Columnist.
Hillary Clinton, exploiting the venue of her appearance in Springfield, Illinois — where Abraham Lincoln warned against "a house divided" — told America that Donald Trump is not fit to lead in times of racial tension. This is rich, considering that she served under the most racially divisive president in American history. On the very site where Lincoln denounced slavery, Clinton said: "Trump's campaign adds up to an ugly, dangerous message to America — a message that you should be afraid." Clinton said Trump is "pitting American against American" when we need "a president who can help pull us together, not split us apart."
President Obama's knee-jerk reaction to the Dallas shootings brings into clear relief his biases and double standards on racially or religiously motivated violence. Have we ever had a president as blinded by his ideology and as oblivious or dismissive about his own biases and the double standards he invokes? If blacks or Muslims commit acts of violence, Obama calls for unity and demands we not rush to judgment. He bends over backward to deny the racial or religious motives of the actors. In countless acts of Islamic terrorism, before he has even expressed outrage or sorrow over the victims' deaths, Obama lectures us on the immorality of blaming actors of a single religion, tells us how wonderful and peaceful the religion is, and admonishes us against drawing inferences based on indisputable facts.
It's no mere academic question: Do we believe in the rule of law anymore? Are we a nation of laws or of men? The cherished idea of the rule of law in our system is about everyone's being subject to the law in equal measure. The law, including criminal law, applies even to our political leaders. Both members of the American power couple known as the Clintons have escaped accountability all of their adult lives, so it comes as no shock that Hillary Clinton is once again being allowed to skate, even though the head of the very body tasked with investigating her — the FBI — has detailed precisely how Clinton did in fact break the law.
Am I fantasizing even to hope that Hillary Clinton will finally be held accountable for her lies and corruption — to say nothing of her actions in her role as bimbo-slayer for her libidinous husband? Perhaps so, but to borrow an underused cliche, hope springs eternal. Hillary has operated above the law for so many years that her disinclination toward humility has ripened into unbounded hubris, which was particularly on display in her comments about the recently released House Select Committee on Benghazi report on the tragedy in Libya.
It is hard to deny that there is a worldwide impulse against elitism, globalism, unaccountable regulatory bureaucracies and illegal immigration that is powerfully present in the United States and transcends the Donald Trump candidacy. The vote to leave the European Union won decisively in Britain, which doubtlessly shocked the elites and political forecasters. Populist forces have also gained ground against former leftist strongholds in other parts of Europe. Many attribute this trend to an uprising of working-class voters, who have been damaged by the global economy and ignored by elites. That certainly proved true in the Brexit vote, in which working-class areas voted to leave the EU while the establishment and mostly affluent voted to remain. Likewise, in the recent elections in Austria, conservatives gained ground among working-class voters who had aligned with Social Democrats a mere decade previously. The same patterns have emerged in Denmark and Germany.
Remember when the left passionately insisted that public schools distribute free condoms to students on the bizarre theory that they were going to have sex anyway and we might as well make it safe? Well, the results are in, and the left isn't looking too great. When this nation was first experiencing the AIDS scare, liberals were adamant that we had to saturate the culture with condoms for teens to prevent the spread of the deadly disease. They ignored warnings that this massive giveaway program would publicly sanction and, thus, encourage teen promiscuity. They rejected reports that condoms are hardly fail-safe in preventing the spread of this disease.
If some maniac blurted out his allegiance to Jesus Christ while mowing down 49 innocent people, do you think there's any chance President Obama would not showcase those remarks? Well, in the case of radical Islamist Omar Mateen, the Obama administration not only refuses to emphasize his Islamic battle cry but also is actively suppressing it and trying to prevent the public from hearing or reading about it.
In my most recent column, I discussed President Obama's disgraceful reaction to the Islamic terrorist massacre of innocents in Orlando. Not to be outdone by his own wrongheadedness, he one-upped himself Tuesday with another doozy.
President Obama's predictable reaction to the latest heinous, unprovoked terrorist massacre of innocent citizens on American soil would be embarrassing if it weren't so disgraceful. This man's term can't end quickly enough.
Could it be possible that an increasing number of voters are tiring of liberals stuffing identity politics down our throats? True or not, we must keep hope alive. The liberal media, from The New York Times to the liberal blogs — apart from Bernie Sanders enthusiasts — are ecstatic that Hillary Clinton has finally shattered that penultimate glass ceiling and has only one more level to go before she captures the ultimate prize. At the same time, there's some evidence that Clinton's anointment is a bittersweet pill. I mean, is this really the woman feminists want to represent them in this vaunted achievement? Do even Clinton's most ardent supporters regard her as an iconic figure anymore?
