Columns

Phony “news” stories aren’t the only toxic content being spread on social media these days. Bad people are pitching digitally touched-up rear ends and modified thighs as real, dismaying teens and young women unable to attain what’s being sold as perfection.

Shortly after Hawaii and Alaska joined the Union and I was still a semi-young wiseguy, smugly sure that a celebrity candidate whose prospective campaign had sparked public interest would become a serious White House challenger, a grizzled political reporter brought me up short with this practical advice: “If a candidate gets measurably louder applause from the crowd when he’s introduced to speak than he does when he’s finished speaking, that candidate is overrated and will not be a winner.” Retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan — who is getting much less praise on the way out than he did on the

Many today are in favor of rule by experts, the so called “brightest and best,” appointed rather than elected, as a safeguard against inconvenient election results that occasionally occur in our representative democracy.

Because of the growth of progressivism in the US government, we are at a point where, increasingly, elections and the voice of the people are taken as mere suggestions on public policy, and mandates are cast aside if they don’t comport with the now dominant progressive plan for the country.