Archive By Section - Columnists
Congressional Amnesty Blueprint an Unrealistic Wish List for Radical Democrats
President Obama's choice of Nevada to announce his all encompassing amnesty program is curious. Nevada's 10.2 unemployment rate is the nation's highest. Las Vegas, where Obama spoke, has a 10.4 percent unemployment rate. Nevada unemployment is so acute that more than four and a half years have passed since a single construction worker showed up at the unfinished $4.75 billion Echelon mega resort.
Argus Column
HOLLYWOOD--God bless America, and how's everybody? Iran's Ayatollah declared Friday any attack by a foreign country on Syria will be taken as an attack upon Iran. Their missile technology is starting to worry everyone. Just last week Iran sent a monkey into outer space, for drawing pictures of the Prophet Mohammed. Argo won Best Film at the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday. It's about the CIA rescue of U.S. hostages from Iranians who burned U.S. ...
Mickelson Chokes
Phil Mickelson choked on a gimme putt this week, but it wasn't on a golf course. According to the AP's golf writer, America's most popular golfer "put his popularity on the line with polarizing comments about how much he has to pay in state and federal taxes." "Polarizing comments"? Good grief. Now it's "polarizing" for an American to hint that because of the higher federal and state income tax rates on millionaires leveled by Sacramento ...
Eva Longoria: Washington Power Player?
In a recent story intended to be serious, the Wall Street Journal identified Eva Longoria as a Washington D.C. "power player." And all this time, I thought the Journal prided itself on serious journalism. Fooled me!
Argus Hamilton
BEVERLY HILLS--God bless America, and how's everybody? San Diego cops arrested Peter Robbins, the voice of Charlie Brown in the CBS Peanuts specials, for threatening his girlfriend. She let him pay twelve thousand dollars for her boob job and then she left him. It is the California version of Lucy pulling away the football. Phil Mickelson caused an uproar in La Jolla when he said he may exit California due to the new high state ...
Say “Yabba Dabba Don’t” To Neanderthal Clones
If you're the average person, you say things like "I wish they'd bring back 'ABC's Wide World of Sports' and full-service gas stations."
Will a More Aggressive Obama and a Resurgent ‘Mighty Middle’ Reshape America?
Say a prayer. Put up a tombstone that reads "R.I.P." for three prevailing political conventional wisdoms that seem to be quickly biting the dust.
Will the real performer please stand up
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? The Marine Band confirmed it pretended to play the National Anthem Monday while Beyonce lip-synced the song. She pretended to sing while the band pretended to play. Manti Te'o just hired them to perform at the memorial service for his imaginary girlfriend. Baltimore Orioles legendary former manager Earl Weaver died last weekend. He set the record for the most times being thrown out of a game. At ...
The Bike Jump
Norman Rapp's dad saved my life that day. Maybe I better explain. An article on MSNBC.com discussed how kids raised in the 1950s, '60s and '70s are survivors. We survived chain-smoking adults, meat-and-potato diets and rough-and-tumble fearlessness of every kind. It was the Evel Knievel era, after all. Knievel became famous doing wheelies and jumping his motorcycle over cars and buses. Every kid with a bicycle sought to emulate him. We built ramps from warped ...
Where Common Ground Begins
"It's no wonder many Americans are uneasy about the way President Obama is growing our government and eroding our liberties. Aren't most Americans conservative?"
Can Obama Overcome These NRA Shibboleths?
My dictionary defines a "shibboleth" as a "saying used by adherents of a party, sect, or belief and usually regarded by others as empty of real meaning." In response to the latest mass gun murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has trotted out its usual shibboleths.
A Sea Change in the Firearms Debate
In August 1925, The New York Times estimated 50,000 – 60,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched in a parade in our nation's capital. It was a huge public display of the once-secret group. H.L. Mencken called it "a full mile of Klansmen and their ladies." The man sitting in the White House, Calvin Coolidge, was a member of the Klan. The president before him, Warren Harding, was also a noted Klansman. The fraternity ...
Obama Ignores the Rational Answer
What do Al Hunt of Bloomberg News, David Gregory of "Meet the Press" and President Obama have in common -- besides their liberal politics? They all send their kids to Sidwell Friends School.
School Choice in Texas: Subjecting Students to the Whims of Wall Street
About a quarter of the kids in the San Antonio school district attend charter schools. Most are the low-income, minority students we think about when we imagine providing innovative opportunities for kids stuck in failing public schools in bad neighborhoods. For a long time, school reform has targeted only kids from poor families. You know, the lucky ones who get those free lunches.
Internet’s Child Aaron Swartz Becomes Collateral Damage
FONTANA, Ca. -- It was April 9, 2005 when I met the young person who impressed me so much I'd talk about him for 7 years. I was moderating a panel discussion of bloggers at Stanford University on "eDemocracy: The Role of blogs and Online Activists in 2004" The young person: 19-year-old Aaron Swartz.
Articles by Section - Columnists
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.
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."
