UPDATE: A wave of unusually severe cold is gripping Europe. But the weather is not the only thing that is chilling over there. Under the headline “A Chilling Verdict in Spain,” the New York Times reports that “The enemies of Judge Baltasar Garzón have finally gotten their way” as Spain’s Supreme Court has found Judge Garzón guilty of misapplying the country’s wiretap law and suspended him from the courts for 11 years. The 7-0 ruling flowed out of a 2008 corruption case in which...

Way back in 1971 when I was a young Air Force captain I clearly remember a woman in my Service totally outranking me — receiving her first star. The woman was Brigadier General Jeanne M. Holm and I remember it clearly because Holm was the first female general in the Air Force — a thing unheard of in those days. She would make history again a couple of years later when, in 1973 , she was promoted to the rank of major general, becoming the first woman in all of the Armed Forces to serve...

By now most readers know my (changed) position on the Afghanistan War. I have expressed concern among other about rampant corruption and backstabbing at the highest levels in the Afghanistan government, incompetence of and disloyalty among its military and police and continuing human rights violations. I have mourned our casualties and fretted about our huge financial costs. But — perhaps insensitively so — I have not mentioned much about the suffering of the Afghan people. A piece in...

FINAL (SURPRISE) UPDATE: Well, the Huckster — as my favorite talk show host refers to him — has endorsed Mitt Romney saying that Romney is ”not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country we all love.” According to Seattlepi.com: Romney said he was honored to receive the endorsement, but hoped even more to win the endorsement of Nevada voters. The state holds presidential caucuses Saturday. The endorsement came after a topsy-turvy set of events that suggested...

After listening to Newt Gingrich’s tasteless and graceless concession speech where he invoked the almost sacred words of both President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address and of the signers of our Declaration of Independence in an absurd attempt to link himself to our Founding Fathers, I posted the comment: Many feel that Gingrich — albeit he is the big loser in Florida — gave a pretty good “non-concession” speech. I thought it was as imperial and grandiose as usual —...

More than 10 years after September 11, 2001, I thought that I had seen and heard all the stories about that tragic day. But recently I received an e-mail from a friend with a link to a video of a 9/11 event that I was not familiar with, or which I have perhaps forgotten. The video is a documentary made by award-winning documentary filmmaker Eddie Rosenstein and narrated by Tom Hanks. It premiered at the Center for National Policy’s 9/11 Ten Year Anniversary Summit, in Washington, D.C. It is...

Of course two people — even if they were once on the same ticket for president and vice president of the United States — can, three years later, change some of their views and root for and endorse different candidates in the GOP presidential primaries. It happens to the best of us, and in the best of families, including husband and wife — just look at James Carville and Mary Matalin … Thus it should not be surprising to see, today, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, John McCain,...

There are a couple of observations I have been meaning to make about Mr. Gingrich’s “magnificent, bold and fearless” debates performance. On the first observation, New York Times’ David Firestone beat me to the punch and I am glad because he elucidates it much better than I ever could. Firestone ascribes a lot of Gingrich’s “successes” in the two previous South Carolina debates to the (red-meat) crowds: Republican voters in South Carolina said that much of Newt Gingrich’s appeal...

Back in September of 2009, I started one of my several articles on the Afghanistan War as follows: As the fighting in Afghanistan intensifies; as that war claims more and more casualties; and as critical decisions loom on national objectives, strategy and corresponding troop levels and deployments there, the debate also intensifies. As the war has continued unabated and has indeed claimed more and more young American lives; as critical decisions still needed to be made and as the debate on that...

The Washington Post: Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 1999 asked his second wife for an “open marriage” or a divorce at the same time he was giving speeches around the country on family and religious values, his former wife, Marianne, told The Washington Post on Thursday. Marianne Gingrich said she first heard from the former speaker about the divorce request as she was waiting in the home of her mother on May 11, 1999, her mother’s 84th birthday. Over the phone, as she was having dinner...

UPDATE: Rick Perry has just made it official — and, finally, commonsensical. At an emotional news conference in North Charleston, S.C. Rick Perry announced that he is dropping out of the race (“suspending the campaign”) and is endorsing a “redeemable” Newt Gingrich. === A few days ago, I “postscripted” the announcement that Jon Huntsman intended to drop out of the Republican presidential race with a personal note expressing sadness at that development since “Jon Hunstman...

There is no question as to how utterly uniformed Rick Perry’s remarks about Turkey were Monday night in South Carolina. Calling one of our staunchest NATO partners a country that is being ruled by “Islamic terrorists” is not really the savviest thing one would expect from a presidential candidate. But perhaps we are being too rough on the Texas governor. Here’s the question posed specifically to Perry by Fox News’ Bret Baier: Governor Perry, since the Islamist-oriented party took...

