Columnist.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has taken Dr. Ben Carson's name off their "list" of extremists. Isn't that charitable? The idea that SPLC gets to sit in its comfortable offices and make lists of Americans to smear ought to be offensive. Liberals are forever re-living the horrors of Joe McCarthy's "list-making," but seem to have little problem with SPLC. Maybe that acronym for that outfit, SPLC, should stand for "Smearing Pro-Life Christians." Dr. Carson is the very kind of person for whom SPLC was founded, or claims to have been founded. They originally wanted to Southerners who were black and poor and constantly being intimidated and harassed by the Ku Klux Klan. There's no argument with defending those fellow Americans whose rights are being threatened by terrorists.
Good for Michelle Obama! She refused to cover up during a recent snap visit to Saudi Arabia. And our First Lady showed more grit than the entire Obama administration. She is also closer to a correct U.S. posture vis à vis the Mideast. President Obama has been vigorously pursuing a policy of appeasement in the Mideast for his entire term. He has apparently adopted the view that if we give billions to the "democracy" movements within the Muslim majority lands, and back them up with military force where they happen, however tenuously, to gain control, they will support our efforts to crush the "violent extremists" in their midst. Heaven forbid we call them Islamists or Jihadists. We wouldn't want to offend the overwhelming majority there. White House spokesmen claim, for example, that the Taliban is an armed insurgency, not a terrorist group. (Even though they harbored al Qaeda and are themselves listed as a sponsor of terrorism.)
"It's time to plant the flag on school choice," Sen. Ted Cruz told a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the Heritage Foundation recently. Sen. Cruz told of his efforts to reach across the aisle -- willing to work with the very liberal Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D) to help parents choose good schools for their kids. Promising to make this an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign -- with a knowing wink -- the senator related his work when he served as an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). There, he supported serious studies of the effects of competition in the formerly regulated monopolies -- telephones, railroads, and airlines. Cruz said he wanted researchers to look not just at the customer satisfaction of those who exercised their new options and chose new carriers. He *also* wanted the FTC investigators to look at the consumer satisfaction of those who remained with their original carriers. What several FTC studies showed, he said, was that while the customers who left their old regulated service providers were enthusiastic about their new options, *those who remained with the formerly regulated utilities reported either increased satisfaction or, in some cases, felt they were no worse off after de-regulation*.
President Obama's State of the Union Address made it clear he is no Lame Duck. Despite his midterm election drubbing, the President came out swinging. The economy has come off the mat. Ironically enough, he is benefiting from crash of oil prices. But in his case, he did everything he could do to *prevent* the surge in domestic oil and natural gas production. It reminds us of what Adlai Stevenson once said about Richard Nixon: He's the kind of man who would chop down a redwood, then mount the stump to give a speech on conservation! Ditto Mr; Obama. President Obama's fighting State of the Union Address proves he is determined to use every constitutional weapon he has and also to put a horseshoe or two in his boxing gloves. While he is no Lame Duck, he is certainly a Lame Dove.
We hear it all the time from the liberal left: those of us who legitimately question man's impact on alleged global warming and call out the scandal plagued, phony facts used to support their hypothetical theories, are routinely labeled as, "Climate Deniers." Well, I have new term in 2015 for our friends on the left: "Energy Deniers." In 2015, the "Energy Deniers" in the White House, the EPA, and the U.S. Senate are out in force. Our misguided President, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and EPA Director Gina McCarthy, are elbowing each other for face time in front of network TV cameras to announce plans to deny the Keystone XL Pipeline, deny access to vast energy resources on federal lands, and deny our potential energy and manufacturing renaissance.
CBS News gave an early report on the terrorist attacks in Paris. It included this telling sentence: "A reporter for Britain's Telegraph newspaper in Paris told Sky News that the first two officers to arrive, who were apparently unarmed, fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher." Every American, every citizen of a free country, needs to read, and re-read that sentence. Here is the answer of liberals and socialists to the problem of domestic security. Let the police do it. Let the state protect you. Give all weapons to the professionals who are trained and who can be trusted.
With the new year comes a new Congress, and, as always, energy policy will be a major priority for this 114th session. Now that Republicans have regained control of both the Senate and the House, and with President Obama looking to establish his legacy, there is a unique opportunity to build positive momentum on energy security and reduce America's vulnerability to the historically volatile oil market. Oil prices are at their lowest in years, and Americans may be tempted to think we are entering a new era of stable, cheap fuel. Indeed, we find ourselves in a phase of temporarily low prices on the oil market rollercoaster. Unfortunately, those easily forgotten high prices will inevitably return, shocking the economy in the process and damaging U.S. productivity. This scenario will replay itself again and again, unless we take steps to avoid it.
Well, here's the problem. No wonder the U.S.-Iranian nuclear talks are going nowhere. Sec. of State John Kerry has had to kick the can down the road -- again. He just gave Iran another extension on the West's deadline to come to an agreement about Iran's drive for a nuclear weapon. Deadline? Red line? Dead red line? Secretary Kerry has entered into talks with Iran's Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif. These are the highest level contacts since the Ayatollah Khomeini sparked the revolution in 1979 that brought the Mullahs to absolute power in that Shiite nation. The media are duly impressed. It is historic. Has to be. After all, John Kerry is there.
"Obama gives the Castro regime in Cuba an undeserved bailout." Was that a headline from Ronald Reagan's favorite conservative weekly, Human Events? Or, perhaps a stiff rejoinder from the up-to-the-minute reporting of the Weekly Standard? No! That's the headline on an editorial in -- can you believe? -- the Washington Post! It gets better. The Post flays President Obama's rationale for lifting the embargo on Cuba (the incoming GOP Congress will have something to say about this) and it dissects the President's White House statement.
