March 27, 2017

Health Care: All for the Best

In Judaism, we have an expression that is equivalent to "It's all for the best": Gahm zu l'tovah – this, too, is for the good. Nowadays, with the 24-hour news cycle, every story, big or small, is made to rival the Hindenbur...

December 24, 2016

The UN Israel vote: Teaches much, changes nothing (and affects everything)

The U.S. Jewish organization J Street applauded the move, saying the resolution advances the goal of a two-state solution, also a longtime U.S. objective.  "This resolution conveys the overwhelming support of the international community, in...

November 11, 2016

Can You Even Begin to Imagine?

Can you even begin to imagine what President-Elect Donald Trump now can do to make America great again? He has the White House. He has a clear mandate for his entire agenda because he explicitly articulated every one of his leadership prioritie...

October 27, 2016

Megyn Kelly: The Last Straw

The Megyn Kelly eight-minute interview  with Newt Gingrich was riveting.  For me, it also was the last straw. Let the drive-by media attack Gingrich, but I thought it was his finest hour since he handled John King four years ago at that ...

October 13, 2016

For President, Vote for the Judiciary and for America

So let me understand this Bill Clinton sexually frolicked with Gennifer Flowers, apparently sexually abused Paula Corbin (paying her an $850,000 litigation settlement) and Kathleen Willey. Leveraged his workplace supervisory position over Monica L...

September 29, 2016

Trump Is Better Positioned for the Next Two Debates Than the Pundits Dare Realize

In the first presidential debate Donald Trump achieved Job One: convincing independents that he is being mischaracterized and caricatured, that he really is a “normal” guy, just exuberant but essentially normal, under control, disciplined...

May 10, 2015

On conservatives, polling, and political correctness

For the last round of United States Senate elections, the polls predicted the conservative Republicans barely gaining some ground but probably failing in several state contests.  Iowa was thought to be ver...

March 25, 2015

Only Five Hours Left to the Fast

Besides being an attorney and law professor, I also have been a rabbi for more than thirty years. Almost every Yom Kippur and Tish’a B’Av -- Judaism’s two 25-hour-long fast days -- I see congregants looking at their watches or ...

November 26, 2012

Some Tentative Achievements Israel Scored with Pillar of Defense

There is room for doubt regarding the "ceasefire" that has been announced in Israel's effort to eradicate the Hamas terrorist infrastructure.  Israel may well have been better-served to have continued doing what it was doing, and the depiction o...

November 23, 2012

Cutting the Weeds in Gaza

I was listening to and reading news reports this weekend (i) about shortages of medical supplies in Gaza, (ii) about Gaza civilians displaced from homes, and (iii) about concern over the "human tragedy" in Gaza. As I said this Shabbat in shul: I don'...

November 16, 2012

Romney's Loss: The Wrong Man at the Right Time

A week has passed, providing distance from the elections.  That time allows for some additional thinking. By the time Election Day had come, I was very enthusiastic about voting for Romney, not merely about voting against Obama.  I had stop...

November 11, 2012

Remembering the Power of Cool

Sometimes the best explanation to a complex question is the simplest explanation.  In the face of conservative hand-wringing, investigating what went wrong, and worrying whether another conservative ever again will be elected president in our li...

August 7, 2012

Liars, Damned Liars, and Harry Reid

Harry Reid wants to see more of Mitt Romney's past income-tax filings.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz wants to see 23 years of his taxes.  This, from the die-hard supporters of a candidate who will not release his college transcripts or so much ...

August 1, 2012

Oy Vey! Nancy Pelosi Wants to Protect Me from Being Exploited

Nancy Pelosi is concerned about my being exploited by the Republicans.  Actually, people try to exploit me every day.  Powerful government officials in Nigeria -- the defense minister, the vice president, their sisters and aunts and stepson...

July 29, 2012

Wouldn't Touch It with a Ten-Foot Poll

We hear a great deal about the polls measuring the relative electoral strengths today of President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney.  For weeks the candidates have been running neck-and-neck, as in the fascinating Rasmussen "Daily Tracking ...

July 18, 2012

Obama: The Bane of Capital

Mitt Romney and Bain Capital?  How about Obama -- the Bane of Capital? With all the talk of Bain Capital, let us consider the bane of capital.  Speaking at a campaign stop in Roanoke, Virginia, President Barack Obama set business owners str...

July 15, 2012

Jews and American Conservatism

Last year, when voters in the Queens-Brooklyn Ninth Congressional District of New York elected Bob Turner, a solid Republican conservative, to the seat abandoned by disgraced Anthony Weiner, it marked a watershed moment in American Jewish history, as...

July 3, 2012

And Now On to the Conventions and November

With Sunday's talk shows behind us, we now see the Obama administration furiously trying to fend off the public labeling of ObamaCare as a tax.  Jack Lew, Obama's chief of staff, tried every conceivable way to parry against Chris Wallace on Fox ...

June 29, 2012

The Chief Justice Done Good

Chief Justice John Roberts has handed a remarkable victory to American conservatives by threading the judicial needle with perfect precision.  The initial disappointment collectively felt by Americans who had hoped for a Supreme Court ruling tha...

June 1, 2011

Stop It Already -- He's Not So Smart

As part of the mainstream media's ongoing effort to sway and distort American thinking, liberal "analysts" for decades continually have conveyed the impression that ideological liberals are just-plain-smarter than mortal humans while conservatives --...

May 29, 2011

Judea and Samaria Will Outlive Us All

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June 13, 2010

Problem-Solvers and Butt-Kickers

Political analysts may divide the world into liberals and conservatives, while theologians may distinguish religionists from non-believers. As the coarseness of our president's recent public rhetorical flourish continues to resonate, sociologists mig...

June 3, 2010

Israel after the Flotilla Debacle

Maybe this is the wake-up call that Israel needs before acquiescing to a "Two-State Solution."In the aftermath of the Flotilla Debacle, Israel finds herself mired in an unmitigated public relations conundrum. She was backed into a corner by...