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Political Commentary

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July 14, 2015

Disruptive Politics: Trump as a Third Party Candidate by Michael Barone

My sole focus is to run as a Republican, Donald Trump told my Washington Examiner colleague Byron York last week, "because of the fact that I believe that this is the best way we can defeat the Democrats." He went on, "Having a two-party race gives us a much better chance of beating Hillary and bringing our country back than having a third-party candidate."

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July 10, 2015

Health Care Insurance Pigs Soaking Americans With Secret 20 to 40 Percent Rate Increases on Obamacare By Ted Rall

This is what happens when you trust free markets.

You probably heard that the Supreme Court rejected the latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, aka The Great Transfer of Taxpayer Dollars to Scumbag Health Insurance Companies. That news broke during a major news day.

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July 10, 2015

What (Little) You See of Hillary Clinton Is What You'll Get If She Wins By Michael Barone

It says something about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign that it was big news that she submitted herself to an interview with a cable news journalist. It also says something that the journalist selected for this honor, Brianna Keilar of CNN, was recently a guest at the wedding of the director of grassroots engagement for the Clinton campaign. Makes sense to hedge your risk.   

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July 10, 2015

Of Donuts, Divas and Celebrity Tantrum-itis by Michelle Malkin

There's a regular feature in grocery gossip magazines titled "Stars: They're just like us!" Supposedly "candid" photos show actors and starlets taking out the trash, dropping off their kids at school and walking their dogs to emphasize their Everyday Peoplehood.

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July 9, 2015

Democrats 2016: Not Feeling the Bern By Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

The Buzz about Bernie has taken hold on the Democratic side of the 2016 campaign, and it’s easy to see why. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is drawing huge crowds and great poll numbers in the first two states to vote, Iowa and New Hampshire.

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July 8, 2015

Is Your Church Abetting Sanctuary Nation? by Michelle Malkin

The random, heartless murder of a young tourist on San Francisco's Pier 14 by a five-time illegal alien deportee who benefited from the "progressive" city's sanctuary policy has law-abiding Americans, law enforcement officials and political opportunists of all stripes up in arms.

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July 8, 2015

Wealth Gap By John Stossel

Nearly 10,000 people turned out to hear Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin. Why? Apparently, many Democrats want socialism.

Sanders is the Vermont senator who is running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

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July 7, 2015

Looking Back by Thomas Sowell

After my 85th birthday last week, I looked back over my life and was surprised to discover in how many different ways I had been lucky, in addition to some other ways in which I was unlucky.

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July 7, 2015

A Legacy of Cliches By Thomas Sowell

Discussions of racial problems almost invariably bring out the cliche of "a legacy of slavery." But anyone who is being serious, as distinguished from being political, would surely want to know if whatever he is talking about -- whether fatherless children, crime or whatever -- is in fact a legacy of slavery or of some of the many other things that have been done in the century and a half since slavery ended.   

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July 7, 2015

Redistricting Not Worth the Verbal Footwork By Michael Barone

"Words mean what they say," I wrote in my Washington Examiner column one week ago. But, as I added, not necessarily to a majority of justices of the Supreme Court. The targets of my column were the majority opinions in King v. Burwell and Texas Department of Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project.

In King v. Burwell, Chief Justice Roberts interpreted the words "established by the state" in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) as meaning "established by the state or the federal government," even though the law itself defines "state" as the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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July 3, 2015

Welcome to the Machine, President Sanders By Ted Rall

Rising in the polls, Bernie Sanders is already posing a credible threat to Hillary in the key primary state of New Hampshire. Having gone in one month from left-wing curiosity to serious contender, his confidence is soaring. He has gone from promoting himself as a mere symbolic tool to push Clinton to the left to predicting that he will win the Democratic nomination for president, and ultimately the presidency itself.

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July 3, 2015

Vigilance Is Patriotic by Michelle Malkin

My fellow Americans: If you see something, say something -- even if it means CAIR will threaten to sue you.

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July 3, 2015

Patriotism, Optimism and Good-Natured Debate by Michael Barone

The Fourth of July is a time to remember Americans who have contributed much to their country, and this Fourth weekend is a good time to remember two such Americans who died in recent weeks -- and whom I'd had the good fortune to know and joust with intellectually since the 1970s -- Allen Weinstein and Ben Wattenberg.

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July 1, 2015

Heroes, Villains by John Stossel

Have you seen the new Jurassic Park movie, "Jurassic World?"

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July 1, 2015

Fanning the Flames of Another Black Church Arson Hoax By Michelle Malkin

America is still reeling from the horrific Charleston, S.C., massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that claimed the lives of nine innocent people.   

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June 30, 2015

Supreme Court Disasters By Thomas Sowell

Many people are looking at the recent Supreme Court decisions about ObamaCare and same-sex marriage in terms of whether they think these are good or bad policies. That is certainly a legitimate concern, for both those who favor those policies and those who oppose them.    

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June 30, 2015

Supreme Court Lets Obama Administration Say Words Don't Mean What They Say By Michael Barone

For most people, words mean what they say. But not necessarily for a majority of Supreme Court justices in two important decisions handed down Thursday.

In the most prominent, King v. Burwell, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority, ruled that the words "established by the state" mean "established by the state or the federal government."

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June 29, 2015

Are Millennials the Most Ageist Generation Ever? by Ted Rall

Ever notice how those who complain about being victims are themselves at least as likely to be perpetrators of the same offense? Examples that come to mind for me include the United States and Israel, two countries that portray themselves as targets of terrorism while carrying out wars of aggression whose death tolls far exceed their own losses.

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June 26, 2015

The Media's Vile Attacks on Conservative Assimilationists By Michelle Malkin

I have had enough of smug liberal elites wrapped in their "Celebrate Diversity" banners tearing down minority conservatives.   

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June 26, 2015

Facing a Changing World Balance, Obama Makes Odd Choices by Michael Barone

Is the world back to where it was around the year 1800? One could come to that conclusion after reading British historian John Darwin's recent book "After Tamerlane," which assesses the rises and falls of empires after the death in 1405 of the famously bloodthirsty Muslim Mongol monarch.