Here’s a thought experiment: What if Republicans nominated the 2012 version of Mitt Romney — same fundraising, same baggage, same everything — at their 2016 convention? What sort of odds would that candidate have in 2016?
I wish I were as confident as many politicians and news commentators. They know what America should do about ISIS and terrorism.
Gaping holes in the K1 fiance visa interview process. Reckless bans on scrutinizing visa applicants' social media posts. Ignored alarms over marriage fraud. New details keep seeping out about all the "red flags" Obama's immigration officials missed in the case of the San Bernardino jihadists.
Stop the madness. These debates cannot go on.
There were, literally, more candidates on stage for Tuesday night’s Republican debate than there were at a Jeb! Bush debate watching “party” in Miami.
"Buchanan, if you ever hear of a group getting together to stop X, be sure to put your money on X."
Among the many sad signs of our time are the current political and media attacks on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for speaking the plain truth on a subject where lies have been the norm for years.
On Sept. 14, 2012, three days after the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods in Benghazi, Libya, Hillary Clinton appeared at Andrews air force base, where she spoke with family members of those slain.
George Stephanopoulos, ABC News: "You're increasingly being compared to Hitler. Does that give you any pause at all?"
Donald Trump: "Because what I'm doing is no different than what FDR [did]. FDR's solution for Germans, Italians, Japanese many years ago. This is a president who was highly respected by all. He did the same thing -- if you look at what he was doing it was far worse."
When it comes down to core values, you can never make an exception.
Calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration "until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on," Donald Trump this week ignited a firestorm of historic proportions.
President Obama claims that restricting immigration in order to protect national security is "offensive and contrary to American values." No-limits liberals have attacked common-sense proposals for heightened visa scrutiny, profiling or immigration slowdowns as "un-American."
As the week began, I planned to write this column about some implications of Barack Obama's Sunday night Oval Office address. I noted that he devoted about one-fifth of this 13-minute speech to pleas that Americans not discriminate against Muslims.
"It is the responsibility of all Americans -- of every faith -- to reject discrimination," he said. "It's our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently."
The Donald Trump Show continues to dominate the airwaves and the polls, and the other candidates seem mere apprentices by comparison.
The billionaire’s appeal is very disproportionately tilted to the blue-collar half of the Republican electorate — many are the old Reagan Democrats who have long since defected from the party of their fathers. Much of the college-educated half of the party, by contrast, views Trump with disdain, but they are fractured and split among the rest of the contenders.
Calm down and think, America.
On Dec. 2, as Islamic terrorists in combat gear strode into a San Bernardino Christmas party and began methodically executing Americans for their religious beliefs, the commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces started ruminating on all the political angles and consequences.
When the President of the United States asks the television networks to set aside time for him to broadcast a speech from the Oval Office, we can usually expect that he has something new to say. But President Obama's speech Sunday night was just a rehash of what he has been saying all along, trying to justify policies that have repeatedly turned out disastrously for America and our allies.
The Republican Party certainly has its problems: a chaotic presidential race; a despised congressional party; unpopularity among the rapidly growing number of non-whites.
In Sunday's first-round of regional elections in France, the clear and stunning winner was the National Front of Marine Le Pen.
Her party rolled up 30 percent of the vote, and came in first in 6 of 13 regions. Marine herself won 40 percent of her northeast district.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg promises to give 99 percent of his Facebook shares to charity -- eventually.
There are just eight-and-a-half weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, with two of those weeks devoted to holidays during which polling is ordinarily not conducted, and the race for the Republican presidential nomination seems to be taking perceptible shape. And it continues to defy conventional wisdom.
