Column

Barack Obama and Jimmy Hoffa are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Lady Gaga and hype, the "Jersey Shore" cast and hairspray: inseparable. The president can no more disown the Teamsters Union's leader than he can disown his own id. At a Labor Day rally in Detroit on Monday before Obama spoke, Hoffa stoked anti-tea party hostility by urging his minions to "take these son of a b*tches out." (…

Ten years ago, after 9/11, Americans chanted, "We will never forget." Today the White House is chanting that it is not "just about us." Terrorism has been tempered and transformed ever since 2009, when President Barack Obama took office and turned the global war on terror into an "overseas contingency operation" and coddled the global Muslim community from Cairo by saying that part of his "…

This will be a stretch for some, but stay with me. Suppose someone presented a plan that is guaranteed to achieve the objectives everyone (or almost everyone serious about such matters) agrees are necessary to create jobs, end our financial dependence on China, reform the tax code and repair Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid so they not only continue to support people now, but ensure the…

When Vice President Joe Biden rolls into a room to talk politics, frankly I am ready to laugh. He is, for me, the gaffable Joe Biden. Remember when he told the perky Katie Couric that during the great stock market crash of 1929 President Franklin Roosevelt immediately "got on television" to reassure the American people. Biden apparently reassured Miss Couric; yet others in the audience who knew…

In advance of a "major speech" on the economy and jobs, President Obama has selected Princeton University professor Alan Krueger to be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger is no relation to the horror film character Freddy Krueger, though if his ideas are implemented, they might further "slash" the economy. Alan Krueger is the latest in a long line of professors and academics…

There are now enough Operation Fast and Furious officials playing hide-and-seek in the Obama administration to fill a "rubber room." That's the nickname for taxpayer-subsidized holding pens, such as the ones in the New York City public schools, where crooked employees are separated from the system and paid to do nothing. Perhaps the White House can stimulate a few construction jobs by adding…

As the 2012 presidential race gears up, leftist Christophobes are showing some signs of hysteria — or political opportunism; it's sometimes difficult to tell. The New York Times' executive editor, Bill Keller, in a piece in The New York Times Magazine, argues that presidential candidates should be asked tough questions about their faith. Keller wants to know whether a candidate will place "…

Loyal readers know that I have been calling attention to a range of Second Amendment issues in the past week. In last week's column here, I wrote about the scandals and illegitimate regulations emanating from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In another outlet, I documented the threat to our rights that is posed by the United Nations' proposed arms trade treaty. In…

In my high school days before sex and environmental education and the general dumbing down of the population, memorization of some Shakespeare was expected in Miss Kauffman's 12th-grade English class. A favorite I still recall is this line spoken by Brutus in "Julius Caesar": "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their…

Just like that, most of America can move on from any concern about the very existence of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The former head of the International Monetary Fund is a free man, proclaiming his innocence. But what about our innocence? It still seems to be missing. In May, the once-potential French presidential candidate was accused of sexually assaulting a luxury-hotel maid, and arrested in…

Blunt. Brash. Bold. Politically incorrect. Unapologetically patriotic. Philadelphia cheese-steak king Joey Vento was all that and a side of freedom fries. The 71-year-old owner of Geno's Steaks died of a heart attack last week, but he reignited a national debate over radical multiculturalism that will burn for years to come. Five years ago, Vento garnered national headlines when a local…

President Obama often tells us that his No. 1 focus is creating jobs, but his record makes you wonder what he might have done differently if his goal were to destroy jobs. Those who've examined Congressional Budget Office data have calculated that each job allegedly created by Obama's stimulus — and this is if you accept the fantastically generous guesstimates — cost between $225,000 and $600…

Alas, we lost a most desirable candidate for the White House this week, one that is not charismatic, did not write (or have someone else write) his memoir, has displayed no jump shot in public and did not leave important documents on his desk while gallivanting around the country in campaign mode and heading for vacation on Martha's Vineyard. In the first instance, I am talking about…

Name a single Arab or Islamic state, which, after a revolution that has overthrown a dictator, came to embrace political pluralism, religious tolerance and equal rights for women. You can't, can you?