Going Bulworth.
The New York Times reported last week that President Obama fantasizes with aides about "going Bulworth."
Continue reading Plagued by Multiple Scandals, Does Obama Want to "Go Bulworth"?.
Opinion
So far, voters don't seem to be abandoning President Barack Obama over controversies gripping the Beltway world. But White House aides are tempting fate with their reluctant, piecemeal and contradictory disclosures of what they knew and when they knew it, especially about a report on the Internal Revenue Service's 18-month effort to target tea party and other conservative groups for special scrutiny.
New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg has become an interesting urban social engineer. In 2012 alone, he pumped nearly 2.5 million dollars of his own money to help legalize same-sex marriage in the state of Maryland. Needless to say, he has become a formidable foe to traditional family values.
OVER the last decade, the United States has become a less violent country in every way save one. As Americans commit fewer and fewer crimes against other people's lives and property, they have become more likely to inflict fatal violence on themselves.
Continue reading Loneliness and Suicide: A Crime Against Ourselves.
So many people are sad about America and cynical about its government. They don't expect anything good to happen. They think certain poisons have entered the system and nothing can be done about it. Leviathan will not be cut back or tamed, Leviathan will go on abusing the citizen. People are all too willing to believe the Internal Revenue Service is hopelessly political in its judgments and actions. They are not shocked. They don't think anything can be done, that the system cannot be corrected. They just grip the arms of the seat and wait for the weather to get worse.
Continue reading Why America Should Stay Shocked by the IRS Scandal .
Word on Monday that the Justice Department had obtained the records of more than 20 phone lines at The Associated Press sent the Fourth Estate into a frenzy. Big Government, Big Data, Big Brother, all the symbols of an increasingly surveillance-driven age were invoked.
Continue reading It's a Two-Way Street for Snooping and the News Media.
In June of 1170, the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury crowned Henry II of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, should have had the privilege, but he and King Henry had been warring over the powers of clergy in England.
Continue reading Obama Said "Punish Our Enemies" and the IRS Did .
President Passerby needs urgently to become a participant in his presidency.
Late Monday came the breathtaking news of a full-frontal assault on the First Amendment by his administration: word that the Justice Department had gone on a fishing expedition through months of phone records of Associated Press reporters.
In just one week, President Barack Obama's political machine has switched from endless campaign to survival mode. And for the first time in Obama's presidency, the damage to his regime may be permanent.
Continue reading Will the Damage from Three Scandals Permanently Scar Obama's Presidency?.
"He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to . . . cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner."
Continue reading IRS Scandal Carries Echoes of Watergate.
Last week, with the Dow Jones industrial average breaking 15,000, war raging in Syria, a guilty verdict in the Jodi Arias trial and nearly round-the-clock coverage of the (mercifully) found victims of the Cleveland kidnappings, House Republicans were fighting an uphill battle to make a splash with committee hearings on the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.
Continue reading Honestly, Mr. President, Please Get a Handle on the Scandals.
Meet the members of an innovative movement that is taking the Bible's commandment to love your neighbor seriously.When the Bible commands Christians to love their neighbors, what if it really means what it says? That's the simple, radical idea behind the "Neighboring Movement"--a group of pastors, church members, and civic leaders around the country that may be coming to a neighborhood near you.
Continue reading Meet the Folks Behind the Neighboring Movement.
Recent events suggest that the 44th president may not be immune to the phenomenon that historians call the "second-term curse."Video: Honoring the National Association of Police Organizations' "Top Cops" of 2013, President Obama praised the heroic job done by law-enforcement officers and renewed his call for stricter gun laws.
Continue reading Is Obama Suffering From the "Second Term Curse"?.
Punditry is divided into two classes these days: those blaming President Obama and his perceived failure to "lead" for the gridlock that has consumed our government and those who believe that since the president has to deal with a coequal branch of government, blame should spread beyond that end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Continue reading The Make Believe Leadership "Crisis" in Washington.
