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Michael Medved
Michael Medved is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host and bestselling author. His daily three hour show reaches 200 stations across the country and an audience of 4.7 million placing him, for ten years in a row, on the Talkers Magazine list of the top ten political talks shows in the United States. Michael’s columns on politics and media appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast and USA Today, where he is a member of the Board of Contributors.
Writer's WebsiteDangerously “GUN FREE” on the High Seas
Tom Hanks, Hollywood’s most admired and reliable actor, has done it again with his latest film, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. The riveting movie tells the true story of a huge U.S. tanker captured by Somali pirates in 2009.
The most amazing aspect of the tale as it unfolds on screen involves the take-over of a massive, high tech ship with a crew of more than twenty...
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A Formula for Failure
My colleague Arthur Brooks from the American Enterprise Institute makes the crucial point that you win in politics by fighting for people, not fighting for things or abstractions.
In the wreckage left behind by the government shutdown, Republicans need to embrace this lesson and convince America that they aren’t just against big government, but they’re for...
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Romance with Fake Martyrdom
In the course of back-to-back confrontations over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling, the conservative base has become intoxicated with visions of glorious martyrdom.
On the eve of the federal shutdown, as House Republicans agreed to insist on defunding Obamacare at the price of keeping the government open, Representative John Culberson of...
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What’s the Problem with a Christian Dorm?
A new Christian dormitory at Alabama’s Troy University has proven highly popular with students but provoked a threatened law suit from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Initiated by a Catholic organization on campus, and built entirely with private funds, the new dorm nonetheless angers militant separationists because it’s an official residence hall at...
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The Obscenely Bloated White House Staff
A government shutdown could damage our economy but might serve one useful purpose: focusing attention on obscenely inflated staffing levels for the president and Congress.
The White House announced a shutdown would force the Executive Office of the President to use a “bare bones” staff of just 436—with some 1,265 employees sent home. But are all those...
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D-Day and Obamacare
An angry letter objected to a Wall Street Journal column in which I urged Republicans to fight for positive reforms rather than making doomed gestures with no chance of success. “It’s a good thing Michael Medved wasn’t advising General Eisenhower on D-Day, or he would have called off the attack,” one woman from Florida wrote.
Actually, the Normandy...
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GOP Shares Goals, But Not Priorities in Pursuing Them
Fortunately, all Congressional Republicans – yes, every single one of them – agree on two key goals for the party. They seek to block or roll back the destructive system known as “Obamacare” and also hope to win the Senate next year and the presidency two years later.
The only disagreement is the right order to pursue these goals. Many conservatives...
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Countdown to GOP Self-Destruction?
With most Americans undeniably dissatisfied with the direction of their government, why would some congressional conservatives insist on identifying Republicans as unyielding defenders of a broken status quo? Their implacable obsession with uprooting ObamaCare and their die-hard resistance to immigration reform all but guarantee near-term legislative defeats...
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America the Exceptional
During a recent visit to Berlin, I asked about the new Museum of German History. “Don’t bother,” my host advised. “We don’t have a good history.” After the Holocaust, two World Wars, and a Thirty Years War in the 1600s that killed a third of the population, who could disagree?
Other great powers suffered similar traumas: Russia and France with...
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The Only Way to Win
The internal Republican fight about the right strategy on a government shutdown plays into the hands of President Obama. You win in politics by uniting your side while dividing the opposition; now the GOP looks badly divided while Democrats solidly support the president.
Worst of all, GOP disagreements involve tactics, not principles: all Republicans in...
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Deadly Violence is Not a Game
The Washington Navy Yard shooter, like notorious killers at Columbine, Newtown and other massacres, was addicted to hyper-violent video games. Ironically, the day after his rampage a brutal new game set records as the fastest selling entertainment product of all time.
GRAND THEFT AUTO V generated a billion dollars in three days, beating any other game or film....
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The Damaging Rise of Single Households
Perhaps the most puzzling social change of recent decades involves the dramatic upsurge in Americans living alone. In 1900, only 5 percent of households featured a single person; today, a stunning 27 percent of American households consist of an isolated individual.
Aside from the loss in intimate and communal connection, this situation contributes to our...
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Out-of-Focus on Syria—and Guns
The Obama administration’s out-of-focus approach to Syrian war crimes reflects its similarly misguided response to mass killings within the United States.
The president concentrates on weapons used to do evil, rather than the criminals who perpetrate the butchery. Even if the Assad regime renounces chemical weapons and promises to destroy them, then that...
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A Crime, Not a “Tragedy”
Many media commentators reflexively described the Navy Yard shooting in Washington, DC as a “tragedy”. This designation amounts to a sloppy, misleading abuse of language. September 11th wasn’t a tragedy, nor was the Holocaust; these were crimes, the product of evil intent and willful choice.
Natural disasters like earthquakes or epidemics that kill...
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Is Marriage Always “Hard”?
In covering the breakup of Hollywood superstars Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, USA TODAY used the headline: “If 2 Happily Married Celebs Can’t Make It, Can Any of Us?” The accompanying article baldly declared: “Marriage is hard – and Hollywood marriages are harder.” This echoes the common pop culture theme that it’s daunting,...
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Conservative Lessons from Down Under
In Australia, the conservative contender Tony Abbott won a crushing victory over the left-leaning Labor Party that had run the country for six years. Abbott—the pro-life, global warming skeptic who was supposedly too conservative for Australia—now takes his place with other conservative Prime Ministers already dominating the “Anglo-sphere,”...
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