Columnist.
In 2007, Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget proposed extending Norway's absolute maximum criminal sentence of 21 years to 30 years for genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorism. That proposal didn't go anywhere. The maximum criminal sentence in Norway is 21 years. Now 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik stands accused of killing 76 individuals, many of them teenagers, in a vicious rampage that began with a bombing in Oslo Friday. If convicted, he can expect to be a free man in his 50s.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's bid to win the GOP presidential nomination hasn't exactly been catching on fire. Earlier this month, The New York Times ran a story about his candidacy under the headline "Will Republican Race's First In Be the First Out?" The RealClearPolitics poll average puts him in eighth place in the crowded GOP race. Fellow Land-o'-Laker Rep. Michele Bachmann fares better -- second place -- perhaps because she does not try to match T-Paw's mastery of "Minnesota nice." Then again, nice guys finish last. So Pawlenty has started talking tough -- about the need for a nominee with "executive experience" who "has a record of not just rhetoric but results."
I've been plagued with migraines for years. So when The Daily Caller reported that GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann has had severe migraines, it took my colleagues but minutes to propose that I write on the controversy. I resisted, but this story is a big talker. I've got a personal angle. I'm a columnist. What else could I do? Some people get migraines. Some people give them. We, the chosen few, do both.
If Washington fails to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and default follows, the results won't mirror that of L.A.'s "Carmageddon" weekend (when Angelenos stayed home in response to a major freeway closure and then blamed the media for over-hyping the story). A default on the federal debt means interest rates will rise, the cost of borrowing will balloon -- and the only sure outcome will be that voters will blame Republicans. Hence, the House Republicans' debt-ceiling package -- the Cut, Cap and Balance Act of 2011 -- is the bonehead play of the year.
Democratic California state Sen. Loni Hancock is pushing legislation to end California's death penalty. "Capital punishment is an expensive failure and an example of the dysfunction of our prisons," she explained in a statement. "California's death row is the largest and most costly in the United States. It is not helping to protect our state; it is helping to bankrupt us." You have to hand this to death penalty opponents: For decades, capital punishment opponents have tried to thwart California's 1978 death penalty law with frivolous appeals that clog courts, delay punishment and burn through taxpayers' dollars. They now have been so successful that they can argue that California's death penalty doesn't work and costs too much.
President Barack Obama has billed his "grand bargain" as the adult compromise because it has something for everyone to hate. The package would raise the $14 trillion debt ceiling (which the public hates), raise taxes by $1 trillion (which Republicans hate) and cut spending by $3 trillion (which Democrats hate) over 10 years. As the president argued in Monday's news conference, it's time for Washington to eat its peas. The administration is under the gun to raise the debt ceiling before Wall Street gets spooked, ratings agencies downgrade the nation's credit rating and interest rates go up. Thus, there is a problem with the Obama approach. Sure, it scores well in Washington's 24/7 blame game. But in a town where measures need a majority vote to pass, it's usually a lot harder to pass a measure that raises taxes.
As "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2," is set to hit theaters Friday, consider J.K. Rowling's villains. Nasty boy Draco Malfoy's first name is downright draconian; any last name that starts with Mal does not bode well. His aunt Bellatrix (female warrior) is also Lestrange. The sibilant-rich and spiteful Severus Snape possesses a name that needs no explanation. Dolores Umbridge? The senior undersecretary of the Ministry of Magic takes constant umbrage at any and all who challenge her authority.
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" is the motto of San Francisco's Bohemian Club. The motto is supposed to represent the club's edict against doing business during its annual Bohemian Grove retreat, which commences on Thursday on 2,700 acres, 75 miles north of the city. As club spokesman and member Sam Singer explained, "It's a group of gentlemen who are really genuinely interested in arts, theater, jazz and rock 'n' roll." The retreat gives members a chance to "get away from work. It's forbidden to talk about or solicit business at the club or grove." The "weaving spiders" motto also provides cover for a club that discriminates against women.
Three years ago this month, then-Sen. Barack Obama told an enthusiastic throng in Berlin, "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common." I have to hand this to Obama: the bond between Americans and Europeans is stronger than ever. On both sides of the Atlantic, national governments are forced to cut spending, private homes are underwater and public employee pension plans are unsustainable. The United States and Europe are in the same sticky soup, but instead of blaming George W. Bush, Our Betters in Europe are sniping at each other.