Winston Churchill famously said "Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War." He was right, of course. But with Iran, the mullahs have made War-War *while* engaging us in Jaw-Jaw. They have played us along with these nuclear talks. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. This extended transcript is worth the time to study. The stakes could not be higher. This is the voice of Iran's freedom front. It's been said that Iran's mullahs with a nuclear weapon is "1,000 times more deadly" even than ISIS.
When former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) ran for President in 2004, he liked to joke that his campaign was pitched to "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." It was a jab at his rivals, whom he charged with being too cozy with Wall Street, too popular in corporate boardrooms. Long before there was an Occupy Wall Street movement, there was Howard Dean. That was then. Now, Howard Dean is endorsing Hillary Clinton for President. Despite the fact that Hillary went from being "flat broke" in 2001 to co-owner today of a $105 million fortune, Dean says "I'm ready for Hillary."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress on this day in 1941. Looking stern and resolute, the President wore a black armband, as if to memorialize the thousands of U.S. sailors, Marines, Army and Coast Guard personnel who had been killed and wounded the day before in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Now that President Barack Obama announced his intentions to violate the Constitution and grant amnesty to 5 million illegal aliens through executive amnesty, Congress is in a rush to respond. Obama's actions are a threat to the America's democracy, and it is up to the American people to demand enforcement of America's immigration laws. After returning from recess on Monday, conservative Republicans in the U.S. House circulated draft legislation which would stop Obama's plan dead in it's tracks. The language, which was inserted into an upcoming spending bill, uses Congress' power of the purse and expressly prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from using any funds or fees may by "any agency to implement, administer, enforce or carry out any of the policy changes" announced by the Obama White House. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently confirmed, in a letter to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that Congress has the full authority block Obama's shameful amnesty actions.
Nearly two years ago, these writers urged President Obama to "Chuck Hagel." Today, it seems, the hapless Secretary of Defense is on his way out. We wish him no ill. And we certainly don't rejoice in his forced resignation. The timing of his dismissal could hardly be worse. It comes on the eve of another "deadline" in our dealings with an Iran bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Secretary Hagel never overcame his stumbling debut. A recent poll of national security personnel gave him an abysmal 26% approval rating. And while we should never put civilian control of the military up for a vote of the troops, we should try to avoid naming defense chiefs who command so little respect among those whom they can order to risk their lives.
With already dismal approval ratings, this has been the most difficult month for President Barack Obama yet. After voters from coast to coast soundly rejected Obama-supporting Democrats on Election Day, video was leaked of left-wing economist Jonathan Gruber -- the chief architect of Obamacare -- admitting that the sweeping health care bill became law because Americans are "stupid." As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, a source leaked to Fox News copies of Obama's unconstitutional 10-point plan to grant amnesty to 4.5 million illegal immigrants through executive order, which is supposed to be announced this week. After reading just what he has in mind, it's clear Gruber isn't the only one who thinks we're stupid.
When a panel of judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pulled the nation back from the brink this week, they provided a rare glimpse of common sense in the debate over ending marriage. The majority opinion asks us to: >*Imagine a society without marriage. It does not take long to envision problems that might result from an absence of rules about how to handle the natural effects of male-female intercourse: children. May men and women follow their procreative urges wherever they take them? Who is responsible for the children that result? How many mates may an individual have? How does one decide which set of mates is responsible for which set of children? That we rarely think about these questions nowadays shows only how far we have come and how relatively stable our society is, not that States have no explanation for creating such rules in the first place.*
"Remember," said Ronald Reagan, "we have opponents; we don't have enemies." That's why President Reagan was so successful in gaining the respect and affection of the American people. Even people who did not like his policies liked him. President Obama's troubles in office stem in no small part from is willingness to treat American opponents as enemies. (He treats America's true enemies as friends, but that's another matter.)
Feathers are flying -- in Washington and in Jerusalem -- over the off-the-record comments by a senior Obama administration official to the respected Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. The unnamed dovish Obama policy maker said "the thing about Bibi [Netanyahu] is he's a chicken----!" Direct quote, characterization included. State Department Spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, hastened to disavow the quote, without divulging who said it. Jeffrey Goldberg is the go-to writer whom this administration relies upon to get its message out. Goldberg, seasoned and serious, is nonetheless a faithful adherent of the Obama administration's view that it is Israeli intransigence that is to blame for lack of progress toward a Middle East peace settlement.
With planes being grounded in my home state of Ohio and hospital workers in Texas contracting Ebola, Americans now have stark examples of the danger of President Barack Obama's policies. Obama has refused to impose a travel ban on flights from Ebola-stricken African countries for political reasons. He does not want to quarantine people who have been in those regions during the past month because it would hurt the already fledgling prospects of Democrats during this midterm election. Our Campaigner-in-Chief is now dangerously derelict in his official duties.
A free speech courage award should go to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa for his recent ruling blocking the enforcement of part of Wisconsin's campaign finance law that prohibits "coordinated issue advocacy" between outside groups and candidates. Liberal, overzealous Badger State prosecutors have tried to use a very subjective interpretation of the law as justification for their four-year, failed witch hunt to try and bring down Governor Scott Walker and his allies. Earlier this year, the same Judge Randa ordered a shut-down of the nefarious so-called "John Doe" investigation -- a secret probe launched in 2012 by partisan Democrat District Attorney John Chisholm against 29 conservative groups for allegedly "coordinating" with political candidates during the 2011 and 2012 Wisconsin recall elections. The investigation, in which witnesses were sworn to secrecy, was carried out in KGB-style fashion, including pre-dawn raids on the private residences of stunned citizens who had their computers and other possessions confiscated.
