I am bored with politics, refuse to pay attention to the news and am watching only True Crime TV shows and Turner Classic Movies these days. With the Democrats controlling the Senate and presidency, nothing good can possibly come out of Washington for at least another two years. So I thought I'd start the new year with something useful, like a short list of bad inventions.
President Obama won the first round of his second term, but thanks to Mitch McConnell the beating wasn’t as severe as it could have been.
The D.C. police investigation of NBC hotshot David Gregory for waving around an empty ammo magazine on "Meet the Press" easily proves two things. First, D.C.'s "ammunition control" laws are ridiculous. But more importantly, once again, we find the arrogance of the national press knows no boundaries.
Many Republicans have accused Barack Obama of ignoring the economy. That's not true. The problem with Obama is not that he has ignored the economy, but that it was never his top priority in his first term as president, even as millions of Americans suffered the consequences of a devastating economic downturn.
It's the beginning of a new year and a great chance to start over -- but how? Here are 10 ways to gain a fresh start in 2013.
When President Barack Obama was re-elected, the winds waned behind many patriots' ships' sails. My wife, Gena, and I felt that sock in the gut for our country and posterity, too. But instead of cowering in defeat, I believe we need to discard conventional (unsuccessful) strategies and advance in new directions.
CNN's Piers Morgan writes that the pro-gun crowd's anger toward him stems from anti-British bias: "This gun debate is an ongoing war of verbal attrition in America -- and I'm just the latest target, the advantage to the gun lobbyists being that I'm British, a breed of human being who burned down the White House in 1814 and had to be forcefully deported en masse, as no American will ever be allowed to forget."
Eleven years ago, al-Qaeda terrorist Richard Reid tried to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 with a bomb hidden in his shoes. As a result, air travelers to this day must remove their shoes to pass through security at US airports.
Demographics buffs get a special Christmas present every year courtesy of the Census Bureau: its annual estimates of the populations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Now the election is over. Sweets are off the table; the congress is a lame duck even if still addicted to pork. And a deal has been FINALLY struck to “tackle our debt and deficits in a serious way.” Just wait; this ought to be really funny.
The latest horror movie from Washington -- “The Fiscal Cliff” -- finally came to an exciting end in the early hours of 2013.
Everything that everyone loathes about Washington was present in the "fiscal cliff" bill just passed by Congress. It is 153 pages long; most members probably hadn't read all of it before voting on it; it was delivered in the middle of the night; it was loaded with pork -- the mother's milk (to mix a metaphor) of politicians -- and while the country is already swamped with massive debt, it contains massive giveaways to satisfy interest groups and campaign contributors. Did I mention the bill raises taxes on top of the coming Obamacare taxes, but does nothing -- nothing -- to address the debt problem?
It tells you something about the news media that before the House vote Tuesday, talking heads were warning Americans that unless the GOP House voted for a bill to stall our going over the fiscal cliff, taxes would go up on 98 percent of Americans.
The worst part of the fiscal cliff deal isn't the specifics -- though they do stink. It's being reminded again how utterly detached Washington is from reality.
Oh, the carnage. President Barack Obama played his cards masterfully, as the Republican Party once again caved in one of his endless games of legislative chicken.
According to the IRS, if you run a business for two years or more without making a profit, then it is not a business. You have to become profitable at some point. Otherwise, the IRS will declare your endeavor a hobby.
In November 1979, two weeks after Iranian voters approved his Islamic revolutionary constitution, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini identified the U.S. as the source of Iranian misery. The angry old cleric also swore that American corruption not only polluted Muslim nations but tainted the entire planet.
In essence, if you are Catholic in this country you no longer can own a company, Frank O'Brien explains.
It may be a distinction to become a verb, but not necessarily a welcome one. Look under Boycott, Captain Charles C. A land agent, he found himself shunned -- boycotted -- after he attempted to raise the rents of Irish tenant farmers who worked the fields of an absentee English lord. Or see Crapper, Thomas. He held at least three patents on improvements to the flush toilet, a useful and sanitary innovation that revolutionized plumbing systems worldwide.