The Benghazi story until now has been a jumble of factoids that didn't quite cohere, didn't produce a story that people could absorb and hold in their minds. This week that changed. Three State Department officials testifying under oath to a House committee changed it, by adding information that gave form to a growing picture. Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson and Eric Nordstrom were authoritative and credible. You knew you were hearing the truth as they saw and experienced it. Not one of them seemed political. You had no sense of how they voted. They were professionals. They'd seen a bad thing. They came forward to tell the story. They put the lie to the idea that all questioning of Obama administration actions in Benghazi are partisan and low.
Continue reading The Inconvenient Truth About Benghazi.
Thirty-one months ago Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell affronted the media and other custodians of propriety by saying something common-sensical. On Oct. 23, 2010, he said: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." He meant that America needed conservative change from the statist course of Obama's presidency (the stimulus, Obamacare, etc.), therefore America needed a president who would not veto such change.
Continue reading Does President Obama Have False Hopes for 2014?.
Along with a boosted Buick LeSabre, another incident listed on a crime report Sunday in Arlington County, Va., was a creepy attack by a man on a woman.
"On May 5 at 12:35 a.m., a drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks," the report read. "The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, of Arlington, Va., was arrested and charged with sexual battery."
Continue reading America's Military Injustice.
Many liberals would like you to think it's 'her turn.' But there's reason for skepticism.In a move that had some of us dropping to our knees and shaking our fists at an indifferent God, C-SPAN recently announced that it is launching its "Road to the White House" programming for 2016.
President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive in Rangoon, Burma, in November. (Photo: Soe Than Win, AFP/Getty Images)
Continue reading Why Hillary Is No Barack.
So I guess you've heard. Fading, 34 year-old NBA free agent Jason Collins has been declared a hero for publicly announcing that he digs dudes. Well, it's about time! Used to be all a guy had to do was die at Omaha Beach or some other such nonsense. The Imperialist USA is finally seeing some major progress.
Continue reading NBA's Jason Collins: 'Gay' Superhero! .
AN Arab friend remarked to me that watching the United States debate how much to get involved in Syria reminded him of an Arab proverb: "If you burn your tongue once eating soup, for the rest of your life you'll blow on your yogurt."
Continue reading What Would It Take to Bring Democracy to Syria?.
A psychotherapist contends that the DSM, psychiatry's "bible" that defines all mental illness, is not scientific but a product of unscrupulous politics and bureaucracy.
Continue reading The Real Problems With Psychiatry.
THOUGH yesterday's employment report revealed a slowly improving job market, the jobless rate is still elevated, at 7.5 percent, with 11.7 million people looking for work, including 4.4 million who have been doing so for at least half a year. About eight million more were stuck in underemployment ("involuntary" part-timers) last month, unable to find the hours of work they sought.
Continue reading Where Have All the Jobs Gone?.
I think we're all agreed the president is fading--failing to lead, to break through, to show he's not at the mercy of events but, to some degree at least, in command of them. He couldn't get a win on gun control with 90% public support. When he speaks on immigration reform you get the sense he's setting it back. He's floundering on Syria. The looming crisis on implementation of ObamaCare has begun to fill the news. Even his allies are using the term "train wreck." ObamaCare is not only the most slovenly written major law in modern American history, it is full of sneaked-in surprises people are just discovering. The Democrats of Washington took advantage of the country's now-habitual distractedness: The country, now seeing what's coming in terms of taxes and fees, will not be amused. Mr. Obama's brilliant sequester strategy--scare the American public into supporting me--flopped. Congress is about to hold hearings on Boston and how the brothers Tsarnaev slipped through our huge law-enforcement and immigration systems. Benghazi and what appear to be its coverups drags on and will not go away; press secretary Jay Carney was reduced to saying it happened "a long time ago." It happened in September. The economy is stuck in low-growth, employment in no-growth. The president has about a month to gather himself together on the budget, tax reform and an immigration deal before Congress goes into recess. What are the odds?
Continue reading A Lame Duck President?.
If a president finds himself in the role of a political scientist, he has a problem -- even when his political science lesson is 100 percent accurate.
Continue reading Why the President Needs to Hope Again.
As the public turns on Republican senators who opposed the legislation, supporters aim to line up a second shot for it, and a new result. Eleanor Clift reports.
