual framework.
As if we aren't already divided enough by race, class, gender, political party, economic status and sexual orientation, the federal government is reportedly thinking about creating a new category of Americans just in time for the next census. According to the Associated Press, "The U.S. Census Bureau will test the new Middle East-North Africa classification for possible inclusion on the 2020 census if it gets positive feedback about the proposed change by (last) Sunday, when the public comment period ends." Americans of Arab descent have previously been classified as "white" in the census, but carving out a special category for them will allow this group access to federal dollars and likely create another group to which politicians can pander for votes.
We are one year away from the Iowa caucuses and already several Republican presidential candidates are trying to secure an advantage by talking about their faith. Before announcing his non-candidacy last Friday, Mitt Romney had indicated if he ran for a third time he intended to be more "open" about his Mormon faith. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, regularly invokes his Baptist faith. And now Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a self-described evangelical Christian, is testifying to his faith. There will be others. Appearing at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Walker spoke about the successful battle he waged against his state's public unions over their attempt to expand bargaining rights. He told the audience, "You prayed for us. We could feel the power of those prayers."
The network meteorologists barely had time to come up for air while "forecasting" the latest snowstorm non-disaster. Politicians, fearing what might happen to their approval numbers if a blizzard hit, went on TV to announce they were taking proactive measures. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio shut down tunnels, bridges, even the subway to prepare for the worst. Governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie announced road closings in New York and New Jersey. When wide-scale devastation failed to materialize, though New England was hardest hit, those same forecasters explained that snow is "unpredictable" and began backtracking faster than a four-wheel drive pickup on an icy road. One year ago, on January 31, we were treated to another of these "Snowmageddon" scenarios. At the time, USA Today quoted Gary Szatkowski, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, as saying: "It's a little surprising that people are falling for this."
As thousands descended on Washington last week for the annual "March for Life," the Republican House of Representatives was busy watering down an antiabortion bill that restricted abortions after 20 weeks, except in cases of rape or incest, with exemptions allowed only after a police report had been filed. This after a small group of moderate Republican female lawmakers challenged the bill and lobbied for a less restrictive measure. Politics wins. Life loses. It seems these moderate Republicans, fearing the bill could revive the Democrats' phony "War on Women" mantra, erred on the side of expedience so as not to, as the Washington Post writes, "...expose Republicans in swing districts to a barrage of attack ads in 2016 from women's rights groups and Democrats."
