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President Trump's first State of the Union address set a new standard. For himself. If he lives up to that standard in future speeches, he may go far in changing his image from a blustering, ad-libbing "entertainer," to someone who looks and sounds, shall I say it, more "presidential." The speech was well-crafted, delivered in a mostly low-key manner and timed perfectly to link themes with flesh-and-blood guests in the balcony. It didn't hurt that first lady Melania Trump looked stunning in an all-white suit and caused jaws to drop as she descended the balcony stairs to her seat....

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." (Romans 13:1) That verse, written by Paul the Apostle, is one of the most difficult for modern evangelicals to fully accept. It was written at a time when the Roman authorities were bad dudes. They actively discriminated against the early Christians, murdering some, imprisoning others, including Paul, who was among their most ardent persecutors before his conversion. Modern Christians sometimes suffer from the notion that God is only active when someone...

Any other Republican president but Donald Trump might expect to get at least some credit for the mostly positive direction in which the country is headed. Unfortunately, the Trump-haters prefer to focus on his, shall I say, unusual personality, rather than results. So let's put personality aside and consider what has happened in his first ten months in office. The liberal Los Angeles Times reported on a focus group conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Hart. Of those polled, Trump supporters and those who voted for Hillary Clinton expressed disappointment about the president's behavior but gave him positive marks on the...

How do they do it? I am not the first to compare the Clintons to Harry Houdini, the great magician and escape artist, but Bill and Hillary make him look like a rank amateur. No law seems to touch them. No regulation seems to control them. No prosecutor wants to take the risk of holding either Clinton accountable for anything. OK, Bill was impeached by a Republican House, but not convicted in the Senate. The latest escape for Hillary involves former FBI Director James Comey and the law governing classified materials. The Hill newspaper's John Solomon has obtained an early...

President Trump has called the indecipherable U.S. tax code ” self-destructive.” He has also decided to end the Obama-era program that allows “undocumented” immigrants who came to America as children to gain work permits. Congress would be given six months to replace it. On Jan. 1, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban lowered the corporate tax rate from 19 percent to 9 percent, the lowest rate among the 28 member-states of the European Union. By comparison, the United States’ top marginal tax rate is 38.92 percent, just behind Puerto Rico and the United Arab Emirates. In the last seven...

“Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?” (Psalm 2:1 KJV) That didn’t take long. Less than 48 hours after the shooting rampage targeting Republican members of Congress and their staff on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, followed by the picture of Republicans and Democrats kneeling in prayer at Nationals Park before their annual charity game, things returned to normal … or abnormal. On Friday, the Drudge Report ran these headlines: “Shots fired at a truck flying ‘Make America Great Again’ flag;” “Starbucks staff harasses Trump supporting customer;” “Time Warner defends funding ‘assassination play,’” in...

"I'll never lie to you."-- Jimmy Carter, the 1976 presidential campaign. All politicians lie, because they are human and all humans lie. The question before us is this: If President Trump lied to FBI Director James Comey, should that "lie," lead to impeachment? Did he obstruct justice when he allegedly "hoped" that Comey would not pursue an investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn? Many Democrats think so. Most Republicans do not. Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that President Trump lied about him after his dismissal. The assertion was based on what the president said of him...

Trusting Saudi Arabia to combat terrorists and extremists and "drive them out," as President Trump called on the kingdom and other Arab and Muslim nations to do in his Riyadh speech, is akin to forging an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan to combat racism and anti-Semitism. Saudi Arabia has for years promoted the very evil they now "commit" to fighting through a newly established Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. Never forget that 15 of the 9-11 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. President Trump's speech was written by Westerners, delivered by a westerner and based on a...

Awards once meant something. There was a time not that long ago when they were given in recognition of important accomplishments. Today, we tend to value celebrity over steady achievement. Fame is paramount. It matters little how one attains it. The Kardashians are just one of many examples. We now give "participation" awards to schoolchildren so they won't feel left out, or suffer injury to their "self-esteem," should they be on a losing team. Other awards have become politicized. Isn't that why Oscars and Emmys are awarded to people, films and programs that reinforce the secular-progressive worldview? Isn't that why...

Thanks to the beneficence of the federal government (and the calendar), we Americans have until midnight on April 18 to file our income taxes. It's too bad filing taxes wasn't an easier process. President Trump has pledged to reform our tax code, which, to most people, currently reads like a foreign language. Trump said tax reform would be a top priority for his administration, but he is up against powerful lobbyists working for the tax preparation industry and also charitable and other organizations who want to keep things just as they are, since some donors would be less likely to...