Continue reading Back to Square One on the Gun Bill.
by Zeke J MillerAfter the first 100 days of his second term, President Obama just can't stop talking about the limits of his own power.
Continue reading President Obama: In Charge, But Not in Control.
A godless city? Please. President Obama's former religious adviser on the surprising number of believers in D.C.'s corridors of power.
Continue reading The Secret Faith of Washington's Politicians and Power Houses.
The trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, facing the death penalty for the deaths of four infants and one woman in his clinic, is over. America has moved on.
Continue reading How Abortion Has Changed America.
AS police investigators peel away the layers of the Boston Marathon bombing, there are two aspects of this unfolding story to which I want to react: the mind-set of the alleged bombers and the role of the Internet in shaping it. Important news about both was contained in a single Washington Post article on Tuesday.
Continue reading The Boston Terrorist Blames Iraq & Afghanistan.
What's the big deal?
I mean, why are we surprised that an abortionist and his staff would, behind the walls of an always-lethal abortion clinic, commit one of the most horrific serial killings in American history? What did you think abortionists do, heal people?
Continue reading Kermit Gosnell Trial: Much Ado About Nothing .
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, has told Richard Cordray not to bother. This is part of the recent evidence that government is getting some adult supervision.
Continue reading Courts and Congress Give Obama Adult Supervision.
If anyone needs a reminder about the arc of the modern presidency, tell them to pay attention to the salutes, solace and, yes, the sawbucks reeled in and offered up in two Texas cities during a single 24-hour period this week.
Continue reading Obama Gets Peek at His Future as a Past President.
Fifty-one months of an Obama presidency seem like an eternity of speeches, photo ops, fundraisers, soaring debt, stagnant job growth, blame games and did we mention speeches?Freddy Ford / AP (Bush autographs his personal pickup which he donated for charity auction. It brought $300,000 for military families.)
We cannot bring back the stolen lives. We cannot bring back the lost limbs or the lost hearing. And we cannot mitigate the infinite grief of the victims' loved ones.
Continue reading Lessons from Boston and Chechnya.
Kirsten Powers has done a national service, by virtue of her now famous USA Today column, of getting the news of the trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on the national radar screen.
Continue reading Why Kermit Gosnell is Not an Exception.
Several years ago, Jennifer Senior wrote a fascinating, agonized essay for New York Magazine on abortion and the challenges facing the pro-choice cause. Of the piece's many memorable passages, this stretch in particular stood out:
Continue reading Ross Douthat on Kermit Gosnell and the Politics of Abortion.
THE graying man flashing fury in the Rose Garden on behalf of the Newtown families, the grieving man wiping away tears after speaking at the Boston memorial service, is not the same man who glided into office four years ago. President Obama has watched the blood-dimmed tide drowning the ceremony of innocence, as Yeats wrote, and he has learned how to emotionally connect with Americans in searing moments, as he did from the White House late Friday night after the second bombing suspect was apprehended in Boston.
Continue reading President Obama Is No Bully in the Pulpit.
I love Brad Paisley. I love LL Cool J. I don't like "Accidental Racist."
The song, part of Paisley's new album Wheelhouse, has provoked controversy in media outlets around the country, with some suggesting the song is hokey and some suggesting it's actually racist.
We must not wallow in fear or self-pity.
It is, obviously, understandable that people are shocked when something like the Boston bombing happens. Such an attack is a shocking thing--the images, the video, the beautiful faces of the three young people whose lives were taken; all shocking.
Continue reading After Boston, We Must Not Live in Fear.
Everyone expected the perpetrators of the Boston marathon bombing to have fled the area soon after the attack. But just hours after the Federal Bureau of Investigation released their photos, the two suspects were apparently tracked to Watertown, a western suburb of Boston, where one was killed and one remains at large. One police officer is dead and another has been badly wounded as authorities mount a massive manhunt to find the remaining "terrorist." The T subway line, one of the metropolitan area's main arteries, was shut down while tens of thousands of residents in the affected communities were ordered to stay home. Everyone in Watertown, Newton, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge and the Allston and Brighton neighborhoods of Boston proper have been told to stay inside with their doors locked.
