Columnist.
Politicians have no business directing or defining patriotism, especially when their rhetoric sounds like 1950s-era Soviet sloganeering. It was creepy when former President Barack Obama declared his first Inauguration Day as "National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation" and called upon us to find "common purpose of remaking this nation for our new century." And it's creepy when President Donald Trump declares his Inauguration Day as "National Day of Patriotic Devotion," one in which "a new national pride stirs the American soul and inspires the American heart."
Teachers unions are the only organizations that openly support segregated schools.
There's something perverse about an ideology that views the disposing of an unborn child in the third trimester of pregnancy as an indisputable right but the desire of parents to choose a school for their kids as zealotry. Watching President-elect Donald Trump's pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, answer an array of frivolous questions this week was just another reminder of how irrational liberalism has become.
Watching President Barack Obama's soaring 2008 Democratic National Convention speech in Denver, I never imagined the kind of turmoil his presidency would incite. Almost everything has changed in the subsequent years, and yet his farewell speech to the nation was brimming with the same brand of haughty lecturing.
But that doesn't make the Democrats' conspiracy theories true.
Here are two positions an intellectually honest person can hold simultaneously: First, Russian President Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian who, though no Josef Stalin, subverts human rights and is generally antagonistic to the idealistic aims of the United States. When Republicans cozy up to this sort of person, as President-elect Donald Trump has done, they undermine the stated beliefs and values of conservatism.
While the left panics over President-elect Donald Trump and the erosion of democratic norms, President Barack Obama went ahead and issued another decree without any regard for the nation's legislative process.
Though many things have changed in American political life over the past couple of years, one aspect remains a comforting constant: Democrats never lose an election. Not really. Not fairly. Elections can be stolen. Americans can be misled. Big Oil or big business can buy elections, because these institutions possess the preternatural ability to control human actions. Whatever the case, something fishy and nefarious must also be going on, because there's absolutely no way voters could reject Democrats.
I won't lie. After reading the CNN piece titled "Senate Dems, powerless to stop Trump nominees, regret 'nuclear option' power play," I experienced some deeply satisfying schadenfreude. Feel free keep President Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and those who implored Senate Democrats to blow up the filibuster a few years ago in your thoughts as President-elect Donald Trump names his Cabinet and judges. But be sure to remember how recklessness begets recklessness in Washington, D.C.
Well, for starters, allowing liberals to determine my level of anxiety — which would be full-blown, round-the-clock histrionics — over what's nothing more than another election would be foolish. Until it's not. The era of Trump hasn't even started yet, and the entire establishment keeps using the term "era of Trump" as if things have actually changed. They haven't. If you're genuinely interesting in being an effective critic of the next president, acting like Adolf Hitler is pounding at your doorstep every time Trump tweets something might not be the most effective plan in the long run.
Why does the March for Life, a rally that attracts tens of thousands of anti-abortion Americans to Washington, D.C., every year get less prominent media coverage than a fringe neo-Nazi gathering? Because institutional media and white nationalists have formed a politically convenient symbiotic relationship.
This week, anti-Trump protesters hit the streets in big cities around the country, chanting "This is what democracy looks like!" Yes. That's the problem.
Though in many ways the 2016 presidential contest was an uprising against the establishment, let's face it; Republicans weren't punished. And that's not a new development. 2016 is the fourth consecutive election in which the GOP has won the Senate and House. Nearly every conventional conservative Senate candidate — the ones Donald Trump's fans supposedly hate — ran ahead of the GOP presidential nominee. This includes Republicans who were reticent supporters or outright critics of Trump's.
Every candidate or publication that's made comparable declarations since that time regarding the presidential contest being the "most important" election of their "lifetime" or their "generation" or "in history" or "ever" is completely full of it.
These days, there's been a lot of discussion about conservative media's culpability in creating unrealistic expectations and warped priorities among Republican voters. It's a reasonable critique. My question: When are we going to have this conversation about the other side — you know, the one that enabled the passage of a massive partisan health care reform law that's failed to deliver on almost all its promises? No doubt, you'll remember all those romantic charts and stories from the liberal smart set predicting Obamacare's affordability and success. Remember the jeering aimed at conservatives who argued that state-run markets inhibiting genuine competition and increasing regulations would only spur costs to rise? "Lies," liberals said.
The third and mercifully final presidential debate also turned out to be the most conventional. Fox News' Chris Wallace did a solid job pressing the candidates on issues in Las Vegas, giving them space to spar but not enough space to get out of control. Of course, not even a strong moderator will deter candidates from misleading, lying and prevaricating all night. And since we know Trump's performance will be comprehensively fact-checked by the entire media, let's talk about three of Clinton's biggest whoppers.
When Republicans lost the presidential election back at the Republican National Convention in July, many elected GOPers feigned support for the Party's doomed nominee in an effort to placate the base and hold their majority in Congress. After watching Donald Trump's "Access Hollywood" tape (honestly, does anyone believe this is the last, or most odious, of the October surprises?), some of these candidates have decided the gambit wasn't worth it. So naturally, Trump has targeted down-ballot races in his own party — people like House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. John McCain. As it turns out, cult leaders are less concerned about the long-term philosophical aims of your political party than they are about your personal loyalty and subservience.
When The New York Times tells you Obamacare is "ailing" and must change to survive, rest assured that the law is in serious trouble.
Rather than striking immunity deals with virtually every person who had intimate knowledge of Hillary Clinton's illegal private server and emails, the Justice Department would have saved everyone some time by offering Clinton protection instead. FBI Director James Comey, who testified in front of two congressional committees this week, still maintains that he was unable to recommend that the DOJ charge Clinton with mishandling classified documents because of insufficient evidence proving "intent" — although the actions themselves are irrefutably illegal. Well, how exactly did he anticipate gathering this proof, when the DOJ had proactively shielded the five people tasked with setting up the private system and then destroying it? Was he hoping to extract a confession directly from Clinton?
It's one thing to watch liberals euphemize "Islamic terrorism" into a vacuous, politically correct word salad. It's quite another to hear them blame free expression for Islamists' actions. And they do it often. When Hillary Clinton accuses Donald Trump of giving "aid and comfort" to ISIS and other extremists because of his crude rhetoric about Muslim immigration, that's exactly what she's doing. And she's not the only one. For one thing, the idea that an average Muslim can be driven to purchase a pressure cooker and blow up Chelsea, New Work, or massacre infidel children because a U.S. candidate says unkind things about Muslims, inadvertently concedes a terrible truth about the state of Islam today. Moreover, this thinking dangerously underestimates the power of ideology and religion in the world. It's hard to quantify the depth of self-importance it must take to believe that your patronizing words are more powerful than someone's faith. This trivialization of the problem is reflected when the administration offers an idea as simplistic as "When it comes to ISIL, we are in a fight, a narrative fight with them, a narrative battle."
