OPINION
Politics Was Not A Smooth Fit For Patrick KennedyFriday, February 12, 2010
Rep. Patrick Kennedy's decision not to seek re-election will leave Washington without a Kennedy in political office for the first time in more than 60 years.
Republicans Must 'Medal' at Health Care Summit
Friday, February 12, 2010
Republicans have a great opportunity on February 25. President Obama, not so much. The White House, buoyed by rave reviews of the president’s recent appearance before a resistant crowd of House Republicans, has in effect challenged the GOP to a verbal battle over health care – televised before the American people.
The Global Warming Snow Job
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The fundamental problems exposed about climate-change theory undermine the very basis of scientific inquiry. Huge numbers of researchers refuse to provide their data to other scientists. Some referenced data is found not to have existed. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report that global warming activists continually cite invented a large number of purported facts.
Supreme Arrogance
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
It has been widely recognized that President Obama's attack on the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address was arrogant and rude. Obama broke with two hundred years of SOTU tradition and publicly humiliated and denounced the honorable justices of the Supreme Court in a move that should make Americans cringe.
LAMBRO: Agenda coma vexes Obama
Friday, January 29, 2010
The political health of President Obama and his party can be summed up in one sentence: His legislative agenda is in shreds, his economic policies have failed, and Democratic prospects in the midterm elections are bleak at best. The political events of the past two weeks have sent Mr. Obama and his party a message that for a long time they refused to hear and that some in the liberal Democratic base still refuse to accept.
Keep The Cuts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
On the eve of President Obama's first State of the Union address, two Democratic congressmen are advising him to extend the Bush tax cuts instead of letting them expire. Now that's a stimulus. We hear that the administration is considering taking a more populist tack as it sails the choppy political waters of 2010. Some of President Obama's plans reportedly include several tax tidbits for the "middle class," including a doubling of the child care tax credit for families below $85,000 in income, and $1.6 billion for child care and a cap on student loan payments.
The Coming Democrat Counteroffensive
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The unexpected election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, driven equally by opposition to the Obama agenda and an inept Democratic candidate, will fuel optimism that Republicans and conservatives will recapture the Congress. However, with ten months to go before the midterm election, this confidence is misplaced and misguided, and it will play into the hands of the Democrat strategists.
After a year like his, would Obama make it as an NFL coach?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
President Obama’s first year in office was a lot like the Washington Redskins’ 2009 season: what began with strong promise ended with little accomplished. Players are responsible for their own performance, but when teams lose often, coaches get fired. So it was no surprise that head coach Jim Zorn was dismissed soon after the Redskins finished with a dismal 4-12 record. Similarly, members of Congress, not the president, are responsible for making laws ...
Hewitt: Will Massachusetts voters save seniors, doctors from Obamacare?
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Massachusetts Democrats have been traumatized by Martha Coakley's "campaign" for the United States Senate. Every day brings another gaffe, and Friday night's pratfall in which Coakley described Red Sox hero Curt Schilling as just "another Yankees fan" will rank up among the most memorable gaffes of recent years. If the campaign had another week to go, she might end up accusing Tom Brady of fealty to the Jets, and Larry Bird of Laker love.
Will Obama's lackluster speech really help Coakley?
Monday, January 18, 2010
Martha Coakley, the struggling Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts, has had the luxury of two presidents campaigning for her. Bill Clinton was in Boston and Worcester on Friday, and Barack Obama came to Boston today. Who was more effective?
No Shock: Stimulus Is A Money Loser
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Economic Recovery: The results are in, and last year's $787 billion stimulus not only failed to do what it was supposed to do, but it has also turned out to be one of the worst investments in economic history. Remember the debate in 2008 over the bailouts then being put together by the Treasury, the Fed and the Democratic Congress? Proponents often raised the possibility that any bailout would make money for taxpayers.
Labor warns against high-end health tax
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Labor leaders on Monday threatened to fight a proposed tax on so-called "Cadillac" health insurance plans, warning President Obama and Democratic lawmakers that failure to deliver on campaign promises could cost them union support and their congressional majorities. Top union officials took aim at a 40 percent tax on high-end insurance plans in the Senate health care overhaul bill, arguing it would hit the middle-class workers the president pledged to protect from tax hikes during his campaign.
GOP Candidate: ‘I Am Not Just Some Articulate, Clean, Well Spoken Negro’
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I’ve spotlighted retired Lt. Col. Allen West as one of the GOP’s most credible African-American candidates for Congress this year–he lost a 2008 bid in his Florida district by 10 points, but is getting full support from the National Republican Congressional Committee this time. West’s response to the Harry Reid flap is the angriest one I’ve seen, a lengthy bill of complaints against Democrats as the party of “slavery, secession, segregation, and now socialism,” which “birthed” the Ku Klux Klan, and which keeps African-Americans in a kind of bondage.
A Republican Senate upset in Massachusetts?
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Jan. 19 special election to fill Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat is beginning to resemble the 2008 presidential election, when the "inevitable" Hillary Clinton was overtaken by a surprising phenomenon named Barack Obama. Only this time, it's a wunderkind from the right overtaking an overconfident woman on the left. Conventional wisdom in Massachusetts has long held that Attorney General Martha Coakley would sail into Kennedy's seat as a natural heiress, without having to stock up on hand sanitizer. She's a liberal Democrat in tune with Kennedy's philosophy and ready to cast her votes accordingly.