They haven't done anything to solve the debt crisis, but the new Congress - and the President on January 20 - will have a brand new road and a bunch of shiny new cans to kick down it.
When a deal is bad beyond all pretext, the only thing left to do is spin. Democrats, including Senate lackeys and administration lummoxes, spin the Senate version of the Fiscal Crap Sandwich to mean absolute victory over Republicans who have "finally" raised revenue (read "taxes.") Republicans spin that they moved to give even more people a tax break in 2013. Both obscure the reality; President Obama sold out the middle class for the wealthy.
The idea for massacring children in an elementary school or shooting up a mall filled with Christmas shoppers does not come from reading books, watching movies or listening to music. Does the incitement for such unspeakable acts come from hours of role-playing violent video games?
Let's be clear what the "fiscal cliff" deal does and doesn't do. It permanently preserves the bulk of George W. Bush's tax cuts for most Americans, but it does not offer desperately needed new incentives to revive a weak economy and jobless labor market.
Compared to the income tax, the payroll tax does far less damage. And it’s not just because it collects less money. On a per-dollar-raised basis, the payroll tax is considerably less destructive than the income tax.
I wonder, as we begin 2013 and look forward to four more years of this insufferable poseur in the White House, where Sandra Fluke might be. Miss Fluke is the lady who made birth control a matter of national security, in particular her own personal supply of pills and God knows what else.
At some point taxes in some shape or form would have to hit all working people to pay for the furious spending of this administration and its grand ambitions. We've reached that point.
Did you have a Merry Christmas? If so, chances are you are not a Christian in the Middle East or many other parts of the world.
U.S. markets have already adversely reacted to going over the so-called "fiscal cliff," following the outcome of the November 6, 2012 national election, which ensured that President Obama would remain in office and seek higher tax rates.
The countries we are visiting on this trip (Turkey, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Poland) occupy the borderland between Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.
Filling your head with a bunch of facts is a major waste of time and energy. Facts just slow you down. If Columbus had studied "the facts," he would have learned that the earth is flat, and he would never have set sail for America.
Men and women of principle stand on principle, no matter the impact or the outcome. Unfortunately, that type of person is certainly not present within much of the upper echelon of Republican leadership.
At this point in time, most people are probably familiar with the 'Right to Work' drama that ensued last week in Michigan. Through a debate with a staunch pro-union friend of mine, it dawned on me that perhaps there were some people who might not actually understand what it means to be pro 'Right to Work.'
Young Americans tweeted Obama and they got an invite to bow down to the person making them debt-slaves to union educators as well as debt-slaves to the ungrateful elderly.
Now that President Obama and congressional Republicans have managed to talk themselves and the nation off the fiscal cliff, one of their top legislative priorities for 2013 will be to tackle the ever thorny issue of immigration reform.
President Obama will kick off the new year the same way that he kicked off the old year: by demanding that the wealthy pay their "fair share" in taxes.
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings, said: "The British are not coming. ... We don't need all these guns to kill people." Lewis' vision, shared by many, represents a gross ignorance of why the framers of the Constitution gave us the Second Amendment.
Most of America's problems are cultural. Even our economic problems stem from the cultural rejection of personal responsibility and the acceptance of collective responsibility.
More Columnists: Ann Coulter , Thomas Sowell , Michelle Malkin , Walter E. Williams , Mike Adams and more...
- Williams: Why the 2nd Amendment
- Malkin: Obama's Tax Evaders of the Year
- Adams: Fellowship in the Woodlands
- Stossel: No Regulation? No Problem
- Sowell: Happy New Year?
