Columns

If you have paid attention to the news lately, you have no doubt seen the tensions, civil war and terrorist attacks facing many countries around the world. What many of these countries have in common is a major influence on the production or transportation of oil and natural gas, which is essential to all developed nations.

New York's mayor, Bill de Blasio, like so many others who call themselves "progressive," is gung-ho to solve social problems. In fact, he is currently on a crusade to solve an educational problem that doesn't exist, even though there are plenty of other educational problems that definitely do exist.

WASHINGTON -- Although the Ebola virus might remain mostly confined to West Africa, it has infected the Western imagination. This eruption of uncontrolled nature into what developed nations consider serene modernity is more disturbing to the emotional serenity of multitudes than it is threatening to their physical health.

The United Nations plays a supporting role in every war between Hamas and Israel. U.N. spokesmen routinely issue statements, accusations and denials about everyone's conduct, including their own (most recently they had to account for why they returned rockets, discovered in a U.N. school, to Hamas). Israel was denounced worldwide for an "attack" on a U.N. school said to be housing 3,000 civilians, but it was actually an attack on particular terrorists on the adjoining street.

The standard thing to say about the various Republican primaries this year is that the tea party movement has lost one race after another. That's a defensible conclusion but also an oversimplification.

WASHINGTON -- At about 5:15 p.m. on June 17, 1971, in the Oval Office, the president ordered a crime: "I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it."

As a 35-year-old first-term senator in Florida, that message had a chilling effect on me. It was conveyed by a telephone call from Marvin Rosen, a longtime friend and supporter of the Kennedy family.

Whenever were home in Florida, our constituents always ask us about the countrys finances. The American people instinctively know that running mindless deficits and carrying an unsustainable debt load hurts our country and their families.

Earlier this year, former New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote a trash-talking article in New York Magazine begging conservatives to dig back into the Clinton scandals of the 1990s. Hillary Clinton is preparing to run for president again, and he thinks it will help. Rich delighted in "how inexorably the Clintons will seduce the GOP into another orgy of self-destruction" by focusing on Whitewater or Bill Clinton's sexual harassments, making Hillary look again like "a victim of drive-by character assassination."

Well, looky, looky-lou! Just like I pointed out previously, I dont have to seek out information, information finds its way to my inbox on its own, or at least with the help of others! It seems as though someone was busy at 1:30 on the morning of July 30.

Both of the leading candidates for governor are hammering away at each other over education funding.

"Meet the Press" featured a segment this week that illustrates the planted liberal axioms that dominate our political culture. The topic was Congress's failure to "get anything done" this term. Political director Chuck Todd set the stage:

Bipartisanship is dead. That's the conventional wisdom, and there's a lot of evidence to support it.

WASHINGTON -- John Kerry is upset by heavy criticism from Israelis -- left, right and center -- of his recent cease-fire diplomacy. But that's only half the story. More significant is the consternation of America's Arab partners, starting with the president of the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas was stunned that Kerry would fly off to Paris to negotiate with Hamas allies Qatar and Turkey in talks that excluded the PA and Egypt.

WASHINGTON -- With metronomic regularity, there is a choreographed minuet of carnage. Israel is attacked. Israel defends itself. Perfunctory affirmations of Israel's right of self-defense are quickly followed by accusations that Israel's military measures are disproportionate. Then come demands for a cease-fire, and the attackers replenish their arsenals.