Columns

While the cultural commissars keep throwing praise and awards at raunchy shows on trendy Internet streaming channels, CBS has a series of highly-rated traditional police or military shows that get no attention or respect. "NCIS" keeps spinning off shows -- this year in New Orleans -- and "Blue Bloods" is a consistent Top 20 performer despite airing on Friday night. You won't see its star Tom Selleck at Emmy awards time.

It's looking like a tough offyear election for Democrats, with their Senate majority at serious risk and their chances of gaining House seats down toward zero.

With only a couple of weeks left in this campaign season, Amendment 2 continues a precipitous slide to what looks like a resounding defeat.

WASHINGTON -- Wretched excess by government can be beneficial if it startles people into wholesome disgust and deepened distrust, and prompts judicial rebukes that enlarge freedom. So let's hope the Federal Communications Commission embraces the formal petition inciting it to deny licenses to broadcasters who use the word "Redskins" when reporting on the Washington Redskins.

WASHINGTON -- So unpopular is President Obama these days that the (D) following Democratic candidates' names might stand for Denial. And, so desperate are political pundits for any fresh news crumb that a molehill quickly becomes a mountain. One ill-chosen word -- or, worse, failure to answer a reporter's question -- and the candidate is suddenly redrawn into a caricature he doesn't recognize.

Without much fanfare, the United States has now met its own domestic natural gas needs, while also becoming the worlds No. 1 exporter of natural gas.

Hispanic high school dropouts hit record lows in 2013 despite 18-24-year-olds' numbers increasing by 50 percent since 2001.

Once in a while, government does something right.

Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." That may have been true in Tip O'Neill's day, but some elections are decisively on national issues -- and the congressional elections this year are overwhelmingly national, just as the elections of 1860 were dominated by one national issue, namely slavery.

WASHINGTON -- Come Tuesday, the national pastime will be the subject of oral arguments in a portentous Supreme Court case. This pastime is not baseball but rent seeking -- the unseemly yet uninhibited scramble of private interests to bend government power for their benefit. If the court directs a judicial scowl at North Carolina's State Board of Dental Examiners, the court will thereby advance a basic liberty -- the right of Americans to earn a living without unreasonable government interference.

I look at everything from a business perspective. When I sponsor a bill or when I am deciding how to vote on a bill, I examine the cost-benefit analysis. What will this do for Florida and the people in my district?

It is painfully clear that our society is being misled into accepting smoked marijuana as a medicine without regard for the real damage it is doing to our childrens future, as well as the strength of our society.

That left-wing group called Rock the Vote has released its latest silly new video urging the youth of America to vote. But vote for what? As usual, they featured celebrities and young people urging a turnout for marriage equality, for global warming awareness and against deforestation.

Things are spinning out of control. Out of control, at least, by government, and by the United States government in particular. You don't have to spend much time reading the news -- or monitoring your Twitter feed -- to get that impression. Armed fighting in Ukraine. Islamic State beheadings in Iraq and Syria. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Hong Kong.