Featured Commentary category, Page 153
Max Boot: On Wednesday, the Twitter mob came for me
In mid-January, waves of outrage swept over the internet because of a confrontation on the National Mall in Washington between a group of conservative high school students from Kentucky and an elderly Native American Marine Corps veteran. The social media mob initially condemned the students for being right-wing jerks. Then,...
Colin McNickle: Public pension reform bows in Pa.
Pension reform at long last is being phased in for newly hired state workers in Pennsylvania. But it will be decades before those pension plans’ health is restored. And some taxpayers could see their taxes rise before relief comes, according to a review by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy....
Ryan Crocker: The U.S. is surrendering to Taliban
January 2002. I arrive in Kabul, Afghanistan, to reopen the U.S. Embassy. Destruction is everywhere. Kabul airport is closed, its runways cratered and littered with destroyed aircraft. The drive south from the military base at Bagram is through a wasteland. Nothing grows. No structures stand. In the city itself, entire...
S.E. Cupp: What has age of Trump wrought? People like Ocasio-Cortez
In the wake of his unprecedented campaign and unexpected election, the question always was: What would come after Donald Trump? What were the consequences of electing someone who was inexperienced, undeterred by and uninterested in facts and uncannily adept at whipping people into a frenzy by way of mere gesticulations...
Memo to Republicans: ‘Trump first’ is not the same thing as ‘America first’
Congressional Republicans are suffering, as I have noted in the past, from a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. They’ve seen what’s happened to “the formers” who crossed the bully in the White House — e.g., former senator Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and former representative Mark Sanford, R-S.C., — and all they...
Kevin O’Connor: Anti-energy protesters threat to first responders, taxpayers
First responders work around the clock, keeping our communities safe, every day. They understand and accept the risks involved, as well as the long hours, rigorous physical requirements and constant training. However, many emergency workers are starting to face an unexpected hurdle and a new kind of threat: anti-energy protesters....
Vince Mercuri: A mission of purpose critical to human journey
Each morning as I pull into the parking garage, I am greeted with a sign proclaiming the mission statement of the city’s parking authority. Over the past 15 years or more, the norm has been that businesses/agencies develop and post a mission statement that clearly defines its values, goals, beliefs...
Michelle Malkin: The Covington Rorschach test
Sometimes, a three-point celebration is just a three-point celebration. Sometimes, a pep rally is just a pep rally. Sometimes, a smile is just a smile. And sometimes, a hat is just a hat. Only among the most deranged partisans could a universal sports ritual, a common high school activity, a...
Now for the real deal — what is a ‘wall’?
Welcome to the eye of the hurricane. For more than a month, the federal government was in partial shutdown while President Trump and congressional leaders were deadlocked over the president’s demands for money to build his long-promised border wall. Neither side would budge and all the wiggle room for negotiation,...
Walter Williams: Who benefits from democratic control?
In 1976, Gerald Ford won 15 percent of the black vote. That’s the most of any recent Republican presidential candidate. In most elections, blacks give Democrats over 90 percent of their votes. It’s not unreasonable to ask what have blacks gained from such unquestioning loyalty to the Democratic Party. After...
John Stossel: School choice includes ideas, too
Today concludes School Choice Week. School choice is a noble cause. In much of America, parents have little or no control over where their kids attend school. Local governments assign schools by ZIP code. Having choice is better. Whether it’s vouchers, scholarships, charters, private schools or just having options among...
Trump is trapped and tanking in polls
Even this White House, infamous for self-delusion, must realize it’s in deep trouble. Two more polls released Wednesday show the depth of President Trump’s problem. The Morning Consult-Politico poll finds that “57 percent of registered voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance — more than any other survey in Trump’s two...
Jessica Poole: Patients need to ask questions
America’s health care delivery system is undergoing a dramatic shift. More and more patients are choosing office settings and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) over hospital-based outpatient units for same-day surgical procedures for everything from total joint replacements to cataract surgery. This shift is attributed to advancements in surgical techniques, pain...
Erica Smith: Good-character requirements violate rights
Rejected for lacking “good- moral character.” That was what the letter said from the Pennsylvania Board of Cosmetology to Courtney Haveman. Haveman had just spent thousands of dollars on beauty school learning to become an esthetician. She had enjoyed learning how to do facials, waxing, tweezing and more. She was ready...
Joe Cicio: DNA of retailing has been compromised
If you think brick-and-mortar stores are in turmoil because of the internet, you would be wrong. Thanks to 40-plus years in retailing, I’ve been fortunate to have worked alongside — and even study — some of the most amazing merchants and retailers who have built the industry’s impressive reputation. I...
Pat Buchanan: At age 70, time to rethink NATO
“Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.” So said President Charles de Gaulle, who in 1966 ordered NATO to vacate its Paris headquarters and get out of France. NATO this year celebrates a major birthday. The young girl of 1966 is no longer young. The...
Michelle Malkin: Procter & Gamble’s toxic sanctimony
One of the world’s most successful brands committed ideological hara-kiri last week. Recognized around the world as a symbol of manly civility for more than a century, Gillette will now be remembered as the company that did itself in by sacrificing a massive consumer base at the altar of progressivism....
Mitchel Nickols: King legacy makes difference today
When a person is born, we don’t know what impact their birth will make on the lives of others. When Martin Luther King Jr. was born, it would take a number of years to see and hear the things that would transform the lives of so many who had been...
Antony Davies & James Harrigan: Peduto, council should learn facts on gun violence
There are few forces as pernicious as politicians who feel the need to “do something,” but that’s what we have in Pittsburgh in the wake of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Predictably, Pittsburgh’s mayor and city council have endorsed various restrictions on semi-automatic weapons. This is nothing but political...
Harold Johnson: Corruption in the Catholic Church
My Catholicism, my faith, states that the Catholic Church consists of the people, and the head of the Church is Jesus Christ. Not the pope, the cardinals, the bishops and archbishops, or the priests and deacons. They are administrators of the Catholic organization, and, yes, they are members of the...
John Stossel: Shutdown not a ‘crisis’
This government shutdown is now longer than any in history. The media keep using the word “crisis.” “Shutdown sows chaos, confusion and anxiety!” says The Washington Post. “Pain spreads widely.” The New York Times headlined, it’s all “just too much!” But wait. Looking around America, I see people going about...
Walter Williams: History of Dems’ immigration flipping
Here are a couple of easy immigration questions — answerable with a simple “yes” or “no” — we might ask any American of any political stripe: Does everyone in the world have a right to live in the United States? Do the American people have a right, through their elected...
Cal Thomas: Cough up, America
When you receive your paycheck and look at the withholding for federal, state and sometimes city taxes, along with Social Security and Medicare, you probably don’t think you’re underpaying governments and want them to take more. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio believes that if you have played by...
S.E. Cupp: Democrats getting down in the dirt with Trump
On the first day of the new year, Nancy Pelosi made a number of promises to the nation as she once again assumed the gavel of Speaker of the House. “We believe that we will not become them,” the Democrat from California said in a phone interview, referring to Republicans....
Peter Morici: Swing voters want solutions, not socialist revolution
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez notwithstanding, the big winners in the midterms were moderate Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other party leaders carefully salted swing districts with young candidates who appealed to minorities, college-educated women and suburbanites who want solutions to problems in their daily lives, not a socialist revolution. The moderate Democrats...
