In the era of social media — where videos gone “viral” are the currency of the realm — hyper-partisanship, and, dare we say, symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome everywhere, political harassment is in vogue. Trump administration officials are routinely heckled and harassed in public places, like restaurants. This obnoxious behavior is corrosive of our democratic society. Political differences here are supposed to be debated, discussed and ultimately voted on. Public harassment has no place in an open society.
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Some on the left are angry, if not apoplectic, that conservatives are turning the tables on them and co-opting one of their own tactics against liberal policies. But turnabout, as they say, is fair play: Self-styled “progressives,” it seems, aren’t the only ones who can unilaterally decide which laws they will or will not enforce and/or comply with.
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There are eternal debates about issues that, while seeming adjudicated and settled, nonetheless bubble up every few years: Should Pete Rose be in the baseball Hall of Fame? Who killed John F. Kennedy? Should there be a constitutional amendment proscribing the burning of the American flag?
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A threat to the global oil supply imperils the global economy. Iran's menacing behavior toward oil shipments moving past its shores is just such a threat. The community of nations cringes at the notion of the United States acting as the world's policeman. The American people do, too. But when conflict erupts on the high seas, as on land, who but the Americans are expected to do something about it.
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Americans are more security-conscious than ever. Whether it's the triggered response of a generation jolted from well-being by the terrorist attacks of September 11, or a natural result of urbanization that is characterized by living cheek to jowl, the yearning for what the college kids call "safe space" is growing.
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Elaine Chao, the secretary of Transportation, is one of the most accomplished members of President Trump's administration. She has led two Cabinet agencies, been a sub-cabinet official, a leader of an influential think tank, and a vital force for the cheerful conservatism grounded in the hard work and traditional values that made Ronald Reagan so popular with so many Americans.
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Hong Kong is the pebble in China's shoe. The Beijing government didn't try to swallow Hong Kong whole when the British gave up the ghost, and the colony, in 1997. The Beijing government, which seems to have a low opinion of its constituents, promotes the line that Chinese people are incapable of democratic government and they are not capable of the rule of law and consequently are not due the liberties and freedoms common in the West.
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Joe Biden has held a consistent, if consistently incoherent, position on abortion for decades. Singing from the same hymnal as many other Roman Catholic Democrats, the onetime U.S. senator for Delaware and vice president of the United States, professes that for religious reasons he is "personally" opposed to abortion. Yet — and here's the twist — he does not want to prohibit the procedure. "My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don't think I have a right to impose my view on the rest of society," he put it in his memoir, "Promises to Keep," in 2007.
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Some memories, especially painful ones, have the power to bring the past back to life with the clarity of a pointed dagger. That's why House Democrats dusted off the figure of John Dean, the Watergate whistle-blower, and set him before the American public. In their relentless campaign to destroy Donald Trump and his presidency, they reckoned that Mr. Dean would demonstrate a link between the Donald and Tricky Dick. In the event it was a bridge to nowhere. The novelist Thomas Wolfe said it best: "You can't go home again."
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Inventiveness plus boldness equals progress. Liberal "activists" who want to revolutionize the nation's energy resources demonstrate political moxie, but if their campaign to substitute renewable sources for fossil fuels — oil and gas — succeeds it will take more than happy thoughts to keep the lights on.
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Dealing with misleading truisms is part of life, but so is refusing to accept what fate has supposedly decreed. It's a sad fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been crossways with the United States and the West for 40 years. But we're entitled to hope that the past is not a prologue to the future this time.
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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has updated the old adage, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." She says "if you can't impeach him, jail him."
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Not everyone gets to save the world. Before the colors of the Sixth of June 1944 fade into the mists of time, we remember after the passage of 75 years the uncommon sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers of America, of Britain and Canada.
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By The Washington Times
Summer approaches, and a gloomy pall, some of it manufactured and some of it real, casts a shadow over the land of the free.
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President Trump is fond of tariffs, seeing them as both a means and an end.
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The Republicans really, really don't want Roy Moore to run again for the U.S. Senate. He might be the only politician in Alabama more unpopular than Doug Jones, the Democratic incumbent, but he could scramble a primary and might open a way for Mr. Jones to win another term. Republicans know they have to be careful in dealing with Roy Moore. Voters don't like it when outsiders meddle, even if they're friendly outsiders.
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Every decade produces a new drug to terrorize the mean streets, the family hearth and especially threatens the young. Heroin was the scourge of the '70s. Cocaine scourged the '80s and crack was the nightmare of the '90s, hitting hardest those trying to survive on the margins and who would mortgage the future for a brief escape from misery. To be sure, these drugs have been with man for centuries, but they have returned to modern times with a vengeance.
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Nancy Pelosi has the hardest job in town, perhaps except for the president's. She knows removing Donald Trump from office is probably impossible, but a growing number of Democrats in the House are itching to try. How can the speaker please both the grown-ups and the fantasists in her caucus, and at the same time?
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Transparency is essential in windows and in governance. It's the window that gives a clear view of the workings of government. Now that President Trump has authorized the declassification of information about government surveillance during the 2016 presidential election, it's important to remember that transparency is neither red nor blue.
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It was if a news dispatch from Berlin, circa 1937. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, Felix Klein, the government official charged with monitoring outbreaks of anti-Semitism in Germany, suggested that Jewish men refrain from wearing kippas, or skullcaps. "I can't tell Jews [it's safe] to wear the kippa everywhere in Germany," he said. It was a stunning admonition to the nation's 200,000 Jews.
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Flinging open the windows and doors to embrace the sights, sounds and color of approaching summer is one of the most delicious rites of spring, and it's easy not to be to be conscious of the unblinking eyes that are looking back at you. It's time you were.
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Thanks to the prick of the human conscience, it's hard to forget a debt. That small voice within is an internal reminder to do the right thing. Americans share a collective obligation in the form of the national debt, which has recently rocketed through the $22 trillion mark. As congressional officials strategize how to add to the $181,000 bill already owed in the name of each taxpayer, the many small voices must join together as one to declare it loud and clear: The era of irresponsible spending must be over.
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