Trump is selling opposition politics to Americans who, rich or poor, enjoy greater power as consumers than they ever will as voters. The media do not understand consumer behavior, which is why so many outlets have failed. But Trump “gets it”: his companies not only provide value for investors, but good service to customers.
The man suspected of gunning down a young woman at random at a popular San Francisco tourist spot on Wednesday has been “deported to Mexico several times,” according to a report by the local ABC News affiliate.
San Francisco locals are still reeling after last weekend’s Gay Pride celebrations saw Dolores Park trashed by revelers. The park was only recently re-opened after an expensive renovation.
Star Trek celebrity and gay marriage activist George Takei told a Phoenix news station Monday that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a “clown in blackface.” Takei was referring to Thomas’s recent dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 5-4 decision in which the Supreme Court found that there is a “fundamental” right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution. “He is a clown in black face sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry. He doesn’t belong there,” Takei said.
The Obama administration has yet to question American Alan Gross about his lengthy imprisonment in Cuba–six months after he returned home in a prisoner swap that set the stage for full normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations this week, the Daily Beast reports. Though Gross spent more than five years in a Cuban prison, and could potentially provide valuable intelligence on the regime, as well as information about political prisoners, the Obama administration showed no interest.
Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes–who lacks any prior qualifications for the post–has explained to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday that the administration believes that a bad Iran deal is worth doing because political reform inside the Iranian regime is more likely with the deal than without. Or, to use Rhodes’s own words: “We believe that the kiss of the nuke deal will turn the Iranian frog into a handsome prince.”
President Barack Obama’s poll numbers are surging, and for the usual reason: the left is happy. After a week in which the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare (again) and established same-sex marriage as a “fundamental right”; in which final negotiations on
Judge Richard Posner writes at Slate.com that the dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts in the gay marriage case is “heartless.” It is a false charge, and part of the effort to shame opposing views–about which Justice Samuel Alito warned in his own dissent.
President Barack Obama delivered a stirring eulogy Friday for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney and eight others who were murdered in their church earlier this month by a white racist who hoped his act of terror would ignite a racial war. The first part of Obama’s remarks were a fitting and inspiring tribute to the victim, whom he knew personally. The second half was a regrettably political speech that exploited the pulpit for partisan ends–and claimed the murderer had been “used by God.”
This week saw a sudden flurry of attempts to rid America of symbols of the Confederacy–not just the flag at the South Carolina State House, but statues, street names, and even songs. While many welcomed the changes as a way to heal
In the Obamacare case, the Court pretended to know what was really in the minds of legislators in spite of their explicit words (and evidence of their actual intent). In Texas Housing, the Court has ruled that the federal government can decide what is really in the minds of ordinary people, whether they intend to discriminate or not.
The dissent, by Justice Antonin Scalia, was blistering. “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State,'” he wrote.
California’s pension funds moved one step closer to divesting from coal on Wednesday, with an Assembly committee approving SB 185 bill by a 5-1 vote. The bill, which has passed the state Senate, moves to the floor for a vote. It is likely to pass, and Gov.Jerry Brown is likely to sign it into law, though he has opposed measures to ban fracking for oil in the state.
Several former advisers to President Barack Obama have rejected the likely terms of a nuclear deal with Iran, adding their names to an open letter that declares: “The agreement will not prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapons capability.”
California lawyers are complaining after Gov. Jerry Brown announced the appointment of yet another young Yale Law School graduate with little more than Obama administration experience to the state’s appellate bench. “Baker is only 37 years old and has no judicial experience. So, he would be a typical Brown appointee to the appellate bench,” wrote legal columnist Roger M. Grace in the Metropolitan News-Enterprise in December 2014–an opinion he has since reiterated.
The Confederate flag was once cheered by thousands of freed slaves. It happened in 1863, when the CSS Alabama caught a Union ship off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. The spectacle was so thrilling to the locals, particularly the Malay and
Former Secretary of State George Shultz told CBS Sacramento on Monday that Republicans could learn from President Ronald Reagan’s example on immigration and border security. “I think people understand we have to do a lot of work on immigration policy,
Hillary Clinton has managed to avoid any questions about the Confederate flag, even as her Republican rivals have faced a media onslaught since the murder of nine black congregants by a racist white gunman in a Charleston church last week. Vintage
Haley left a door ajar that the left intends to prop wide open, from now until Election Day and beyond. Emboldened by South Carolina’s quick shift—on an issue that was tangential to the horrific atrocity in Charleston—the left is eager to mount a continued campaign against the Confederacy and its symbols.
The dead are not yet buried in Charleston, yet the South Carolina legislature is to meet in special session Tuesday to debate the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol grounds, reportedly at the behest of Gov. Nikki Haley. Whether the flag belongs there or not–and I would argue that it does not–the flag had nothing to do with the nine murders in a church last week. To tear it down in such haste is to dishonor the dead–and to accept a collective guilt that knows no end.
You may have heard it through the grapevine: the California raisin farmers who challenged the federal government’s power to seize a substantial portion of each year’s crop as part of a New Deal price-floor scheme had a very strong case under
Abraham H. Foxman, the outgoing national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has blasted Israel’s former envoy to the U.S., Michael Oren, for his comments about how President Barack Obama has deliberately harmed the U.S.-Israel relationship. Foxman is a liberal Democrat, and would rather blame Israel rather than examine the politics of his own party, so his defense of the White House is no surprise. However, he descends to the level of personally smearing Oren.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama pledged: “I am committed to taking bold actions at home and abroad to cut carbon pollution.” On Friday, the President told a gathering of the nation’s mayors in San Francisco that they had to prepare for climate change. On Saturday, he flew on Air Force One to Palm Springs, where on Sunday he is playing golf at Sunnylands.
New Yorker editor David Remnick has penned a column in which he suggests that President Barack Obama’s political opponents are to blame for the nine brutal murders at the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday.
On Friday evening, July 2, 1999, a crazed young man drove through my Chicago neighborhood looking for Jews to kill. He had already shot half a dozen in a neighboring area (all of whom survived). He saw a black man walking with his family and decided that was good enough. He shot him–and Ricky Byrdsong, former Northwestern University basketball coach, died. The killer led an interstate manhunt, during which he killed a Korean man and attacked a church before shooting himself.