What goes around comes around is one of life's undeniable truisms and never more than in the politics of Washington, D.C. (the "D.C." increasingly standing for dysfunctional city). Last week was Cherry Blossom week in D.C. This week it's Neil Gorsuch week. Republicans must now decide whether to use the "nuclear option," a parliamentary procedure that allows the U.S. Senate to override a rule or precedent by a simple majority of 51 votes, instead of by a supermajority of 60 votes, as a tool for confirming President Trump's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. For those whose primary diet is...

In the aftermath of the debacle over the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, President Trump can learn a valuable lesson that will serve him well in the next battle over tax reform and other issues. The president was elected largely on the force of his strong personality and vague promises to fix things that are a "disaster," a favorite word of his. Personality is not policy. Leaders who lead by personality can also die by personality, which is what happened in the House last week when the president's threats and arm-twisting failed to deliver enough votes. The strategy,...

At the National Prayer Breakfast last week, President Trump promised to "totally destroy" the so-called "Johnson Amendment," a law that prohibits churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates at the risk of losing their tax-exempt status. Politifact.com gives the background on how the amendment became law: "The restriction was championed by (Lyndon Johnson) in 1954 when Johnson was a U.S. senator running for re-election. A conservative nonprofit group that wanted to limit the treaty-making ability of the president produced material that called for electing his primary opponent, millionaire rancher-oilman Dudley Dougherty, and defeating Johnson. There was no church involved. "Johnson,...

Republican members of Congress met in Philadelphia last weekend for what was called a retreat. It might have been more accurately labeled an advance. Perhaps not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt’s first term has so much been done by so few that will potentially impact so many (to paraphrase Winston Churchill in a completely different context). Writing on CNN’s politics page, Stephen Collinson commented: “Forget the first 100 days. It’s only been a week and Donald Trump is reinventing the presidency.” Given what conservatives consider CNN’s hostility toward Mr. Trump, Mr. Collinson may not have meant it as a...

Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. Not if it's a familiarity with Christmas. While America and much of the world are focusing attention on the coming of the new president, little attention is paid to a gift not even the world's richest person could pay for and which is even today not received by many to whom it is offered. The year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. A look back at one of the greatest sermons ever preached about Christmas by the man credited with splitting Christianity from the dominant Roman Catholic Church...

Mainstream media are suddenly concerned about "fake news." It used to be that phony stories were easy to spot. They usually focused on space aliens or mysterious creatures found wandering deep in the woods. My personal favorite in this genre was a 1992 "story" in the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News that claimed the bones of Adam and Eve had been discovered in Colorado. A "leading archaeologist" was quoted, presumably to add credence to the fake story. In the internet age, things once thought incredible have taken on credibility. From spam email that claims someone in Nigeria wants to send...

Three years ago when Republicans were battling President Obama over the debt ceiling and a government shutdown, the president said, "You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election." That is what Republicans did on Nov. 8. In addition to winning the presidential election, Republicans also maintained majorities in the House and Senate and now have 33 governorships and 32 state legislatures under GOP control. It was a consequential repudiation of the far-left policies of the Democratic Party. To paraphrase Mr. Obama: Republicans won, Democrats lost, now...

My parents taught me never to speak ill of the dead, but in the case of Fred Phelps, who died last week at the age of 84, I think they would have made an exception. The man, who will be referred to in this column without the modifier "reverend," because there was nothing reverent about him, defined the word "odious." He and some of his family members constituted the entire membership of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. It was BINO, Baptist in name only. Phelps and some members of his family (though not all) picketed military funerals with...

NEW YORK -- Donald Trump's impressive victory in Tuesday's election offers him a rare opportunity to change the narrative. Secular progressive policies at home and abroad are not working. The establishment has had its chance -- multiple chances, in fact -- to fix things, but it has failed, or didn't try, under Republican and Democratic administrations. Voters are taking a big chance with Trump, but things have gotten so bad that the election shows many millions of Americans are willing to try something new. Trump achieved what most of the experts, the ruling class, the major media (including most...

I love definitions because they help focus the mind. Under dictionary.com’s definition of “corrupt” one finds the following: 1. Guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity; crooked: 2. Debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil: 3. Infected; tainted. When used as a verb with an object we find: 4. To destroy the integrity of; cause to be dishonest, disloyal, etc., especially by bribery. 5. To lower morally; pervert. Don’t these definitions perfectly describe Hillary Clinton? As the FBI re-starts its prematurely halted investigation into Hillary’s “extremely careless” handling of classified materials, perhaps this time it will conclude what it...