Columnist.
Only 16 percent of recent college graduates state that their career services office was very helpful. What a devastating statistic!
In a recent television interview, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, head of one of America's largest health insurers, commented that selling insurance across state lines is "an outdated concept" in these days of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
On Jan. 27, the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of only 1.9 percent for the fourth quarter and that the overall rate of growth for 2016 was a feeble 1.6 percent. During the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, the average annual real GDP growth was 1.5 percent —the weakest economic performance of any post-WWII president, and the fourth worst ever.
The Boy Scouts have announced that children who are biologically female but identify as male may now be scouts. By so doing they have joined a movement whose understanding of gender would make perfect sense to a typical three-year-old, but would confuse a typical six-year-old.
Last week President Donald Trump spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, as his predecessors have consistently done since 1953. Called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast until 1970, the event routinely attracts 3,000 or more people to pray for the country and world and hear addresses by religious luminaries. Originally organized by Methodist minister Abraham Vereide and Republican Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas and sponsored by Fellowship Foundation, it also provides a forum for presidents to discuss their faith. Billy Graham convinced Dwight Eisenhower to address the first breakfast, where he characteristically declared that "all free government is firmly founded in a deeply felt religious faith."
The controversy over so-called "fake news" does not seem to be going away. However, the press's frustration about it is increasingly misplaced. After the presidential election the media fixated for months on a handful of fictitious headlines from suspect websites that were shared around Facebook which allegedly affected the election. But they missed the bigger story about their own problematic reporting.
President Donald Trump has nominated Appeals Court Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Put simply, Gorsuch's judicial philosophy is to respect the text (textualism) of the Constitution and the intent of its original writers (originalism).
"Repeal" and "replace" are the new buzzwords, with no signs of being bumped from the headlines anytime soon. Since the 2016 election, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been in the crosshairs of the Republican-controlled Congress and Donald Trump. The vow to repeal and replace ACA was a keystone campaign promise that tapped into the frustration of many Americans hit with skyrocketing health care premiums and limited plan options. While "repeal" will be fairly straightforward, what will "replace" actually entail? More importantly, in an effort to wrest control of health care from the federal government and return it to individual Americans, what *should* it entail?
After Katie Rich, a "Saturday Night Live" writer, tweeted last week that 10-year-old Barron Trump "will be this country's first homeschool shooter," she was widely lambasted on social media. Her inappropriate, insensitive remarks deserve to be widely denounced. No child should be subjected to such a tactless, demeaning attack in public or private. It is appalling, however, that few Americans express similar outrage about the troubled and sometimes tragic circumstances in which millions of our precious children live.
Elections have surprising consequences. It is hard to know who is most surprised by the results of the 2016 presidential race: Hillary and her supporters, who have spent the last two months vacillating between tears and anger; conservative Never Trumpers who thought Trump was unfit for office; or Trump himself. But while some Hillary supporters are busy popularizing the grammatically and legally incorrect "not my President" hashtag, most Never Trumpers have recognized that Trump is in fact the President-elect, and as conservatives, hope for the best from and for Trump.
President Barack Obama's executive actions during the two and a half months of his lame duck, post-election time in office provide the perfect exclamation point to his entire presidency. His antipathy for private property has never been clearer.
Quite possibly one of the most surprising reversals of narrative as a result of the election of Donald Trump is the rise of a leftist secession movement in the United States. Prior to Trump's election many — myself included — theorized secession as a possible extension or argument of the Tea Party movement. However, the calls for states' rights — 10th Amendment "reserved powers" and secession — are now the mantra of fringe leftist groups in California, Oregon, and Washington states. These supporters of secession have branded the movement as "Calexit."
Social media is used today for every purpose (and many of the posts are not particularly prosocial). Too many of the "news" stories have been slanted so far (sometimes to the right, and sometimes to the left) as to become fake, by any reasonable standard. But Facebook is also used to announce, share, and celebrate positive events, like weddings and births. I often think that Facebook is at its best when it focuses on newborns and toddlers. Facebook has also become a quick way to communicate needs and request prayer when facing human trauma.
"Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The key is Russian national interest." Winston Churchill's quote came a quarter century and two months after the start of World War I. In late August 1914, one month into that conflict, a massive Russian army was defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg. While the German offensive through Belgium that brought Britain into the Great War on August 3, 1914 had stalled at the First Battle of the Marne in mid-September, the relatively small British Army committed to France would be destroyed within a year, to be replaced with conscripts.
College students are ill-prepared to connect with an employer and secure a job in today's marketplace. With little or no career development, self-assessment, or an understanding of vocational calling, they believe that the degree alone will be the proverbial "ticket" to secure employment. Oh, how mistaken they are! Incorrect job expectations will derail their job aspirations. A Talent Marks survey found that 95 percent of college grads do not have a clear understanding of their employment expectations or how to get a job.
It seemed like a good idea. Prepare a national news broadcast that parents can watch with their children without fear of trauma, nightmares, or lewdness. If I can watch the news with my children, then I have a natural opportunity to discuss issues and problems of the day, encouraging my children to be informed consumers of current events. This experiment of family-friendly news became the policy of certain news outlets in the 1990s, but was quickly co-opted by Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. The Clinton sex scandal took the national news in directions that were not family friendly — never mind the fact that there are certain subjects that I myself as an adult do not want to think about while I am eating my dinner. The "family-friendly news era" was so short that when I search for the term today, I get only 19 hits.
The man for whom I was named has died. John Glenn, the last of the Mercury astronauts, died on December 9 at age 95. Five decades ago he was launched atop a refurbished Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile that had originally been designed to hurl hydrogen bombs at the Soviet Union. The Soviets had their own—the Vostok-K booster that the year before had sent Yuri Gagarin in an orbital flight around the Earth.
Some supporters of Hillary Clinton are taking out their frustrations in a vigorous campaign to, as they say, "Abolish the Electoral College." Their mantra is that since Clinton had a larger share of the popular vote than Donald Trump, she effectively won the election. Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer reflects this view: "The Electoral College is an outdated undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society and it needs to change immediately," says Boxer. In its place Senator Boxer wants a popularly elected president.
As someone who served as a Republican delegate from Pennsylvania during the 2016 election, and as a professor of political science and presidential history, I have some fresh political-historical observations untangled from partisan gossip about Donald Trump and his future presidency. It seems likely that Donald Trump, based on his policy announcements for his first 100 days, is very much in line with Whig presidents of the 1800s.
Some seem to believe the election of Donald Trump reflects a general disintegration of American society evidenced by Time magazine's selection of Trump as "Person of the Year" presiding over a "Divided States of America." Traditionalist pundits like Christiane Amanpour, who recently melted down over Trump's election, never fully comprehended American stalwarts like Ronald Reagan and Billy Graham.
