Cal Thomas stories, Page 7
Cal Thomas: It’s war — are we in it to win it?
Prior to Iran’s missile attacks on U.S. bases inside Iraq, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said, “We are not seeking war with Iran, but we are prepared to finish one.” Esper said the U.S. prefers a “diplomatic” solution to the escalation of tensions in the region. Yes, that would be...
Cal Thomas: As we move into new decade, a look at life 100 years ago
It can be useful and instructive to observe the turning of a decade by looking back on what life was like in America a mere 100 years ago. On Jan. 2, 1920, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 108.76. Today it is over 28,000 points. In 1920, the U.S. had...
Cal Thomas: Whatever happened to teaching history?
According to a report by the National Assessment of Education Progress , the teaching of U.S. history to American students lags behind all other subject matters. The latest NAEP survey finds that proficiency levels for fourth-, eighth- and 12th-grade students are in the 20th, 18th and 12th percentile, respectively. Part...
Cal Thomas: The importance of ‘no men’
Shortly after Jim Bakker’s release from prison in July 1994, I invited the disgraced TV evangelist to my home. There was an important question I wanted to ask him. Some background: Bakker and his “Praise the Lord” (PTL) associates sold $1,000 “lifetime memberships” to people who were promised annual three-night...
Cal Thomas: Charlie Chaplin’s philosophy — no more billionaires
He was the Bernie Sanders of his day. Charlie Chaplin, the iconic actor and at the time a well-known political leftist (some said communist), delivered a speech in San Francisco in 1941 prior to America’s entry into World War II. As recounted in the biography of her parents, actress Fay...
Cal Thomas: The Hillary-Tulsi smackdown
A new wrestling league is being promoted during TV coverage of Major League Baseball’s post-season. The ad promises more action, more spectacle and includes women as well as men grappling with each other. I have two candidates for their consideration: Hillary Clinton and presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii. Last...
Cal Thomas: Ukraine, a political rerun
Back when reruns were a staple of summer programming, television networks aired repeats of their programs, giving viewers another opportunity to see what they had already seen. Democratic politicians are now conducting their own version of reruns. The same bunch who brought us the failed Russian “collusion” story, the sliming...
Cal Thomas: Faith & presidential authority
The debate about political power and authority among those who profess the Christian faith has raged since the first century. In modern America, the debate raged throughout Jimmy Carter’s presidency and more recently through the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The debate now looms large for Donald Trump....
Cal Thomas: Dealing with the Taliban devil
PARIS — President Trump was right to cancel a “secret” meeting with leaders of the Taliban and the Afghan government following two bomb attacks by the terrorist group that killed 10 civilians, an American soldier and a Romanian service member in heavily fortified Kabul. The president is eager to fulfill...
Cal Thomas: Generations apart
There are people in every generation who believe the generation following theirs is either going to the dogs or will ruin the country. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll lends credence to that way of thinking, especially where Generation Z/millennials (those born in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s) and Generation...
Cal Thomas: They’ve lost their minds in San Francisco
San Francisco, a city described in song for its natural beauty, is descending into an abyss of homelessness, the use of sidewalks as toilets and a place you might not want to visit, much less live. The latest, but surely not the last demonstration of insanity, is San Francisco’s Board...
Cal Thomas: Pick me or else, Trump tells voters
During a December 2015 debate among Republican presidential candidates in Las Vegas, former Florida governor Jeb Bush said to Donald Trump: “You can’t insult your way to the presidency.” Never mind. The question for next year’s election is whether the insulter-in-chief can use the same tactic to win a second...
Cal Thomas: Mass murders are a symptom
Politicians and pundits are promoting familiar explanations, excuses and demands following the tragic mass murders in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. From more gun laws to blaming President Trump, conservative talk radio and Fox News, we’ve heard it all before. A manifesto thought to be linked to the El...
Cal Thomas: A plan to fix Baltimore
Former South Carolina governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has urged President Trump and Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings to stop exchanging insults over conditions in Baltimore. Haley scolded Trump for his recent tweet that appeared to mock Cummings for an attempted break-in at the congressman’s Baltimore home, tweeting “This is...
Cal Thomas: End immigration to mend it
For safety reasons, fire marshals control the number of people who can occupy a building at any one time. We’ve seen what happens when crowds get too large and a fire breaks out, causing panic and often death. So why not control the crowd illegally entering America? We control water...
Cal Thomas: Justin Amash not a ‘total loser’
Rep. Justin Amash has left the Republican Party and will now represent Michigan’s third congressional district as an independent. In a Washington Post op-ed, he wrote: “I’ve become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it. The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to...
Cal Thomas: Censoring the census
The notion of history repeating itself is usually viewed as a negative statement, but some history is worth repeating because we might learn and be guided by it. In last month’s 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court rejecting the Trump administration’s claim that adding a question about whether a person...
Cal Thomas: Questions I would have asked the Democrats
The likelihood I would ever be invited to serve on a network panel questioning the Democratic presidential candidates is equivalent to an invitation to take the next trip to the moon. Still, as I tortured myself watching the two “debates,” which were not really debates, but mostly a show of...
Cal Thomas: New York Times’ Sulzberger is right (and wrong)
I never thought I would write this, but the publisher of The New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger, is right. Sulzberger wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in response to President Trump’s claim that his newspaper committed “treason” by publishing a story about U.S. efforts to compromise Russia’s power...
Cal Thomas: Virginia Hall, D-Day’s ‘forgotten’ woman
Observances of the 75th anniversary of D-Day are properly focusing on the troops and the architect of Operation Overlord, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who freed Europe from Hitler and his Nazi hordes. One person — a woman — has not received the credit she deserves for her efforts with the...
Cal Thomas: John Walker Lindh, still a terrorist
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the release of self-admitted “American Taliban” member John Walker Lindh “unexplainable and unconscionable.” Lindh, who was paroled May 23 from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., served 17 years of a 20-year sentence for illegally aiding Taliban forces. Lindh had joined the terrorist...
Cal Thomas: David McCullough remembers the pioneers
In a country preoccupied with presidential candidates preaching extreme liberalism and even unabashed socialism comes America’s greatest living historian, David McCullough, with a new and needed book. It’s called “The Pioneers” and the subtitle is its theme: “The heroic story of the settlers who brought the American ideal west.” Nowadays,...
Cal Thomas: Congress & consequences of sanctuary cities
In the category of Mad magazine’s “scenes we’d like to see” comes President Trump’s threat to transport migrants to cities and states that have declared themselves sanctuaries. Apparently he thinks such a move would force Democrats in Congress who represent these places to vote to fund the wall along our...
