The Metropolitan Opera in New York City is hardly a site for hundreds of angry protesters. But they have erupted over their current selection, an opera called “The Death of Klinghoffer.” Leon Klinghoffer was the 69-year-old paralyzed New Yorker who in 1985 was aboard the hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro, then executed by Islamic terrorists because he was a Jew. The terrorists forced the ship's barber and a waiter to throw his body and his wheelchair overboard off the coast of Egypt. Klinghoffer’s daughters, Lisa and Ilsa, have objected to this opera for decades. In the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, they... continue reading
The London Daily Mail reports Amazon.com now issues a content warning to viewers before they live-stream the second volume of classic “Tom and Jerry” cartoons. Viewers are lectured the cartoons “may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today." If you think this makes sense, dear reader, you too have lost your mind. The same Amazon.com is also releasing a new ten-part web-TV series called “Transparent,” about a 70-year-old father of three who decides he’s a woman named Maura. There are no content warnings for this... continue reading
They don’t hand out master’s degrees in revisionist history, but if they did, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman might deserve one. Obama is mired in a geopolitical mess of his own making, from the Ukraine to the ISIS menace, yet Friedman’s decided to argue that Obama shouldn’t be harshly judged. His era is much more complicated than Reagan’s, you see. “I’ll leave it to historians to figure out years from now who was the better president,” he claimed. Reagan’s era was defined by a capitalist-communist competition between “two organized superpowers,” while Obama’s era centers on a puzzling conflict “between... continue reading
By now, everyone knows that there’s a revolving door between Democratic politics and the “objective” news media. But does it have to spin so fast? On September 10, CNN announced it hired former White House press secretary Jay Carney as a commentator, citing his “invaluable voice for the network” after his five years inside the Obama administration. By that afternoon and in heavy rotation in the evening around an Obama speech, Carney was battling for the White House position. Having a direct conflict of interest isn’t disqualifying if you're labeled a “commentator.” The issue: Can Carney truly offer “invaluable” commentary... continue reading
The liberal legend of Jon Stewart began with his October 15, 2004 appearance on CNN’s “Crossfire,” where he rhetorically sentenced the show to death. He proclaimed, “It’s hurting America. Here is what I wanted to tell you guys: Stop... You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.” CNN announced it was canceling the show two months later, as network president president Jon Klein told the New York Times "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise." As is so typical of liberals who preach one thing while doing its opposite (Leonardo DiCaprio, call your office), Comedy... continue reading
Indian-American actress Mindy Kaling not only stars in her own sitcom on Fox called “The Mindy Project,” she’s in charge of it. You might think that feminists would celebrate that achievement, but that would show that you don’t know about feminists. Apparently, nothing satisfies them. Instead, they are demanding she use her program to sell feminism, and its crowning joy, abortion. Kaling committed a gaffe among the Hollywood Left by telling a Flare magazine interviewer she had no plans to address what the magazine called “the American right’s current war on abortion.” Kaling said “It would be demeaning to the... continue reading
The late Lloyd Bentsen is sorely needed when President Barack Obama tries to compare himself to Ronald Reagan. Mr. President, you’re no Ronald Reagan. The New York Times recently captured Obama speaking inside the White House in an off-the-record meeting with liberal journalists. He lamented with an “edge of resentment” that he’s seen as weaker than Reagan after an Islamic suicide bomber drove a truck into a Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, killing 241 Americans. “Mr. Obama noted acidly that President Ronald Reagan sent Marines to Lebanon only to have hundreds of them killed in a terrorist attack because... continue reading
David Limbaugh has written a book that departs dramatically from his recent tomes on the worst excesses of the Obama presidency. “Jesus On Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel” explores his journey of faith, from believer to non-believer and back. “Rush and I were raised in a great Midwest Christian family. We went to church every Sunday. Our parents raised us right so I'm not blaming them. I'm blaming myself for the message not sticking,” he says. As it has for so many, his faith faded away in college. Faith was replaced by skepticism. Limbaugh wants it... continue reading
It is amazing the degree to which the media can politicize -- always from a leftist perspective -- just about anything in the news. No matter what the issue, there's the spin, always the spin, especially in the "analysis" reports where "journalists" go in screech advocacy mode while projecting a sober, dispassionate evaluation. Burger King announced that it could no longer abide by our corporate tax rate, the highest in the industrial world, and was moving to Canada, so ABC's Diane Sawyer decided this was a betrayal of the company's civic responsibility, stating that Burger King now stands “accused of... continue reading
Five years ago, Pope Benedict arrived in London to erupting controversy. Around 10,000 people took to the capital's streets for a rally against the Holy Father's “intolerance,” and as the Guardian reported, against “the child abuse scandal for which so many hold the pontiff personally responsible, for both accelerating it and then covering it up.” The abuse in question centered for the most part on incidents that were 40 years old or more. Nevertheless, CBS reporter Mark Phillips described the trip as "A test of whether Pope Benedict can get his message across over the background noise of the Church's... continue reading