Cal Thomas

The debate about political power and authority among those who profess the Christian faith has raged since the 1st century. In modern America, the debate raged throughout Jimmy Carter's presidency and more recently through the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The debate now looms large for Donald Trump. Newsweek magazine labeled 1976 “The Year of the Evangelical” because of Carter's…

Back when reruns were a staple of summer programming, television networks aired repeats of their programs, giving viewers another opportunity to see what they had already seen. Democratic politicians are now conducting their own version of reruns. The same bunch who brought us the failed Russian “collusion” story, the sliming of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and charges that President Trump is a…

How much credibility should we give to a 16-year-old when considering her qualifications to lecture adults about science and an end-of-the-world scenario? Greta Thunberg has been dubbed by the media as a “climate change activist” and a teen “eco-warrior.” She was at the United Nations in New York on Monday to appear before diplomats and others at a “climate action summit.” Only the UN has less…

They are all gone now; the men (and one woman) who were major influences in my early journalism career. The last two died within weeks of each other. They were Jack Perkins and Sander Vanocur, both veterans of NBC News where I started as a copyboy. My list of mentors is long. They were famous then, but most likely unknown to younger people today. Their signed pictures hang on my office wall,…

DUBLIN — “When would you like to schedule your knee replacement surgery?” asked my American doctor before I left for Ireland. I gave him a date that works for me (I'm calling it the result of an old basketball injury, not advancing age). His office scheduled it for that date. Contrast this with a headline in the Irish Independent newspaper: “Surgery delays are ‘cheating elderly out of precious…

PARIS — President Trump was right to cancel a “secret” meeting with leaders of the Taliban and the Afghan government following two bomb attacks by the terrorist group that killed 10 civilians, an American soldier and a Romanian service member in heavily fortified Kabul. The president is eager to fulfill a desire to withdraw remaining American forces in what has been one of America's longest wars…

San Francisco, a city described in song for its natural beauty, is descending into an abyss of homelessness, the use of sidewalks as toilets and a place you might not want to visit, much less live. The latest, but surely not the last demonstration of insanity, is San Francisco's Board of Supervisors’ adoption of new “person first” language guidelines meant to “change the public's perception of…

President Trump has repeatedly promised, “America will never be a socialist country.” Since Franklin Roosevelt began expanding government in the 1930s, the United States has increasingly adopted big-state policies associated with socialism. We may not be at the stage Bernie Sanders would advocate, but more millennials appear to favor a system under which they have never lived. Free stuff is…

After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, investigators discovered that the lone man assigned to guard the president, John Parker, had abandoned his post to watch the play from an adjacent box at Ford's Theater. Worse, at intermission, Parker adjourned to a nearby saloon to have drinks with some friends. It was during the second act that John Wilkes Booth entered the president's box and shot…

Politicians and pundits are promoting familiar explanations, excuses, and demands following the tragic mass murders in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. From pushing more gun laws to blaming President Trump, conservative talk radio and Fox News, we've heard it all before. One question no one is asking: why is evil rampant in our country? I don't mean obvious evil like the all too frequent mass…

Calling someone “racist” has become the default position for liberal politicians and certain members of the media who wish to deflect attention from real problems. President Trump has (again) been called a racist for having the temerity to note that House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) seems to spend more time criticizing him and the border patrol than he does…

The Founders of the United States of America warned against massive federal debt, but, to our detriment, their political descendants are not paying attention. The Founders speak to us from their graves to condemn and warn of the consequences now that President Trump and Congress have come to an agreement about lifting the meaningless “debt ceiling” and increasing already massive federal spending…

You had to be there 50 years ago, and I was. As a young reporter for a local TV station in Houston, I frequently visited NASA (“the space base,” we dubbed it), met many of the astronauts and reported on their exploits. Along with people from around the world, I watched the lunar landing on television, July 20, 1969, fulfilling President Kennedy's goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of…

Two summers ago on a visit to Budapest, I asked the spokesman for the Hungarian government about the growing problem of migrants coming into Europe. He told me Hungary doesn't have a migrant problem because they don't have welfare programs. So, he said, migrants continue their travels to other European countries that do.