Columnist.
Every day until December 25, we will be besieged by commercials ticking down the shopping days left until Christmas. It's a magical time of giving and getting gifts, but it should really be a celebration of the Lord's greatest gift to us — sending His Son to die for our sins and be the light of the world. For whatever His reason, God has especially blessed America. Our country was founded on a continent rich with natural resources and stunning beauty. God gave our Founding Fathers wisdom and insight about human nature, which enabled them to write a Constitution that made us the freest and wealthiest society on earth and has preserved our God-given rights for more than two centuries.
Political satirist P.J. O'Rourke makes an oft-missed point when he says, "It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money." Taking a page straight from the government playbook, the United States Postal Service's upcoming $6.3 billion procurement of new mail delivery trucks echoes this sentiment perfectly.
Americans always have welcomed those fleeing danger and oppression abroad. Some of the earliest Americas crossed the Atlantic to escape religious persecution in Great Britain. We should continue to offer sanctuary to those in need. Christians, especially, should be compassionate to those who face death for their beliefs. But in today's world we must be cautious as well. After all, the first responsibility of the government in Washington is to those who already are here. We can enjoy our liberties only when our lives are secure.
Why is the administration so driven to punish nuns that it cheated to win?
In leading his country in the confrontation of a unique set of challenges, Winston Churchill famously said: "This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure." Scenes of pregnant women hanging from the balcony of a Paris concert hall and screaming for help on an otherwise serene Friday evening; young men desperately pulling the severely wounded down to the street to save their lives; blood-drenched public spaces; chaos: all of this is too familiar. It was sadly reminiscent of what we experienced and endured on 9/11.
At a recent congressional hearing, Dr. Mandy Cohen of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services explained that almost 700,000 Americans have lost their health coverage because the insurance co-ops formed under ObamaCare to foster competition couldn't compete with "big, experienced players" in the insurance marketplace.
This weekend and early next week Hassan Rouhani will be making his first visit to Europe as the president of Iran. The first time for anything is special and this has the potential to really be a historical visit. Rouhani is scheduled to meet with the leaders of France and Italy, and they can make this a new chapter for relations between Iran and Europe, and to some extent the West as a whole. But this status is not guaranteed simply by the fact that Rouhani is the first Iranian president to visit Europe in a decade. Neither will the historical impact of the visit be determined by the trade agreements that he will try to sign, or the types of concessions he will seek from his European counterparts.
I've spent a good part of my working life contemplating the importance of the rule of law in making America the most prosperous society in the history. First as a public official (mayor of Cincinnati, treasurer and secretary of state) and now as a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and American Civil Rights Union, I've come to believe that none of the many factors that contribute to our astonishing prosperity is more important than the rule of law over the rule of special interests.
When ObamaCare was enacted, President Obama promised Americans that health insurance companies would be held accountable for providing affordable, quality health care to patients. He assured us that competition in the marketplace would increase and that consumers would be given a range of options. Today, more than five years after this disastrous law's passage, we have yet to see any of these promises delivered.
Shaqayeq Azimi is an aspiring, joyful girl of 22 with a full life ahead of her. She is also an Iranian dissident, committed to challenging the repressive theocracy that rules her home country.
Advocates of crony capitalism just won't give up. Last Friday, a large block of House Republicans joined Democrats in signing a discharge petition to force revival of the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) to the House floor. 42 Republicans joined 176 Democrats in signing on to the discharge petition, circumventing the authority of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling — whose committee has rightfully opposed the bank as corporate welfare.
Most liberals and even some conservatives are arguing that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis must either issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or quit her post. Where you stand on this issue too often comes down to a case of where you stand on the question of whether same-sex nuptials are now "the law of the land" because Justice Tony Kennedy and four of his black-robed cohorts say so.
We should all want our troops in Afghanistan to intervene to stop the rape of boys, right? Surely, we don't want our U.S. Army to act like morally neutered crew members of the Starship Enterprise from the famed Star Trek TV series. Those fictional time and space travelers had a Prime Directive that forbade them from interfering in the development of less technologically advanced beings they encountered as they went "where no man had gone before."
Fall is always a busy time on Capitol Hill. Members usually wait for this time of year to consider the most controversial and thorny issues like appropriation bills to keep the government open and tax legislation that expires at the end of the year. Deals are made and legislators look for any opening to sneak through supposed non-controversial legislation without much debate or fanfare.
Most people are going to tell you that they can't stand seeing good money go to waste. When it comes to the U.S. government, however, wasteful spending continues to be the name of the game. A repeat culprit of government waste — the United States Postal Service (USPS), which recorded a revenue loss of $5.5 billion dollars in 2014 alone — is considering a $6.3 billion purchase of mail delivery vehicles using an unnecessarily expensive, out-of-date approach it employed nearly 30 years ago. Of course, maintaining one of the world's largest civilian vehicle fleets comes with its costs, but it appears the service has done little to minimize those.
Recently some detractors and uninformed people have called Carly Fiorina's conservatism into question. While I'm unaffiliated with any campaign and uncommitted to any candidate, I do think it's imperative to state Ms. Fiorina has more than earned her conservative stripes. First and foremost, Carly's pro-life credentials are outstanding and she's proving it consistently on the campaign trail. As the hideous Planned Parenthood videos have circulated, no candidate has been more vocal in calling for defunding Planned Parenthood than Carly. In spite of the national media's refusal to cover the videos, Fiorina forced the issue onto the national agenda with a powerful, moving indictment of Planned Parenthood in the CNN debate.
The United Nations officially came into existence exactly 70 years ago when its charter was ratified. It was supposed to be a force for peace, coexistence and respect for human rights. According to the Preamble of the UN charter, "We the peoples of the United Nations determined … to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person." Fast forward 70 years.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is having the time of his life. At 73, he is already as old as Ronald Reagan was when he ran for re-election in 1984. But Sanders is undoubtedly — as our friends are family are increasingly calling us — *spry*. And what a lark. He is leading Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire (his neighboring state) and is gaining on her in Iowa. What's up with this? Everyone who tells a pollster Bernie is the guy is poking a finger in Hillary's "inevitable" eye. A year ago, former Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick (D) warned Hillary that "inevitable" was not good for the party or good for her. He was right. President Lyndon B. Johnson was inevitable in 1968, the pundits and the pols all said. But anti-war activist Allard Lowenstein ran around Capitol Hill knocking on senators' doors until he found one — Gene McCarthy of Minnesota — who was willing to take on the man he presented as an ogre, Lyndon. We soon learned that the Inevitable LBJ had feet of clay. Does Hillary have a glass jaw?
Like too many politicians of his generation, President Obama seems to think that proper enforcement of our nation's drug laws would be hypocritical. We know from David Maraniss' highly acclaimed biography, *Barack Obama: The Story*, that the marijuana-smoking "Choom Gang" was all too much a part of the young Obama's days at Hawaii's exclusive Punahou prep school.
Most liberals and even some conservatives are arguing that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis must either issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or quit her post. Where you stand on this issue too often comes down to a case of where you stand on the question of whether same-sex nuptials are now "the law of the land" because Justice Tony Kennedy and four of his black-robed cohorts say so. Setting aside that thorny question for a moment, let's look at some *other* "law of the land" issues that are being skirted.