America is a free country, and radio talk-show host Herman Cain is free to run for president. Even with low-name recognition, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO polls well. Veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen ranks him third, with 10 percent of the GOP primary vote, behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. His supporters seem enthusiastic. But they should understand one thing: Herman Cain cannot win because when it comes to politics, he is an amateur. Cain's website opens with the slogan "Let's Get Real." Not the Herman-ator's strong suit.
On Tuesday, the Senate voted 40-59 against an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to end the annual $6 billion (45-cents-per-gallon) tax subsidy for ethanol, as well as the 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was a co-author of the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit Repeal Act. As she explained, the subsidy bestows $15 million per day on large oil companies for "no good reason" and drives up food prices.
When he ran for governor, Democrat Jerry Brown made a promise to voters -- "no new taxes without voter approval." That pledge was what you would call a gimmick. Brown knew he would have to woo or squeeze a few Republicans in order to get a the two-thirds vote necessary to qualify a tax hike for the ballot. On taking office, Brown promptly proposed a June special election to put an extension of temporary increases in state income tax, sales tax and car fees before voters. Many pundits applauded the wily Democrat's tactic of proposing a tax vote, but only so that he could keep his campaign pledge.
"If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us," President Richard Nixon told Congress in a special message on June 17, 1971, which generally is credited as the day the "war on drugs" began. Actually, Nixon didn't use the term "war on drugs" in the address. He used it later. And while Nixon talked tough about going after drug traffickers, he emphasized that rehabilitation would be a priority as he dedicated the lion's share -- $105 million of $155 million in new anti-drug funding -- "solely for the treatment and rehabilitation of drug-addicted individuals."
There are reasons why Anthony Weiner should not resign. New York's Ninth Congressional District voters have sent him to Washington since 1998. You don't overturn the will of the electorate because of bad publicity. OK, really, really bad publicity. Weiner Week One started with the New York Democrat charging that he was smeared, his Twitter account was hacked and he never sent a tweet of his lower half in underpants to a college student. In Week Two, Weiner had no choice but to come clean and admit he sent the pic.
As a U.S. senator, John Edwards, a staunch defender of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, decried "a system in which huge amounts of money (continue to) flow unregulated into the campaign process and ordinary people feel as if their vote makes no difference anymore." Last week, a federal grand jury indicted the North Carolina Democrat for allegedly violating federal election law by funneling nearly $1 million in campaign contributions -- in violation of the $2,300 federal campaign contribution limit per election -- to conceal an extramarital affair while he ran for president in 2008.
On Sept. 11, 2001, when two planes plunged into the World Trade Center, Americans watched in awe as New York firefighters, police and paramedics rushed to the scene at risk to their own lives. Some 343 firefighters and paramedics and 60 police officers paid the ultimate price in their desperate rush to save other lives. On Memorial Day at Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach in California, police officers and firefighters stood by as Raymond Zack, 53, stood in the water, apparently intent on suicide, until he drowned. They would not go into the water after him, they explained, because a 2009 department policy prohibited water rescues in this island community. An unidentified woman finally swam out and brought his body to shore.
In 2010, San Francisco supervisors banned Happy Meals. They showed no regard for parental choice. So it should not come as a shock that activists have managed to put a measure on the November ballot that essentially would outlaw the circumcision of baby boys. If it passes, parents won't be able to choose to circumcise their infant sons. The penalty for the "genital cutting of male minors" will be a $1,000 fine and/or up to a year in jail.
American Taliban John Walker Lindh's father wrote a piece in the Sunday New York Times. Frank Lindh writes that his son was apprehended "unarmed and wounded." He also writes that his son "had no involvement with terrorism."
The good news: Last year, California's homicide rate dropped to its lowest level since 1966. Violent crimes were down from the year before. The bad news: Federal judges and California lawmakers juggling to run a state government despite a huge budget deficit are making decisions that threaten to dismantle a system that has made California a safer place to live. If they get their way, today's state prison population of 162,000 inmates could drop by more than 40,000 within two years. Are you afraid yet?
Do Americans have the will to cut government spending in order to curb the rampant growth in government debt and liabilities? Not if the politicians they send to Washington have anything to do with it. On Tuesday, a Republican candidate lost a special election to replace a disgraced GOP congressman from Buffalo, N.Y. -- to a Democrat who won with the help of a third-party candidate. Presto. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called a vote on the House GOP budget bill. As The New York Times reported, Reid "brought the legislation to the floor so that Senate Republicans would either have to vote for it, exposing them to attacks from Democrats and their allies, or against it, exploiting growing Republican divisions on the issue."
