Lance Thompson

Trump’s Best Ally–the Liberal Media

Many people have been surprised by Donald Trump’s domination of media election coverage. Compared to other top tier candidates, he spends little on advertising, yet he’s mentioned in almost every story on the campaign, and he has rocketed to the top of the GOP field. How is this possible? Thank the mainstream media.

Santa in Dress Blues

A short heartwarming Facebook video making the rounds depicts a small boy who mistakes a Marine sentry for Santa Claus. I won’t spoil the end.

It’s A Wonderful Country

In the 1946 Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart plays the part of George Bailey whose life challenges–legal, financial, personal–seem so overwhelming that he believes it would be better if he’d never been born. An angel named Clarence shows him what a world without George would look like. George realizes that he has affected the world in countless positive ways, and a world without him would be dark, hopeless and cruel.

Dust Off the Death Panels

When Obamacare was being debated in the early months of the Obama administration, one of the most criticized features was the “death panel.” This term was employed by Sarah Palin and other conservatives to describe the appointed bureaucrats who would decide how to allocate precious health care resources based on the severity of the illness, the life expectancy of the patient, and the cost of the treatment. Since the members of the death panels would not be emotionally involved in these cases, they would be able to make objective calculations about how much and what kind of treatment would be available, and when to withhold treatment and allow a patient to die. A death panel is needed now, and ObamaCare is the patient.

Obama’s June Boost

There are indications that the early summer may be a rough time for President Obama. Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker seems to have a better than even chance of surviving his recall election, and the Supreme Court is set to decide on the constitutionality of at least part of Obamacare. But Mr. Obama may yet benefit from these setbacks.

Mitt Dirt for Dem Strategists

President Obama’s poll numbers have declined in the face of a moribund economy, calculated pandering to college students and matrimonial-minded gays, stubbornly high unemployment, and $40,000-per-plate fund raisers. The standard Democrat response to such well-deserved disaffection for the president is to release some character-assassinating fable about Mitt Romney through the mainstream media. If the trend continues, I calculate the liberal press will run out of such stories in mid-June, so I’ve prepared a few Romney whoppers that should get wide coverage in the weeks ahead.

Getting Out of the Red to China

The cost of China’s widespread and long-standing cyber espionage campaign on American interests was addressed in an article in the 27 January Wall Street Journal. Former Director of National Security Mike McConnell, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn cited the October 2011 report to Congress by the National Counterespionage Executive.

State of the Union 2013

Reaction to the President’s State of the Union speech has been as predictable as the speech itself, split along the usual partisan lines. But Obama’s next one, to be given after the 2012 election, figures to be a game-changer, and here’s an exclusive early look at what it will include:

Obama Closes the Arsenal of Democracy

Communist China is building a naval aviation program around its new aircraft carrier and cranking out new submarines at the rate of two per year. Iran threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz, forbids American ships from returning to the Persian Gulf, and is building an ICBM base in Venezuela. Waves of bombings mark the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. North Korea and Iran are on the verge of fielding nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. In this time of crisis, international tension and threats from every corner of the globe, President Obama naturally responds by cutting half a trillion dollars from the military budget of the United States.

Straight Shooters

The Magnificent Seven, now considered a classic Western, wasn't a hit when it was released in 1960. Based on Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, this allegorical tale was transplanted to the southern border of the American frontier and populated with a stellar cast of manly actors--Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Eli Wallach as the leader of the predatory bandit band that terrorizes a small Mexican village. In view of Hollywood’s enthusiasm for sequels and our current political situation, I believe the time is right for a remake.

The Letter O

In his upcoming book "Ten Letters," Eli Saslow, a reporter for the Washington Post, informs readers that President Obama has staffers select ten out of the hundreds of letters he gets each day to provide a representative sampling of American public opinion.

Occupy Busch Stadium

-Satire The Occupy movement widened significantly today with the formation of "Occupy Busch Stadium," an ad-hoc group dedicated to redistributing the wealth, opportunity and rewards of professional sports.

Palin the Pushover

Media commentator and best-selling author Laura Ingraham, whom I admire, respect and ordinarily agree with, spoke with a Sarah Palin supporter on her Thursday radio show. Ingraham cooled the caller's enthusiasm by making the point that a Palin candidacy is what the left hopes for above all else, since Palin would presumably alienate the independents who are abandoning Obama in droves. This reasoning is faulty and self-defeating.

Poles apart

The debt ceiling tug of war is unlikely to be satisfactorily resolved. The reason is that Republicans and Democrats have divergent views of the private economy, and that difference will always prevent compromise. Both parties understand that the private economy is the source of all wealth. Republicans take this position openly; Democrats will never admit it in public. Democrats justify massive government spending by calling it "stimulus," "job creation," or "investment," but they know that all the money government spends comes from the private sector. The government does not create wealth–it can only consume it.

Crisis Management

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," is the philosophy of ex-Obama chief of staff and White House arm twister Rahm Emanuel. During the reign of Obama, this tactic has been used repeatedly to justify government overspending, overreaching, and overtaxing.

Hitting the (Debt) Ceiling

Negotiations continue in D. C. about raising the debt ceiling. We’ve heard all the numbers, and if you’re like me, trillions, billions, and multi-millions eventually lose all meaning. So I thought I’d take a crack at simplifying the issues.

Palin’s End Run

The mainstream media have indignantly reported on Governor Sarah Palin’s barnstorming "One Nation" bus tour across the Eastern United States with sputtering speculation, crafty criticism, risible ridicule, and, as usual, insufficient insight. The reason for the media apoplexy is simple. Palin is the first potential national candidate to successfully demonstrate that today’s news organizations are yesterday’s news.

The Obama’s big hopes of reforming the Human Rights Council from within are in shreds

For centuries, conventional medical wisdom held that ailments ranging from diabetes and gout to epilepsy and insanity could be successfully treated using the scientific technique known as phlebotomy. This is commonly known as bloodletting, or drawing blood from a patient to release the sickness. The technique is as old as ancient Greece, and was commonly used in Europe and North America well into the 19th Century.

Rethinking Assassination

Since 1976, it has been the policy of the United States not to target enemy leaders. In order to comply with this policy, and still confront the enemies of this nation, we have had to mount invasions, liberate countries, wage wars and commit our nation’s blood and treasure for indefinite periods all over the world. Reversing the policy would make the United States and the free world much safer.

Hindsight and Blindsight

In hindsight, all victories look inevitable. But for the participants, it is much more as the Duke of Wellington described his triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo: "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." The truth is that no one can foretell the outcome of any contest. Yet many pretend prognosticators, who would gladly have us believe that Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 was preordained, are already telling us that Sarah Palin is unelectable in 2012. Such revisionism and fortune-telling are mutually refuting.