David Keene
Columns by David Keene
What led to the Broward County rampage
As the orchestrated outrage over the February shootings at Florida's Parkland high school dies down, it's time to look at what really led to the rampage during which Nikolas Cruz gunned down and killed 17 Margery Stoneman Douglas students. Published April 23, 2018
Scott Walker faces a tough re-election
As the temperature in Washington edged up toward 80 over the weekend, Madison and most of the rest of Wisconsin was fighting one of the worst snowstorms that had hit the state in years. Motorists were warned to stay off the roads. Snow, wind and temperatures in the teens or lower made one question whether spring is, in fact, just around the corner. Published April 17, 2018
Remembering Pat Korten
Pat Korten, who died after a stroke last week, was one of the unsung heroes of the early conservative movement. We were students together at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, which in the mid-Sixties was morphing into an ideological battleground much like Berkeley in the West and Columbia in New York. The campus left, often encouraged by the university's left-wing faculty, was on the march and growing increasingly intolerant. Published April 12, 2018
A hotbed of tranquility
Standing on the flight line in the hot sun at Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. airbase outside the United States, contemplating the truly awesome firepower of a line of B-52 bombers, it is hard to give much credence to charges that Qatar is anything but a valued ally in the war on Mideastern terrorism. Published April 3, 2018
Guns, youth and misguided marches
On Tuesday as Maryland's governor, legislators and educational professionals were condemning the very idea that armed security should play a role in protecting the state's students, an armed School Resource Officer at Great Mills High School in St. Mary's County confronted and took down a student shooter when he opened fire on fellow students. Published March 21, 2018
The CREATES Act is not a simple matter of liberal vs. conservative
It may be hard to believe, but some conservatives are arguing that any conservative who supports a measure before Congress called the CREATES Act that would allow generic drug makers under certain circumstances to go to court to get their competitors to play by the rules are ideological sellouts too willing to jump into bed with liberals and greedy trial lawyers. Published March 18, 2018
Fleeing Illinois
Illinois is many things, but no one in their right mind would move there and those unlucky enough to have been born there are moving out as fast as they can find jobs or move their businesses somewhere else. Some move as far away as Florida or Texas, but many others are content to simply haul their assets a few miles to Iowa, Wisconsin or Indiana. Published March 13, 2018
Eric Holder, Obama’s ‘wing man’
President Barack Obama's attorney general who once described himself as his president's "wing man" showed up on television over the weekend to brag that unlike Attorney General Jeff Sessions he had the pleasure of serving a president "I did not have to protect." The man is either suffering from early onset dementia or lying to rewrite history. Published March 5, 2018
How liberals use the latest school shooting to demonize gun ownership
The reaction to the latest school shooting could have been predicted and is unfolding in just the way the massacre at Newtown, Connecticut, did back in 2013. Progressive politicians and their friends in the media are blaming not the shooter or those who ignored warnings about him or the lack of school security, but the National Rifle Association and the right of law-abiding Americans to purchase and own firearms. Published February 25, 2018
How the media plays favorites with the Logan Act
Anyone who doubts that the media plays favorites need look no further than the way pundits embraced the idea that Donald Trump's transition team members probably violated the Logan Act by talking to foreign officials before their man was sworn in as president and compare it to the way those same pundits have ignored recent contacts former Secretary of State John Kerry has had with officials of the Palestinian authority in the Middle East. Published February 13, 2018
Marijuana laws and gun ownership
Advocates for and against the legalization of marijuana for recreational use have been sparring for decades in part at least because there are merits on both sides of the argument, but the same cannot be said about whether doctors should be free to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes. Published February 7, 2018
The Nunes memo and left-wing pundits
The mere suggestion that anyone at the Justice Department or the Federal Bureau of Investigation might have acted improperly in an effort to keep Donald J. Trump out of the White House is being denounced these days as "unpatriotic" by congressional Democrats and left-wing media pundits. Such charges are coming from Trump supporters willing to undermine or even destroy our most important and heretofore trusted institutions to defend a president they see as a madman. Published February 5, 2018
It’s not the ‘Trump shutdown’
Even with the shutdown averted, Democrats continue to act as if they believe that no matter what they do, Republicans will get the blame, but reality is beginning to undermine their narrative. Published January 22, 2018
Cliven Bundy and Branch Davidian-Waco cases similar
Twenty-five years ago this year, federal agents stormed the compound of a religious group in Waco, Texas, with armored vehicles, machine guns and tear gas. Published January 2, 2018
When surveillance powers in the name of national security lead to abuse
In the days following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush and Congress passed legislation that vastly expanded the government's surveillance powers in the name of national security and protecting the "homeland." Published December 26, 2017
The case of Boeing and the Ex-Im bank is study in crony capitalism
Boeing executives are being lauded for being the first out of the box to announce that at least some of the money they will save as a result of the passage of the Republican tax plan will go directly to their employees and will allow them to invest more into increasing the company's manufacturing capacity in the United States. Published December 25, 2017
Robert Mueller and team have ways of making Trump associates talk
Robert Mueller, like virtually every special prosecutor or independent counsel preceding him, has embarked on what amounts to a witch hunt that will allow him to brag when it's over that he indicted a bunch of those he went after — even if he never manages to unearth any evidence that the Trump campaign "colluded" with the Russians. Published December 12, 2017
Told to expect the worst about tax bill, Americans stand to be pleasantly surprised
Earlier this week House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi predicted somewhat apocalyptically that passage of the Republican tax bill would quite simply mean "the end of the world." It is true that the lady from the Bay is given to hyperbolic overstatement, but she seems to see herself as the leader of a party and movement that views those who disagree with them as bent upon destruction, murder and, yes, ending the world. Published December 7, 2017
The consequences of Donald Trump’s budget pact with Democrats emerge
The coming government shutdown that at least some congressional leaders are working hard to avoid was predicted by many when President Trump sidestepped congressional Republicans to cut a deal with Democratic leaders last fall. The deal was celebrated in the media and elated a president desperate for good press, but left Republicans worrying about what the White House gave up for a few headlines. Published December 5, 2017
Liberals ponder whether Al Franken deserves free pass that saved Bill Clinton
It's already begun. Liberal activists and pundits are arguing that Minnesota Sen. Al Franken's documented piggishness toward women should be discounted, forgiven or perhaps even ignored given the fact that he is, well, one of them. Published November 20, 2017