Just when you think the Hollywood left might be showing some independence from the Obama White House, it once again falls in line to mouth its propaganda. Just kidding. No one believes that Hollywood leftists think independently. Fox News reports that the White House has drafted a social media script on immigration for its Hollywood zombies to disseminate. You may recall that the White House furnished gun control talking points for its Tinseltown puppets earlier this year.
Apart from the endless question of who always will, who probably will, who may and who never will vote for Donald Trump, I'd like to call a temporary truce between the believers and the skeptics and warn against any conscious abandonment or neglect of our founding principles. I sense that the Trump movement in some ways presents a false choice — that we either temporarily abandon our principles to save America or preserve our principles and lose America. To the contrary, even if we take drastic action, we must always do so within the constraints of the Constitution — being mindful that to restore America's greatness, we must reclaim our founding principles.
Hillary Clinton has been groping around for a campaign slogan. She's just unveiled her seventh meaningless catchphrase. How about "Still lying and breaking all the rules"? That one probably wouldn't help her campaign much — though with leftist voters these days, you have to wonder — but it has the virtue of being more accurate than her latest mealy-mouthed rallying cry, "Stronger together" — as if anyone, anywhere considers her unifying.
At this point, I am not going to announce support for Donald Trump, though I am not #NeverTrump and am emphatically #NeverHillary. To restate my position without social media lingo, I would never vote for Hillary Clinton and, though I am right now uncomfortable with endorsing Trump, I anticipate — but don't guarantee — that I'll eventually hold my nose and vote for him.
Please join me on a whirlwind tour around the zany world of modern leftism. Many stops are available, so the following ones were just the first ones I saw. Seeing as President Obama and his fellow leftist ideologues can't permit themselves to stimulate the economy by getting the government off people's backs, they continue to resort to top-down methods to transfer wealth from certain groups to others. As such, the Department of Labor issued a new rule to guarantee overtime benefits for salaried workers earning less than $47,476 a year.
To achieve its political ends, the left doesn't just assault the Constitution through the appointment of liberal activist judges; there are a variety of other leftist abuses, such as politicizing the departments of Justice and Education. In its mission statement, the Justice Department states that one of its aims is "to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans." That goal underscores cherished principles of American jurisprudence and the Constitution, including the preamble's commitment to "establish Justice," the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law and the rule of law itself.
Another week has passed and I'm still unenthusiastic about Donald Trump's presumptive GOP presidential nomination. Instead of allaying our fears, he's intensifying them — as if on purpose. Throughout the primaries I've expressed doubt that Trump is a reliable conservative, and my skepticism has already been vindicated. Yes, I've held my nose and supported RINO nominees before, always believing that less damage to the conservative cause and nation would come in supporting those candidates. But with Trump we have a different situation than ever before.
Where am I with the #NeverTrump movement? Well, I almost never say "never." Notice I qualified that "never" with "almost." I have said consistently throughout this campaign that I would support the Republican Party's nominee. As the campaign has progressed, I've also said it would be increasingly difficult to honor that pledge. This has nothing to do with sour grapes. Though I supported Rick Santorum in 2012, I full-throatedly endorsed Mitt Romney when he captured the nomination, realizing he is a decent man and light years better than Obama. In 2008 I ended up holding my nose for John McCain.
Though I won't go so far as to say the Indiana primary is do-or-die for the Ted Cruz campaign, it couldn't be much more important. As events have unfolded, Indiana has a critical choice to make next Tuesday. It shouldn't surprise political observers that Donald Trump won decisively in New York and the other Northeastern states. I don't mean to disparage Republicans in that region, but they are more liberal than Republicans elsewhere in the United States, and Trump is far more acceptable to liberal Republicans than Cruz is, especially on social issues.
Donald Trump is trying to establish the narrative that he's already won the Republican presidential nomination. If that's true, why is his team trying to reinvent him? Trump had a big win in New York, and he's likely to have another big day in other Northeastern states this week. But neither New York nor these other states are a surprise. The Ted Cruz team anticipated this and warned Cruz supporters that this would be a dry patch, adding that things will get better.
