opinion

Sound bites are usually meant to obfuscate as much as clarify. Rarely is one so incisive as the line uttered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the other day about the difference between Israel and Hamas: “We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re...

Conservatives are quick to embrace religious figures who agree with them on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and the right of business owners to deny contraception coverage to their employees. “God is a Republican” might as well be their slogan, and church attendance...

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says the survey they took during the winter of 2012-13 found that we have 2,211 wolves and 438 wolf packs and hundreds of lone wolves. Then the DNR says there were 2,600 pups born this last spring. We were supposed to have about 1,600...

National security is a big issue for a veteran like me. It's a topic of interest for some survivalists, too, and for some foreign policy wonks, but how often does the average American think about national security? Probably never -- and that's a shame, because national security is...

As the death toll in Gaza rises, so does anger against Israel — and sometimes, by extension, Jews — in Europe and elsewhere. We should mark how unique this is. There’s a very large, and often very rich, Russian community in London — and there are no attacks on Russians or...

Once again, Israel is being forced to defend itself from the terrorists who run Gaza. Once again, Israel has had to drop bombs and send tanks and ground troops into Gaza to blow up tunnels and destroy the missile sites Hamas has been using to rain hundreds of rockets down on Israel’s...

Things do not necessarily get more direct, but become simpler to understand, particularly when human drives shape the context. The intellectual lowball played by professional or volunteer bigots is a red herring that cannot be denied, because it remains an adolescent set of urges...

This past weekend, the Friends of the Carnegie Library had a booth at Art in the Park. We raised almost $1,600 for our project to restore the Carnegie Library building. This is gratifying as we push toward our goal of $1.6 million. The lasting feeling after the weekend of unusual...

Is someone out there picturing Abe Lincoln with a dunce cap instead of a stovepipe hat? In a bulletin headlined “Survey: Who Is Our Dumbest President?,” the Drudge Retort website gleefully revealed that YouGov recently queried its visitors about how intelligent each of the last...

“Just following the will of the people.” That’s been the GOP rationalization for accomplishing absolutely nothing for five and a half years. Doesn’t matter what the issue is. Immigration. Jobs. Infrastructure. Climate change. Banking reform. The proliferation of substandard...

I was astonished and angered to read last week that the American Civil Liberties Union gathered “a coalition of 45 civil rights, human rights, privacy rights and faith-based organizations (and) sent a letter to President Obama asking for ‘a full public accounting of ... practices’”...

Smoke from the Malaysian plane wreckage had barely begun to spiral skyward when the first rhetorical salvos were fired at President Obama, demanding that the wimp get off his butt and do something. Gee, what a surprise. For instance, some Fox News infauxtainer named Todd Starnes...

“I say it’s high time we update the wording of the presidential oath of office, which is specified in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution.” “Update it?” “That’s right. Our current president isn’t following it much anyhow, so why don’t you recite it from...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas put a prominent, public face on the immigration crisis this week when he was detained by the U.S. Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas. After a number of hours and a national outcry, he was released. He first revealed his status as...