Archive By Section - Columnists
Welfare on Mars?
HOLLYWOOD-Happy Tuesday, everybody, and God bless America. The White House announced a one hundred billion dollar budget surplus for next year on Friday. It's no secret how. The U.S. Senate voted to tax Internet sales Thursday one day after Pfizer began selling Viagra online and the cash is rolling in faster than we can count it. The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli was threatened by street protests over Western presence Friday. The U.S. and Britain warned ...
Learn from History
History is one of our greatest teachers. It's just too bad so many of our young people think history started with the death of Princess Di or the birth of the iPhone. I was painfully reminded of America's historical illiteracy and the failure of our educational system last week while golfing with a few strangers in Burbank, Calif. One of the young men in my foursome was about 30 and ran a restaurant in ...
Do We Still Need the Department of Education?
When executives of corporations are caught aiding and abetting criminal behavior of their employees, the executives are prosecuted and the businesses are destroyed.
American pravda, a nation of lawbreakers and Benghazigate
Louis Brandeis, who served on the United States Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939, once warned, "Our government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
Limbaugh, Kurtz and the Bum’s Rush
Big news for those who think there aren't consequences in our media when professional talkers cross the line, or when famous reporters mess up and don't fix their mistakes without qualification, or do so begrudgingly. We now see proof of the law of consequences.
Did something happen in Benghazi?
HOLLYWOOD--God bless America, and how's everybody? Hillary Clinton will be given the Helen Keller Humanitarian Award in New York next week. She did great things despite being blind and deaf. Somehow you knew Hillary Clinton would come up with a fool-proof defense for missing the Benghazi terrorist attacks. Al Gore was reported Monday to have two hundred million in the bank after he sold Current TV. He's now as rich as Mitt Romney. Forget Asian ...
Will Obama Beat the 6-Year Itch?
If the 2010 elections weren't bad enough for Democrats, here comes the "six-year itch." With the exception of Bill Clinton's second term, the party that controls the White House loses seats in congress six years into a presidency. But there's a gathering sense among Democratic consultants who work on congressional campaigns that their party could buck the trend in 2014 for a number of reasons, not least because Barack Obama is finally fired up and ...
No-Fault Internet Addiction
Online chat host: Good morning, cyber pals. As you know, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the psychiatric "bible," is to be released this month. It will include "Internet-Use Disorder" - also referred to as Internet addiction - as a condition recommended for further psychiatric study. Our guest today is Dr. Adam Von Cybercruncher, America's leading authority on Internet addiction.
Droning On
Put on your tinfoil hats everybody. Or didn't you get the memo? Its paranoia time in America again. Maybe it's the spring that brings out the crazy in our legislators. Of course, that would assume a semblance of sanity the other three seasons, and nobody wants to bet anything more than lunch money on that proposition.
FCC Must Run Honest Auctions
"America's global leadership in mobile, and the strategic bandwidth advantage so many have worked hard to create, is being threatened by the looming spectrum crunch," recently departed Federal Communications (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski said.
Will George W. Bush and A.J. Clemente Get Mulligans?
When should you give someone a mulligan? Should you give a former President a mulligan for a good chunk of his 8 years in office? Should you give a young broadcaster a mulligan when he doesn't realize his mike is on and he says words more suitable for a Chris Rock routine?
Out of the Closet and into Identity Politics
I've never sought the spotlight. Though I'm coming out to the world, I intend to guard my privacy. I'm making this blanket statement in part to keep rumors and misunderstandings at bay. I'm not just a white, Catholic Republican. I'm not just a Reagan conservative. I'm a heterosexual. Like Jason Collins of the Washington Wizards, I just want everyone in America to know my sexual orientation. And like Collins -- the veteran NBA center who ...
Come on guys, keep those doors open
Sunshine Week, the national initiative by journalists to assure that sunshine illuminates every crevasse in the halls of officialdom, runs March 10-16. During that week, newspapers traditionally run editorials and columns extolling the importance of open government as it relates to our freedoms as Americans.
Business is Booming in Perry’s Potemkin Village
You can't change the facts of an explosion. A large fertilizer factory operated next to homes, a middle school and a nursing home. The factory blew, and 14 people died. We can't change those facts, but it's up to us to decide what they mean.
Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Nation
As Mother's Day approaches, the political scene makes me think of an old spiritual: "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child."
Articles by Section - Columnists
Mister, Mister
Here's a little game I invented the other day after phoning the water company to complain about my bill and hearing an overly-chipper woman say, "Hi, Peter. How may I help you?"
Father’s Day: Can It Survive?
My son Gideon (age nine) assures me that he will be a good father someday, but will that be an empty accomplishment? In another 20 years or so will there even be a Father's Day?
How Darrell Issa Undermines the GOP’s IRS Issue
Quick: someone call a chiropractor for California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. He's overreached so far his arm may separate from his shoulder. Even some key figures in his party are suggesting he needs an adjustment. F-a-s-t.
You’re being audited, no joke
HOLLYWOOD--God bless America, and how's everybody?
The Games Behind the Olympics Games
Washington, D.C., is in the grip of scandals, the economy is stumbling and a host of other challenges are weighing me down - which is why I prefer to dwell on more obscure subjects, such as a battle raging behind the scenes over the 2020 Olympics.
Obama and the Media: Biting the Hand that Feeds Him
Since the Obama administration has confessed to spying on journalists at the Associated Press and Fox News, have you noticed there are more stories about the Obama scandals in the news?
What Is a Journalist?
As amateur news hounds gain power and influence through social media, the definition of "journalist" has ripened for philosophical debate. But now it's becoming a legal issue – one that could hamper efforts to protect the news profession at the very time federal lawmakers are awakening to the need to do so.
