February 21, 2022

Capital punishment drops, murder rates jump. Coincidence?

Early this month, New York City police stood 20 rows deep as the hearse carrying the body of Officer Wilbert Mora, 27, passed.  Mora and his partner, Jason Rivera, 22, had been ambushed and killed by a repeat felon. Their murders, t...

February 20, 2021

When liberals can corrupt language, they can control conservatives

George Orwell, secular prophet of the 20th century, observed that "if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."  He warned in his enduring 1946 essay "On Politics and the English Language" again...

June 10, 2019

Forward into the Past: The Regression of Progressive Democrats

Ronald Reagan — aided unintentionally but repeatedly by Jimmy Carter — so stigmatized the word "liberal" that Democrats in the 1980s sought a substitute.  I heard them begin to settle on "progressive" early i...

February 16, 2019

'Health Care' for All — Affordability for None

First, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “issued a bold guarantee of affordable health care for every resident,” including the “undocumented,” according to excited news reports.  From the Birkenstock Left (Sen. Bernard S...

September 28, 2018

Medicaid Expansion and Fiscal Irresponsibility

In May, Virginia's Republican-controlled General Assembly passed legislation, which was then signed by Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam, to provide Medicaid health insurance for up to an additional 400,000 Virginians.  Income limits for a fa...

January 20, 2017

A Thorn by Any Other Name: Jews, Democrats, and Israel

In my widely unread novel, Total Jihad (RavensYard, 2003) – the book is out of print, the publisher out of business – African-American members of Congress loyal to Rev. Louis. Farrakhan played a minor role in the separation of the Un...

September 8, 2013

The News Media Are Murdering Execution

Mark Twain famously advised that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."  In that difference between the exact and the facsimi...

March 12, 2012

Bad Math, False Comparisons and Stupid Journalists' Tricks

If David Letterman introduces a "Stupid Journalists' Tricks" shtick to alternate with "Stupid Pet Tricks" on his late night television show, he won't lack material. From just the past few weeks, these howlers:* Big headlines that homicide rates ...

July 4, 2011

Arabs and Israelis: What Comes Next, I Said

Uprisings across the Arab world, Palestinians storming Israeli frontier fences, the president of the United States and prime minister of Israel arguing publicly over "secure and recognized borders." To policy makers and pundits, this year's been one ...

November 7, 2009

Saint Cronkite: Journalism's Twice-Blemished Icon

A myth congeals around memories of Walter Cronkite. Burnished by President Obama and former President Clinton, among others, at what Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz called "an extravagantly produced ceremony" in New York City's Li...