Archive By Section - Columnists
Here's a suggestion, stop suggesting
This time I was about to get on my plane at San Diego International Airport when I went to the newsstand to buy a copy of the Los Angeles Times. As the clerk rang it up she asked me in a robot-like type tone:
Killing jobs doesn't build economy
President Barack Obama says he will get focused on the jobs problem just as soon as he returns from his August vacation in Martha's Vineyard.
sTop making deals that hurt America
Republican deals with Obama are killing US Writing a syndicated column in 2011 is night and day different from when we started writing for publication in the 1990's. The overriding change is the volume and immediacy of feedback. In the 1990's we would receive the occasional letter applauding or challenging our thesis, facts and motives. Today we find our e-mail inbox and comment sections so full it is difficult to read it all. We take ...
Perry is gunning for Bernanke
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? GOP candidate Rick Perry said Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is committing treason if he prints more money. Perry warned him that he'll be treated ugly if he comes to Texas. The next day Laura Bush called and said if he doesn't tone it down she is going to leave him. Perry got into a war of words with the White House Monday over the tone of his ...
That penny wouldn't buy very pleasing thoughts
Everyone has a story about getting ripped off by an airline, abused by the phone company, or hosed at the department of motor vehicles.
Perry sued for daring to pray
The hysterical reaction to Republican presidential hopeful Gov. Rick Perry's faith is about as overblown as his home state of Texas is big.
Kansas City attacked by racist mobs
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? Kansas City had flash mob attacks at the Plaza district Saturday, joining Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Washington in race-based melees by flash mobs. It's tense. The Ku Klux Klan is advising convenience store owners to put the crackers up front to scare them away. Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his candidacy for president Saturday in South Carolina. He's a fervent evangelical Christian. The Democrats are already demanding to ...
Just consider the real science
I am a "climate change convert." Like many conservatives, I was traditionally skeptical of the science supporting anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Today, I am skeptical no longer. Like conservative blogger D.R. Tucker, on this issue, I was ultimately "defeated by facts." According to Tucker's article "Confessions of a Climate Change Convert" on FrumForum, reading the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was the critical moment in his conversion process. In ...
Rural towns are at risk in America
As a resident of a small town (Belfast, Tenn.), I am distressed by the 2010 U.S. Census. Rural population is declining both as a percentage of the U.S. total (down to 16 percent, compared to 20 percent a decade ago and a whopping 72 percent a century ago) and in absolute terms (a loss of 11 million residents since 1990). Demographers warn of a mid-century America characterized by sprawling megalopolises with virtual ghost towns in ...
It's OK to blame Obama for economy
President Obama, the Democrat party and their members of Congress have spent years blaming former President George W. Bush for the nation's current economic woes, which is akin to blaming the bank's tellers for a bank robbery, or for the dishonesty of their bosses, the bank's executives who were looting the till.
Offshoring isn't a good idea
The claim first made 10 years ago and repeated by Republican and Democratic administrations that corporate offshoring would increase domestic employment turned out to be a painful hoax perpetrated on American workers
America needs a fat presdient with a lean government
A week ago, Los Angeles Times editors asked readers if New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has the look of a president.
All the cancer symptoms are there
It has been said bad news does not get better over time. I once knew a lady who discovered a lump in her breast, but ignored it until it had metastasized. She finally sought medical help when she reached the point that she could no longer ignore the pain. Initially, denial gave her a brief sense of security, but all the while, the cancer was spreading. I could not help but notice an odd similarity ...
Censorship is alive and well in D.C.
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? Sen. John Kerry declared Friday that the news media has an obligation to stop giving airtime to Tea Party representatives. We've learned one thing this year. In Washington the impulse to censor is second only to the impulse to post naked pictures of yourself on Facebook. President Obama ordered the Pentagon Friday to set up a reverse boot camp for soldiers to attend before they leave active ...
Mom isn't going to co-sign this loan
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? China downgraded America's credit rating Tuesday and admonished Washington for not fixing its national debt and budget deficits. It's not like we can get mom to co-sign. Last night Queen Elizabeth got a call from the U.S. Treasury Department and she let the machine pick it up. Democrats went online Wednesday to express their fury at President Obama for caving in to the Tea Party in the ...
Articles by Section - Columnists
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.
