I didn’t join the grand anticipation of the speech called the State of the Union. I didn’t expect much, but I’m unwilling to believe a lofty speech written by someone else could somehow transform President Obama into someone his actions have proven he is not. Read More»

All the presidential posturing about creating jobs is high comedy. Or tragedy. Or irony.

You probably know the president doesn’t create jobs. The business world creates jobs when a profit-seeking entrepreneur takes a risk on a new or expanded venture and needs new employees to get the job done. When entrepreneurs feel the threat of losses, they protect their capital with caution, contracting and laying off employees, destroying jobs. Read More»

Some said the Congressional fight in the U.S. House to repeal Obamacare would have been unseemly last week as legislators tried to absorb the attempted murder of one of their fellow members, Gabrielle Giffords, a crime in Tucson leaving six dead and 14 wounded. The grief of legislators was compounded by concern for their own safety as they mix with constituents in uncontrolled settings. Read More»

I don’t know which was the bigger snow job – the winter storm in the Northeast last week, or the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) last month.

If you are willing to think outside your comfort zone, read on, but fair warning, my views on repealing the prohibition on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military just might alienate everyone on both sides of the argument. Read More»

Every time I see TV pundits discussing politics and lamenting how one of the parties is obstructing the other’s “progress,” I have to wonder whether they are shills for the blocked party or merely naive children. Our system was designed purposely to be slow in making change, with one side blocking the other when government is divided among divergent views. Read More»

Count me as a conservative pleased at the results of the recent election, but fully expecting to be disappointed by my own Republican Party.

How many struggles between Republicans and Democrats will be over foundation issues that really matter? Who will take up the cause of regaining control over a bloated and arrogant federal government that uses the fig leaf of the Commerce Clause to justify reaching into every crevice of our lives? Who will champion returning the federal government to the constraints of its enumerated powers in the constitution? Probably nobody. Read More»

Veterans Day brings back the memory that when I was a boy more than half the men I knew had served their country. Now, when you factor out aging and dying veteran bubbles of WWII, Korea and Vietnam, by my estimate less than 5 percent of our citizens will know what it means to serve.

While the all-volunteer military wants to keep it that way, I doubt making military service rare is good for the country. Read More»

As mid-term elections draw near, the chatter of TV news escalates in points and counter-points of the political tug-of-war. Whether you are on the left or right in the arguments, if you can set aside pre-conceived notions long enough to read this column, please consider that much of the noise completely misses the larger point. Read More»

Whether you are liberal or conservative, you should be troubled by the increasingly common power grabs in our nation’s capital.

Maybe the framers of the U.S. Constitution were particularly insightful on human nature when they gave limited, enumerated powers to the federal government and reserved all other powers for the people and the states. I think the framers feared the corrupting influence of power, having just fought a war for independence from a king who created taxes and laws at the stroke of a pen that oppressed British subjects in America. Read More»

Last week Timothy Parker wrote that we do not spend sufficient time honoring our parents and grandparents for their sacrifice in WWII when they saved the world. I couldn’t agree more.

Maybe Mr. Parker, who wrote of his father’s WWII service, won’t mind my piggybacking to write about my father, also a Navy man.

Dad was a Navy corpsman on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. That’s all I knew growing up because Dad was a simple man, not a blabbermouth like me, and he didn’t talk about it. Read More»