Well, this is a fine mess. After years of moaning about various “conspiracies” against them, conservative activists finally have a real (i.e., not manufactured by Fox or inflated by Limbaugh) piece of evidence to take before the court of public opinion.
WASHINGTON — Breaking news: Conservative organizations suddenly have found common cause with one of their favorite objects of contempt — the benighted Mainstream Media.
On its face, the murder of Americans in Libya, including our ambassador, has absolutely nothing to do with the inappropriate relationship former President Bill Clinton had with a White House intern. But politically, that’s another story.
Those who oppose greater U.S. involvement in Syria were no doubt relieved at the announcement that Moscow and Washington want to convene an international conference to end the country’s civil war. They shouldn’t be.
A hundred years ago, anyone who might have predicted in 1913 the monumental, man-made catastrophes that would occur in the rest of the 20th century would have been considered warped, if not completely mentally deranged.
A notable example of how Americans fall through the cracks in Census Bureau data gathering caught my attention while Web surfing. It appeared on the black-oriented website TheRoot.com under this eye-catching headline: “I found one drop; Can I be black now?”
Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are accused of setting the bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon, attended the University of Massachusetts. Maybe they hated our nation before college, but if you want lessons on hating America, college attendance might be a good start. Let’s look at it.
It is easy to be cynical about the legislative process. It is quite reasonable to read the news out of Austin with a sense of discontent. However, behind the scenes, most of your elected representatives are quietly working on legislation that will improve communities and lives across this state.
She said, “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference — at this point, what difference does it make?”
The story of three girls grabbed from the streets of Cleveland and caged in their neighborhood for some 10 years demands scrutiny beyond expressions of shock.
If rain is pouring and you don’t want to get wet, you have a few choices. You can stay inside. You can put on a raincoat, grab an umbrella and brave the torrent. Or you can step outside and demand that it stop.
Jason Richwine is a type in American politics. He holds a doctorate from Harvard. He writes studies, appears at conservative conferences in suit and tie, and expounds the same old nonsense about immigrants that we’ve been hearing since the Know Nothings had their last hurrah.
WASHINGTON — Mistakes were made. This, we are supposed to accept, is the conclusion to be drawn about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, despite recent congressional testimony suggesting that significant efforts were made to camouflage those mistakes.
It should’ve been the shot heard around the world. Chances are, you didn’t hear it. An ominous sort of history was made last week near Austin, but it seems to have largely escaped notice. There was some media coverage, yes, but less than, say, Lindsay Lohan’s latest stint in rehab, certainly less than you’d think for something whose ramifications will likely shadow us for years.
Benazir Bhutto’s ghost hovers over Saturday’s elections for parliament in Pakistan. The face of the gutsy former prime minister, who was assassinated as she campaigned in Pakistan’s last national elections, still adorns commercials of her Pakistan People’s Party.
For the last two months, President Obama has been mired in Washington’s inside game, caught up in backroom congressional politics as he tried unsuccessfully to pass a bill on gun control and nudge Republican senators toward compromise on the budget.
Brenda Heist wanted to run away from life. Naturally, she went to Key West, Fla. The first time I was down there, I saw a highway sign that, for me, perfectly captured the meaning of that place. North, it said, with an arrow pointing the way.
If you are driving along and suddenly see a big red rubber ball come bouncing out into the street, you might want to put your foot on the brake pedal, because a small child may well come running out into the street after it.
Is the American body politic suffering from an autoimmune disease? The “hygiene hypothesis” is the scientific theory that the rise in asthma and other autoimmune maladies stems from the fact that babies are born into environments that are too clean. Our immune systems need to be properly educated by being exposed early to germs, dirt, whatever. The point is that growing up in a sanitary environment might cause our immune systems to freak out about things that under normal circumstances we’d just shrug off.
We may not have time for exercise, but there’s always time to read about exercising. And while the motivation to exercise may not be tops, the motivation to shop for “aids” to exercise seems forever strong.
One definition given for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; it might also be a definition of stupidity. Let’s look at some cities where large percentages of black Americans live under poor conditions.
The report from the Arlington, Va., Police Department is, on its face, hardly newsworthy: “SEXUAL BATTERY, 05/05/13, 500 block of S. 23rd Street. On May 5 at 12:35 am, a drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks. 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.” What makes it newsworthy is that Krusinski isn’t just any drunken guy in a parking lot. He’s the lieutenant colonel in charge of an Air Force program that is supposed to prevent sexual assault.
According to a 19th century composer named Francis Scott Key, the United States is the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” If he were writing those lyrics today, he might add an asterisk with the notation: “Void in the aftermath of terrorism.”
She stepped out onto the front porch, poured grease out of a frying pan for the dogs and “heard the gun go off.”
WASHINGTON — They lost me at the word “women.” As so often happens with contemporary debate, arguments being proffered in support of allowing teenagers as young as 15 (and possibly younger) to buy the “morning-after pill” without adult supervision are false on their premise. Here’s an experiment to demonstrate.
