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Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas is one of the most widely syndicated political columnists in America. Based in Washington, he is a wide-ranging social commentator, not a "beltway insider," who supports traditional conservative values and the American "can-do spirit." He'll take on virtually any topic, from the decline of the family to growing terrorism worldwide.
A syndicated columnist since 1984, he is the author of “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires, Superpowers and the United States” (HarperCollins/Zondervan, January 2020). His latest book is “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen in 50 Years Reporting on America” (Humanix Books, May 2023). Readers may email Mr. Thomas at tcaeditors@tribune.com.

Columns by Cal Thomas

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media as he meets with members of Congress in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 17, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Trump can diffuse the fuss by declassifying material subpoenaed by Congress

Did President Trump bungle the moment in Helsinki by casting doubt on American intelligence findings that Russian agents "meddled" in the 2016 election? His critics, including some Republicans, say so — and on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he had misspoken when he expressed doubt about Russian culpability. but several things need to be kept in mind.

July 18, 2018
Illustration on the growing threat from Muslim extremism by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

Europe is waking up to the threat

Much of Europe was asleep, or in denial, when the Nazis took power and began rebuilding their military in violation of the Versailles Treaty that brought World War I to an end. Now, after years of virtually unlimited migration from predominately North African and other Muslim regions, some European nations are awakening to what this could mean for their countries and are responding, hoping it's not too late.

July 9, 2018
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Wednesday, June 27, 2018, in Fargo, N.D. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Donald Trump supporters compared to cultists

Bob Corker, the outgoing Republican senator from Tennessee, recently compared supporters of President Trump to members of a cult. The Washington Post quoted Sen. Corker as saying: "It's becoming a cultish thing, isn't it? It's not a good place for any party to end up with a cult-like situation as it relates to a president that happens to be of — purportedly — of the same party."

July 4, 2018
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy speaks to faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania law school, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Back to the Constitution

The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the U.S. Supreme Court is about to bring a 60-year battle to a head.

July 2, 2018
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Monday, June 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

A restaurant’s expulsion of Sarah Sanders is pure ideology

As a longtime resident of Virginia, I am well aware of its sordid history when it comes to slavery, racism and discrimination. I can still remember "colored only" restrooms, water fountains, poll taxes and African Americans forced to ride in the back of the bus. Virginia public schools in the 1950s were mostly segregated, as they had been since first established in 1870.

June 25, 2018
FILE - In this March 31, 2015 file photo, Charles Krauthammer talks about getting into politics during a news conference in Corpus Christi, Texas. The Fox News contributor and syndicated columnist says he has only a few weeks to live because of an aggressive form of cancer. Krauthammer disclosed his doctors prognosis in a letter released Friday, June 8, 2018 to colleagues, friends and viewers. Krauthammer wrote that he underwent surgery in August to remove a cancerous tumor in his abdomen. (Gabe Hernandez/Corpus Christi Caller-Times via AP)

A tribute to Charles Krauthammer

I have often thought that tributes to those we love are best made when the object of our affection is still with us, rather than at their funerals.

June 13, 2018
U. S. Donald Trump gives North Korea leader Kim Jong Un a thumbs up at their meeting at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island Tuesday, June 12, 2018 in Singapore. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Lessons for the Trump-Kim summit

The unprecedented, historic and weird summit (Dennis Rodman might be there) between President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un, scheduled to begin Tuesday, if there are no surprises, could produce the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, or just more of the same lies and dissembling from North Korea we have seen before.

June 11, 2018
FILE - In this May 16, 2018 file photo, television host Samantha Bee attends the Turner Networks 2018 Upfront at One Penn Plaza in New York. Bee is apologizing to Ivanka Trump and her viewers for using an expletive to describe the president's daughter. Bee issued a statement Thursday that says her language was "inappropriate and inexcusable." She says she crossed a line and deeply regrets it. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Different standards for the left

We've come a long way from harmless playground jibes like "your mother wears combat boots," to those of today from the likes of Samantha Bee and other leftist "entertainers" who say things about President Trump and his family that are so vulgar they can't be printed in a newspaper or quoted on television.

June 4, 2018
Illustration on the Irish abortion vote by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

Ireland votes to play God

The scientific, moral and theological battle between life as an "endowed unalienable" right and the evolutionary view that we are just material and energy shaped by pure chance in a random universe with no author of life, no purpose for living and no destination after we die has been won in Ireland by the evolutionists.

May 30, 2018
Illustration on NFL mistreatment of cheerleaders by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

NFL teams must also end the harassment of their cheerleaders

It took two years, boycotts by fans, declining TV ratings, growing alarm among advertisers, a drop in the sale of gear and especially a public shaming by President Trump, but the owners of NFL teams have finally decided their players will not be allowed to kneel or make other protests during the playing of the national anthem.

May 28, 2018
This April 20, 2018, photo shows a dealer conducting a game of roulette at Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City N.J. Figures released by New Jersey gambling regulators on Tuesday May 22, show that Atlantic City's seven casinos saw their gross operating profit decline by nearly 12 percent in the first quarter of 2018, to $123.6 million. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

Gambling on sports is a bad bet

Human nature being what it is, it should come as no shock that the next level of approved gambling in America is sports betting. States already have casinos, the lottery and other ways of separating money from the weak for their ravenous and bottomless coffers, so why not allow betting on sports contests?

May 23, 2018
Illustration on congressional Republican spending habits by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

GOP cringes at spending cuts

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," he could not have foreseen today's Republican Party.

May 21, 2018
Illustration on rude political discourse by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

The coarsening of political language

Here in Australia, "Question Time" has long been one of my favorite exercises of parliamentary democracy. The prime minister and government ministers appear before other elected members in support of their policies, while the opposition asks pointed and sometimes funny questions in an effort to belittle those policies.

May 16, 2018
Illustration on Hillary Clinton by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

The bitterness tour

When you hear "world tour" you usually think of superstars performing concerts in various cities for adoring fans. Not so with the presidentially deprived, entitlement-driven Hillary Clinton.

May 14, 2018