Punishing Gold Star families
Americans don't agree on much of anything these days. The merits of hot dogs, apple pie and even baseball are probably divisive at this point.
Editorials
Featured Articles
Related Articles
'Do something,' but something smart
It has happened again, and again. Not one, but two mass shootings over the weekend have triggered a desperate national outcry for action to stop the carnage. With a Texas-sized massacre in El Paso followed by another in Ohio, Dayton-area mourners punctuated a vigil led by Gov. Mike DeWine with chants of "do something." Indeed, something must be done, or possibly many things. Whatever the remedy, though, liberty must not be trampled along the pathway to security.
Pouting and posturing in Jamestown
It once was said that partisan differences ended at the water's edge. Jamestown, Virginia, the site of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, dating back to 1607, is on the coast, but that water's-edge constraint was thrown overboard last week by Virginia Democrats.
Running to ruination
It takes uncommon stamina to run a marathon, and to finish. Winning takes something else again — endless tenacity juiced with the irrepressible confidence of, well, Donald Trump. The contest for the U.S. presidency requires these attributes, plus a four-leaf clover for good luck. With Democratic contenders for the 2020 election now catching their breath following their party's second series of televised debates, it's clear some contestants have the inside track and others are tripping over their shoelaces. This week's second round of debates demonstrated all are on the wrong track.
Defying the conventional wisdom
It's long been political conventional wisdom that governors tend to make the best presidential candidates — think Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. So far, not this time around, however. Several Democratic governors past and present are vying for their party's nomination for the presidency. Yet they've made nary a splash. In the debate in Detroit earlier this week, former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and current Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana were nothing but also-rans, outshone by not only Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts but also new age guru Marianne Williamson.
Antifa spells anti-America
There is nothing improper about righting wrongs. Every generation has its moment to be impetuous and impatient to make the world a better place. Some actually succeed, but many fail owing to the all-too-human tendency to see an angel in the mirror and a monster on the street. Antifa, the self-proclaimed anti-fascist movement, is but the latest example of high-minded idealism gone bad. It has become the hate it hates.
A bill to be proud of
In his roughly 700 years in Washington, former Vice President Joe Biden has had one bona fide achievement that he should be proud of: The 1994 crime bill that he co-authored. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act came at a time when the United States was reeling from decades of high crime rates — major American cities, including Washington, D.C., were rife with open-air drug markets and the violence that came with them.
Reforming the Postal Service
Have the folks who run the U.S. Postal Service heard the one about the first thing you do when you're stuck in a hole is to stop digging? A private corporation regulated by the United States government, it's perpetually in the red, this time to the tune of nearly $4 billion.
A performance to remember
Most of us have seen a bad play or two; even the Great White Way produces the occasional turkey. But it's still striking to reflect that the congressional Democrats who presided over Wednesday's hearings with former special counsel Robert Mueller actually rehearsed their roles beforehand. In the event, so bad was the performance that one wonders whether their rehearsals were straight out of Mel Brooks' "The Producers" — like Leo Bloom and Max Bialystock, it's as if they were hoping to bomb.
The do-over delusion
Beating a dead horse is an exercise in futility. Hammering on Robert Mueller, author of the vaunted Mueller Report, has proved no more productive. The special counsel, who searched for damning evidence proving Donald Trump's involvement with Russia's attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, has spoken, and spoken again. No matter how many times Democrats demand a do-over, the results won't change. President Trump deserves better, and so does the nation.
Handling a higher calling
Human thoughts seek to freely roam to the farthest corners of imagination and emotion, but there are plenty of bids to rein in their expression. Freedom to speak one's mind is on a shortening leash and, ominously, religious expression is encountering increasing hostility as well. Mounting government efforts to regulate manifestations of the human-divine connection are disturbing. How much more unprepared is officialdom likely to be in dealing with a different sort of higher calling: The coming phenomenon of human beings under the influence of artificial intelligence.
Partisan affiliation above all else
A funny thing about politics today. The Democratic Party's presidential candidates are sprinting left as fast as Michael Johnson in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — desperate, they seem to be, to pander to a liberal base clamoring for "free" college, "free" health care, open borders along the Rio Grande, and an apparently gender-less, or at best, "gender fluid" world. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts recently helpfully informed her 2.8 million Twitter followers that her preferred pronouns are "She/her." Now if only she were similarly clear on the matter of her ethnic heritage.)
Who's blocking the president's 5G priorities?
President Trump has made it clear he intends for the United States to win the race to 5G. So far, it's been hard to get out of the starting blocks. Some of the people who work for him apparently don't want to step into the starting blocks.
© Copyright 2019 The Washington Times, LLC
3600 New York Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002