Ordinarily, I’d thank you for writing. But truth is, I am not grateful you wrote; your recent note was one of the more troubling things I have read. I do not blame you for leaving it unsigned.
The sentencing of an American citizen to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea’s infamous prison camps has escalated the cold war between the totalitarian regime and the United Status. Since assuming his role of head of state following his father’s death, Kim Jong-un has repeatedly ratcheted up tensions between his nation and ours.
Was President Obama really joking at the recent White House Correspondents’ Association dinner? Or was he showing, as I suspect, early signs of the second-term blues?
The good things that should happen after marijuana is legalized are happening in Colorado. In November, voters in Colorado — and Washington state — legalized pot for recreational use. (Many states allow medical use of marijuana.)
In the new sci-fi movie Oblivion, Earth’s most precious resource is Tom Cruise. But running a close second (spoiler alert) is water. Aliens want it. All of it.
Someone called politics “the art of the possible.” But, in the era of the modern welfare state, politics is largely the art of the impossible.
The chairmen of Congress’ primary tax committees, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., have launched a bipartisan effort to reform our messy, inefficient federal tax law. They’ve agreed to look for ways to lower tax rates on both individuals and corporations and at the same time “close loopholes.”
The liberal world vision and reality are often at variance, for example, with equal pay for equal work. I’ve often watched Lockup, a show that features California supermax prisons, including Pelican Bay and Corcoran. Often, a recalcitrant prisoner must be extracted from his cell through brute force.
Once in a while, a government agency adopts a policy that is logical, hardheaded, based on experience and unswayed by cheap sentiment. This may be surprising enough to make you reconsider your view of bureaucrats. But not to worry: It usually doesn’t last.
Thursday is the National Day of Prayer. At noon on that day, Christians from all across Denton County will meet on the lawn of the Courthouse on the Square for an hour of prayer. We’ll be joining Christians across our great nation doing the same thing.
WASHINGTON — The recent kerfuffle over a secret recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s campaign strategy meeting, which focused on opposition research about a likely opponent, actress Ashley Judd, has divided observers into two groups.
The newly unveiled George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum has occasioned a lot of reflection on our last president’s accomplishments and failures.
Twelve years after September 11, our intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies still haven’t fixed the data-sharing problems that make us vulnerable to more attacks. It’s difficult to reach any other conclusion after unnamed counterterrorism officials at the CIA recently revealed that Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev remained in their system as a person with possible ties to terrorism, while the FBI had closed its investigation into the man.
“If history were to repeat itself,” warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1944 State of the Union address, “and we were to return to the so-called normalcy of the 1920s, then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of fascism here at home.”
Sometimes a picture speaks volumes. Sometimes it’s outright deceptive. The picture of “Bomber No. 2” didn’t look a bit like a mass murderer. A sweet-faced college kid, the former lifeguard, the nice young man described by classmates and friends. It couldn’t be. There must be some outside organization calling the shots. An international conspiracy, perhaps. Brainwashing.
Our era is known as the Age of Terror, and no wonder. Twelve years ago, the United States suffered its worst terrorist attack ever, and since then, we have lived under the shadow of atrocities designed to frighten as well as kill. The bombs that went off in Boston put to rest the hope that with al-Qaida largely demolished, we could rest easy.
Rand Paul did just fine at Howard University, thank you very much. Or at least, that’s how he remembers it.
WASHINGTON — As the manhunt for the Boston bombers reached its climactic conclusion, Americans of all hues and backgrounds heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness it wasn’t ... fill in the blank: A white Christian from the South; A dark-skinned Muslim foreigner; An illegal Latino immigrant.
Some media found the possibility that foreign terrorists bombed the Boston Marathon to be too tantalizing an explanation to pass up, even when it snares the wrong suspects.
Britain’s late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said it all when she wrote that the world has “never ceased to be dangerous,” but the West has “ceased to be vigilant.”
The state of Texas is at a crossroads, and the decisions we make this legislative session will affect Texans for years to come. We have spent the last 10 years funding a large portion of our transportation needs with debt, now totaling $13 billion.
Over the past 10 years, I have written columns variously titled “Academic Cesspools,” “Academic Dishonesty,” “The Shame of Higher Education,” “Academic Rot” and “Indoctrination of Our Youth.” Therefore, I was not surprised by David Feith’s April 5 Wall Street Journal article, “The Golf Shot Heard Round the Academic World.”
The Denton Comprehensive Plan designates the area surrounding the airport as the primary industrial business zone in Denton. In that area, Denton has many great companies including Peterbilt, Target, Aldi, Tetra Pak, Mayday Manufacturing and Victor Technologies International.
Will someone please explain the Obama administration’s policy on Syria? After watching two top State Department officials try to explain it during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing recently, I am totally lost. And I’m not alone. Committee members on both sides of the aisle appeared equally confused.
