Cal Thomas

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the release of self-admitted “American Taliban” member John Walker Lindh “unexplainable and unconscionable.” Lindh, who was paroled last Thursday from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, served 17 years of a 20-year sentence for illegally aiding Taliban forces. Lindh had joined the terrorist organization before September 11, 2001. He was in Afghanistan…

Since 1973, when Roe vs. Wade ushered in what would eventually lead to abortion on demand, including partial-birth abortion and even the failure to protect babies born alive after failed procedures — the pro-life movement has achieved few legislative victories. That may be about to change. While New York and several other states have passed statutes effectively allowing infanticide, more…

It was Oscar Levant who uttered the famous line: “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.” In a way it was a backhanded compliment to a woman who represented in most of her film roles an image of chastity and virtue that was once mostly promoted in American culture, though not always practiced in private lives, including hers. Day, who died last Monday at age 97, became a friend late in her…

In a country preoccupied with presidential candidates preaching extreme liberalism and even unabashed socialism comes America's greatest living historian, David McCullough, with a new and needed book. It's called The Pioneers and the subtitle is its theme: “The heroic story of the settlers who brought the American ideal west” (Simon and Schuster). Nowadays, while students at universities and…

It took a few days, but The New York Times finally got around to apologizing for publishing in its international edition a grossly anti-Semitic cartoon depicting a blind President Trump wearing a yarmulke and being led by a dog resembling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The dog wore a Star of David around its neck. At first The Times blamed a single editor and poor oversight, but…

The long arm of the PC police has reached back to the '30s and arrested, prosecuted and sentenced the late singer Kate Smith. Smith, who popularized Irving Berlin's song “God Bless America” and was a female pioneer in early television, recorded songs that today in hindsight are viewed as racist. An old friend, Harry Covert, writes to recall the early days of black-and-white TV when he (and I)…

Objectivity, like Elvis, long ago left the building in Washington and so the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is being read and interpreted through mostly biased eyes. Democrats, who had counted on Mueller to prove that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, were initially as crestfallen as they were on election night 2016. Still, they are undeterred in the pursuit of their ultimate…

LIBERIA, Costa Rica — In the ongoing U.S. debate about immigration, the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are mainly in the news because many of those crossing our border from Mexico are from these nations. Why isn't Costa Rica experiencing a similar mass exodus? I put the question to President Carlos Alvarado Quesada. In an email response he writes in part, “8…

For the last 27 years, Democrats have been trying to win over evangelical Christians who last voted in large numbers for their party's presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter, in 1976. At the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Al Gore gave it a go, but misquoted Scripture. In his acceptance speech for the vice-presidential nomination, Gore said, “In the words of the Bible, Do not lose heart. This…

The flood tide of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border cannot and must not continue. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has said of it, “The system is broken and overwhelmed. It is a national emergency.” The definition of emergency might help focus attention: “A sudden, urgent, usually unexpected occurrence or occasion requiring immediate action.”

What Sean Davis, co-founder of the web magazine The Federalist, wrote in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal sums up the disgust many Americans are feeling about the way big media handled the Russia collusion story: “It wasn't merely an error here or there. America's blue-chip journalists botched the entire story, from its birth during the presidential campaign to its final breath Sunday — and they…

The saga that is the Mueller Report is a consequence of what happens when you begin with a conclusion and then desperately seek evidence you hope will confirm it. The conclusion: Donald Trump was illegitimately elected and that he and/or his campaign conspired with the Russians to undermine Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy. A summary of the report delivered to Congress Sunday by Attorney…

President Trump made a rare appearance at a church last Sunday. It's a safe bet the sermon was not based on Proverbs 15:1 — “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” If it was, it didn't appear to have much effect. Before and after church, the president engaged in a tweet storm that insulted several people, including the late Sen. John McCain.