Column

Four very different films hit theaters over the past few weeks. Consider:  A sequel to one of the most talked about documentaries in recent memory, an artsy horror film featuring an Oscar-winning stunner, a B-movie disaster directed by a man who knowns that genre by heart, and a belated sequel to one of the most iconic science fiction films of all time.

For those who have visited Florida’s Walt Disney World, there is an attraction at the Magic Kingdom called the Carousel of Progress, a tribute to an original attraction Walt made for the New York World’s Fair in 1964. There, you’ll find a scene set in the 40’s where the narrator reads: "But we do have television—when it works. Gives you something to do after you come home. I kinda like it, y’know…

If you wonder why Hollywood stayed so quiet so long about casting couch abuse behind closed doors, just look at how the entertainment industry enabled perverted sexual exploitation of women in front of the camera. Fashion magazine moguls at Conde Nast have now reportedly blacklisted soft-porn celebrity photographer Terry Richardson from working on shoots for Vogue, GQ and Glamour.

Our nation's leftist progressives have long sought to undermine the American values expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Though typical Democrats and Republicans do not have this leftist hate for our nation, they have been willing accomplices in undermining the most basic value the Founding Fathers sought to promote -- limited government.

Federal income tax was first introduced under the Revenue Act of 1861 to help defray war costs. Congress repealed the tax in 1871 when the need for government revenue declined, only to restore it in 1894 as part of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act. The public policy debate surrounding the constitutionality of income tax has been going on ever since.

Spotlight won an Oscar for best picture in 2016 for its portrayal of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. At least nine of those associated with this film have worked with Harvey Weinstein, yet eight have said nothing about his sexual abuse, and all nine refuse to indict Hollywood the way they have the Catholic Church.

The Washington Post’s Philip Bump (full disclosure my former CNN colleague) is one of the first - or maybe so far the only - journalist at a mainstream media outlet to get what is seriously disquieting news for the mainstreamers. 

Why the collective liberal media yawn on the multi-headed Democratic scandals surfacing everywhere except on their pages and airwaves? It's not that the stories are too far-fetched and thin to interest self-respecting journalists, because they are real, damning and supported by sufficiently credible evidence to warrant serious attention and scrutiny.

There’s one line politicians utter that always sets off a reporter’s Spidey senses. I’m leaving politics to spend more time with my family… That instantly sparks a media reaction. Is it true? Or does the politicians fear a scandal, a whupping on Election Day or something, gasp, even worse?

"#MeToo" is the social media meme of the moment. In a 24-hour period, the phrase was tweeted nearly a half million times and posted on Facebook 12 million times. Spearheaded by actress Alyssa Milano in the wake of Hollyweird's Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal, women have flooded social media with their own long-buried accounts of being pestered, groped or assaulted by rapacious male…

Politicians exploit public ignorance. Few areas of public ignorance provide as many opportunities for political demagoguery as taxation. Today some politicians argue that the rich must pay their fair share and label the proposed changes in tax law as tax cuts for the rich. Let's look at who pays what, with an eye toward attempting to answer this question: Are the rich paying their fair share?

Who’da thunk? Who would possibly have thought Tennessee Republican and Trump-supporting Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn - a candidate to succeed out-going Senator Bob Corker - would have anything in common with Rose McGowan, the hardworking film, television actress and LGBT activist? Two worlds, and worlds apart.

Every day we learn new, more shocking, revelations about the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Here’s just two from the last 24 hours: Another woman shares an ugly story of how Weinstein sexually harassed her. An A-lister admits she knew Weinstein’s tendencies … and did nothing. (“the stories were everywhere…”)

If it were a plague, the government would rush to quarantine the infected, as occurred during Europe's Black Death in the 14th century. An immigration debate at Seattle University School of Law is a plague of a different sort, but deadly in a different way. The victim here is the right to free speech.