The same Republican presidential wannabe who would send U.S. troops back into Iraq and thus would most likely again need the use of Turkish land and air space to provide logistics support to our troops there, now labels that nation a country that is being ruled by Islamic terrorists — and worse. During Monday’s GOP presidential candidates debate in South Carolina, Texas governor Rick Perry also expressed doubts on whether Turkey belongs in NATO and indicated that it is time to have a...

UPDATE: As expected, Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah formally announced that he is ending his Republican presidential run “with a call for party unity, asking the five candidates he leaves on the field to end their negative ads and chastising President Obama for engaging in ‘class warfare.’” More from the New York Times: “This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people and not worthy of this critical time in our nation’s...

About 18 months ago and in response to a piece, “Why It’s Wrong to Equate Military Service With Heroism,” which discussed the technical, logical and semantic reasons why our fighting men and women should not be collectively called “heroes,” I wrote a piece claiming “Our Military: Yes, They Are All Heroes.” I started the article as follows: I am one of those misguided, clueless people who, when writing about our military men and women slugging it out in Iraq and...

For some reason — some will say for good reason — election time in America does not seem to bring out the best in many Americans, including this one, when it comes to negative and gloomy opinion and commentary. Thus, when The Huffington Post announced the launch of a HuffPost Good News section “devoted to positive news, happy stories and uplifting opinion and commentary” and graciously invited me to submit a post, I thought the timing was impeccable and I immediately knew what...

The New York Times, The Washington Post and most major cable news organizations are projecting that Mitt Romney will win the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary — several say by double digits over number 2, Ron Paul. The New York Times: Mitt Romney has won the New Hampshire Republican primary, projections show, achieving a sweep of the first two critical contests in the 2012 presidential race and boosting his chances at becoming his party’s nominee this fall. The New York Times...

It is all over! In a much-awaited development, Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, has just announced to a with-bated-breath-waiting world that he is endorsing Newt Gingrich for president. According to ABC News, “Todd Palin said he believes that being in the political trenches and experiencing the highs and lows help prepare a candidate for the future and the job of president.” King maker Palin bases his critical, much-coveted endorsement on the fact that Gingrich was able to overcome...

The only people I have more contempt for than those who would send our young men and women to get shot at, get maimed and get killed in unnecessary wars, are those who support sending our young men and women to get shot at, get maimed and get killed in unnecessary wars while they themselves refused to, declined to serve, had “other priorities,” or had all kinds of excuses for not serving in those very same wars they so gung-ho supported and continue to support. They are called “chickenhawks”...

Commenting on a USA TODAY editorial a couple of weeks ago on Gingrich’s campaign promise to, as president, haul-in judges whose rulings he doesn’t like, force them to explain their rulings and to abolish entire courts he doesn’t agree with, I said in a letter that “[Gingrich’s] interpretation [of the Constitution] would undermine the timeless, functioning, checks-and-balances system that was so brilliantly crafted by the Founders — all for the sake of satiating one man’s ego.” Well,...

We are all familiar with the separation of the sexes in Saudi Arabia and in other Islamic countries and with the many laws restricting and limiting the rights and activities of women. While many of the Sharia laws are ostensibly to protect women from the prying eyes and other inappropriate gestures or advances by men, curiously women shopping for panties, bras, negligees, etc. had to endure the embarrassment — and perhaps other inconveniences — of having to hear sales pitches...

As readers who have followed my writings — some call them rants — for the past few years know, while I have always opposed and condemned our invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have supported our efforts in Afghanistan to catch and punish the perpetrators of 9/11 and, in some measure, to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban. However, so many of the reports coming out of that country about the government’s corruption, the incompetence of its military and the continuing barbarism by some of...

CODA: Doing some “Googling” on languages and dreams, I was amazed at how many entries there are on the subject, “What language do you dream in?” There’s even a book at Amazon.com titled — you guessed it — “What language do you dream in?” So, given the interest and since it has been more than three years since I wrote about it here, let me try it again, with a different title and a few minor updates. One of the most difficult-to-answer questions...

When Texas Governor Rick Perry couldn’t remember the third government agency he would eliminate should he become president, one could chalk that up to “well, everybody has a mental freeze once-in-a-while.” When Perry couldn’t remember the name of a Supreme Court Justice or made a mistake in the number of judges on that Court, one could say “well, we all make mistakes.” But what does one say when a presidential candidate, the Governor of Texas, does not remember an extremely...

If I were a Republican this coming election year … I would vote for Rick Santorum because of his views on gays and lesbians and gay marriage, his promise to reinstate “don’t ask, don’t tell” and his stance on singling out Muslims for extra screening at airports. I would vote for Ron Paul for wanting to eliminate almost all of government, income taxes, the IRS and for declaring MEDICARE, Social Security, Medicaid, etc. unconstitutional. Plus, I kind of like his newsletters. I...