- Shapiro: Obama's Thug America
- Coulter: Bad Inventions
- Ransom: Liberal Logic: To Cut Spending You Have to Spend More
- Hewitt: The GOP and Round Two
- Calculations: Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 1
- Williams: Why the 2nd Amendment
- Malkin: Obama's Tax Evaders of the Year
- Adams: Fellowship in the Woodlands
- Stossel: No Regulation? No Problem
- Sowell: Happy New Year?
- Shapiro: Obama's Thug America
- Coulter: Bad Inventions
- Ransom: Liberal Logic: To Cut Spending You Have to Spend More
- Hewitt: The GOP and Round Two
- Calculations: Your Paycheck in 2013: Part 1
- Sowell: Happy New Year?
- Williams: Why the 2nd Amendment
- Malkin: Obama's Tax Evaders of the Year
- Hawkins: 5 Reasons God Allows Tragedies Like the Sandy Hook Massacre To Occur
- Adams: Fellowship in the Woodlands
- Limbaugh: David Gregory's Slobbering Obama Interview
- Stossel: No Regulation? No Problem
- Shapiro: Obama's Thug America
- Ransom: Fighting Crime with a Vodka Bottle in Place of a Gun
- Coulter: Bad Inventions
- Williams: Why the 2nd Amendment
- Coulter: Kwanzaa: Holiday Brought to You By The FBI
- Sowell: Happy New Year?
- Malkin: Obama's Tax Evaders of the Year
- O'Reilly: Semper Fi, Unless It's Not Convenient
- Bozell: The Obama Culture Arrives
- Ransom: On Obamacare (and Guns), We Won't Comply
- Schlichter: Liberals Panic As They Lose the Gun Narrative
- Hawkins: 5 Reasons God Allows Tragedies Like the Sandy Hook Massacre To Occur
- Elder: RG III Gets 'Uncle Tom' Treatment
- Williams: Why the 2nd Amendment
- Malkin: Obama's Tax Evaders of the Year
- Adams: Fellowship in the Woodlands
- Shapiro: Obama's Thug America
- Ransom: Liberal Logic: To Cut Spending You Have to Spend More
- Coulter: Bad Inventions
- Sullum: Plead Guilty or Go to Prison for Life: The Medical Marijuana Grower's Stark Choice
- Hewitt: The GOP and Round Two
- Stossel: No Regulation? No Problem
- Brown: Protecting Hobby Lobby from the State
- Coulter: Bad Inventions
- Hewitt: The GOP and Round Two
- Jacoby: People Are Truly Good at Heart? Sadly, No
- Norris: Resolve to Conquer or Die
- Bozell: David Gregory's Props and Pomposity
- Schlafly: Why Did He Kill All Those Children?
- York: For Obama, the Economy Never Comes First
- Malagisi: What Does 'Right to Work' Really Mean?
- Katz: Obama Caves, Sells Out Middle-Class For Wealthy
- Lopez: Standing Tall and Holding Fast
- Williams: Why the 2nd Amendment
- Malkin: Obama's Tax Evaders of the Year
- Adams: Fellowship in the Woodlands
- Shapiro: Obama's Thug America
- Ransom: Liberal Logic: To Cut Spending You Have to Spend More
- Coulter: Bad Inventions
- Sullum: Plead Guilty or Go to Prison for Life: The Medical Marijuana Grower's Stark Choice
- Hewitt: The GOP and Round Two
- Stossel: No Regulation? No Problem
- Brown: Protecting Hobby Lobby from the State
- Coulter: Bad Inventions
- Hewitt: The GOP and Round Two
- Jacoby: People Are Truly Good at Heart? Sadly, No
- Norris: Resolve to Conquer or Die
- Bozell: David Gregory's Props and Pomposity
- Schlafly: Why Did He Kill All Those Children?
- York: For Obama, the Economy Never Comes First
- Malagisi: What Does 'Right to Work' Really Mean?
- Katz: Obama Caves, Sells Out Middle-Class For Wealthy
- Lopez: Standing Tall and Holding Fast