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Political Commentary

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January 14, 2016

18 Days to Iowa: Presidential Demolition Derby Revs Up By Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

What is there to add about Donald Trump that has not already been said? The political world has moved from disbelieving that he would even follow through and become a candidate, to expecting him to wither on the vine as more conventional choices gained steam, to accepting his nomination as a distinct possibility, to speculating that he will go all the way and defeat Hillary Clinton in November.

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January 13, 2016

Optimism and Obama By John Stossel

In the commercial that President Obama released prior to his final State of the Union address, Obama said he would tell Congress how "optimistic" he is about America's future.    

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January 13, 2016

Powerball's Biggest Winner: Government by Michelle Malkin

Ka-ching! Wednesday's Powerball jackpot soared to $1.5 billion as get-rich-quick mania seized America this week. But you don't need to wait for the drawing to know who'll score the royal payoff.

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January 13, 2016

The State of the Union Obama Really Wanted to Give By Charles Hurt

Even at the end of seven good and prosperous years, a president’s final State of the Union address is a tough act. There is no one left to blame. By this point in a presidency, he owns the current state of the union.

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January 12, 2016

Census 2015 Shows Increasing Cultural Division and Political Polarization By Michael Barone

The Census Bureau has delivered its annual Christmas gift to demographic junkies: its estimates of the populations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for mid-2015.     

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January 12, 2016

What Bernie & The Donald Portend by Pat Buchanan

Three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, and clarity emerges.

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January 12, 2016

'Messing With the Constitution' By Thomas Sowell

In recent years, a small but growing number of people have advocated a convention of states to propose amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The reaction to the proposal has been hostile, out of all proportion to either the originality or the danger of such a convention.

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January 8, 2016

Negative Campaigning Breaks Out in Republican Race by Michael Barone

Rough and tumble. Hammer and tongs. In the race for this year's Republican nomination, Donald Trump has not hesitated to attack and ridicule many of his opponents, and some of them have teed up attacks on him, only to hold back when they seemed to help rather than hurt him.

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January 8, 2016

Why Is North Korea Our Problem? By Patrick J. Buchanan

For Xi Jinping, it has been a rough week.

Panicked flight from China's currency twice caused a plunge of 7 percent in her stock market, forcing a suspension of trading.

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January 7, 2016

The Common Wisdom of New Year’s Day: Often Wrong for President By Larry J. Sabato

The CW on New Year's Day Has Often Been Wrong

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January 6, 2016

Bettors Know Better Than Pundits By John Stossel

Want to know who the next president will be?  

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January 6, 2016

Inside the Garden of Political Town Hall Plants by Michelle Malkin

On Thursday, CNN will host a town hall with President Obama as part of his "final-year push to make gun control part of his legacy." In addition to sitting down with liberal anchor Anderson Cooper, the network says Obama will "take questions from the audience."

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January 6, 2016

Showman-in-Chief By Thomas Sowell

Those who have been marveling at Donald Trump's political showmanship were given a reminder of who is the top showman of them all, when President Barack Obama went on television to make a pitch for his unilateral actions to restrict gun sales and make a more general case for tighter gun control laws.

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January 6, 2016

Obama’s Gun Plan: Crocodile Tears And A ‘Crazy List’ By Charles Hurt

When all the hectoring is finished, the professorial lecturing is done, all the political posturing is over, all that is left are tears. And crocodile tears at that.

Even for those of us long tired of the false hopes and outright lies from this White House, President Obama’s crude gunplay Tuesday was pretty shocking.

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January 5, 2016

Battening Down the Hatches, Reminiscent of the 1930s By Michael Barone

Battening down the hatches. That's what America and much of the rest of the world seem to be doing today, in an eerie re-enactment, though to much less of a degree, of what America and the world did in the 1930s. The result then wasn't very pretty. The result now is unknown.

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January 5, 2016

Will Mideast Allies Drag Us Into War? By Pat Buchanan

The New Year's execution by Saudi Arabia of the Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr was a deliberate provocation. 

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January 5, 2016

Complicating the Obvious By Thomas Sowell

Engineers who design computerized products and services seem to have an almost fanatical determination to avoid using plain English.

It is understandable when complicated processes require complicated operations. But when the very simplest things are designed with needless complications or murky instructions, that is something else.

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January 1, 2016

Obama Reshapes Presidential Politics -- But Maybe Not To Democrats' Benefit By Michael Barone

One thing that's striking about the presidential race, which, finally, officially begins soon, is how much the race has been shaped by Barack Obama. The course of the contests for both the Republican and Democratic nominations would be inconceivable absent the course of the Obama presidency.

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January 1, 2016

Winners & Losers: 2015 By Pat Buchanan

Each year, "The McLaughlin Group," the longest-running panel show on national TV, which began in 1982, announces its awards for the winners and losers and the best and the worst of the year.

Rereading my list of 39 awardees suggests something about how our world is changing.

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December 30, 2015

Defining Political Child Abuse: A Tale of Two Cruz Families By Michelle Malkin

Remember 5-year-old Sophie Cruz?