Obama's Fiscal Fantasy World
Friday, January 8, 2010
After President Obama devoted much of 2009 to health care and global warming—two issues far down Americans' list of concerns—the White House says he will pivot to jobs and deficit reduction in his State of the Union speech in a few weeks. The White House is considering dramatic gestures, perhaps announcing a spending freeze or even a 2% or 3% reduction in nondefense spending.
Hiding health bills behind closed doors
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
It may be a new year, but congressional Democrats are planning the same old sorts of sleazy tactics in their bid to take over America's health care system. Congressional Republicans, especially in the Senate, should not let them get away with it. Transparency and ethics should be Republican rallying cries, and obstruction on those grounds should be a point of pride.
Underreported Stories of 2009
Monday, January 4, 2010
Most news outlets end the year with extensive reviews of their top headlines and scoops. But the stories they didn't cover deserve much greater attention. Journalistic sins of omission are often far more damning and more telling than sins of commission.
Change Nobody Believes In
Monday, December 21, 2009
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow.
Will liberals kill ObamaCare?
Friday, December 18, 2009
Keith Olbermann is ready to go to jail over it. Markos Moulitas is pre pared to see the health-care bill die over it. Howard Dean is assaulting the White House over it. It's the individual mandate, the source of rare cross-ideological agreement in the health-care debate. The provision to force everyone to buy health insurance long labored in obscurity, overshadowed by the more glamorous and controversial public option. No more.
Amid Rumbling Discontent, Dems Head for the Exits
Thursday, December 17, 2009
While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrambles to assemble 60 Democratic votes for health care legislation that, according to the realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls, is opposed by a 53 percent to 38 percent margin, several Democratic members of the House are scrambling for the exits on what is starting to look like a sinking ship. You may have noticed that I avoided using the cliche "rats leaving the sinking ship," because the four Democratic House members who over the last three weeks announced their decisions to retire rather than run for re-election cannot fairly be characterized as rats.
Reid to Republicans: Let’s stop debate on ObamaCare so I can hold a fundraiser
Friday, December 11, 2009
Harry Reid’s latest maneuver on ObamaCare has less to do with the legislation — or with the poor staffers he wants to spare from another weekend of work — than with his political survival. ABC News reports that Reid demanded that Republicans drop debate on several ObamaCare amendments so that he can send the Senate home over the weekend, supposedly to give staffers a break. But as Byron Wolf informs readers, Harry has a fundraiser he desperately needs in a re-election effort that already appears Quixotic ...
The Mystery of Harry Reid
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era. "Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday. "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.' "
Pseudoscience cesspool
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
As frigid Copenhagen prepares for the latest five-star global-warming conference, newly released e-mails by crisis-promoting scientists have exposed a cesspool of intimidation, data alteration and fraud. Their views, data and models are central to reports by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Kyoto Protocol and proposed successors, and also U.S. cap-and-trade bills.
Lieberman Digs In on Public Option
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, speaking in that trademark sonorous baritone, utters a simple statement that translates into real trouble for Democratic leaders: "I'm going to be stubborn on this." Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.
Climategate: Liars, cheats, and Thugs in Climate Science
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The worldwide scientific community is aghast over thousands of emails and documents -- posted on the Internet after being leaked from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the United Kingdom, a prominent global warming research center leading the claim that human-caused global warming is destroying the world. The secret emails were published only a few weeks before the opening of the major climate-change summit in Copenhagen where President Barack Obama is said to be ready to sign an emissions control accord despite the Senate’s refusal to pass his co-called Cap and Trade bill.
Obamacare: Big State Tax Hikes
Monday, November 23, 2009
Anxious to avoid raising taxes too much to pay for their health care proposals, the Obama administration and its congressional allies hit on a great new idea: Make the states raise their taxes to fund the program, instead. Both the House and the Senate bills require that states cover a larger percentage of their people under Medicaid -- a joint state and federally funded program. The idea was to force states to raise their taxes to cover a big part of the health care bill for treating poor people. Since the Feds can simply charge any increase in spending to their already ....
PRUDEN: Obama bows, the nation cringes
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
A little traveling, like a little learning, can be a dangerous thing. Barack Obama on the loose in a foreign land is enough to frighten protocol officers and embarrass the rest of us. He went off to Asia to tell the Chinese a thing or two about world trade, to prepare the world for a treaty to make the sun change its spots, and of course to pay his respects to assorted heads of state, with particular attention to any royal head (perhaps even including Miss Universe) who crosses his path.
Will Tea Party conservatives crash Boxer-Fiorina?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
It looks as if they're trying. The Washington Independent's David Weigel reports today about a conference call among conservative bloggers and Carly Fiorina, a Republican challenging Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) for her seat:"Halfway through the call, however, conservative blogger Dan Riehl awoke the elephant in the room. Did Fiorina have anything to say to Chuck DeVore?
Boxer-Kerry Cap-and-Tax Hides Costly Mandate
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Under the direction of Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed its Boxer-Kerry cap and trade national energy tax bill in early November by an 11-1 vote -- right before the week-long Veterans’ Day break. The seven Republicans on the committee walked out of the markup, refusing to participate in the process saying they hadn’t been given adequate time to read the massive tax bill. Imagine that.
President O-bow-ma
Monday, November 16, 2009
Crikey, is there a single adult in the White House who can teach the commander-in-chief some presidential protocol? The Left complained that George W. Bush was too much of a cowboy on the global stage. It’s better than having a waterboy ...
The Income Tax and Government Spending
Friday, November 13, 2009
Unleashed appetites can ruin a personal life. So also with government. Why do we have an income tax? The obvious answer would seem to be "for the government to get the funds it needs to run itself." But if that's true, then how does one explain this ...
No matter what happens, the top issue is jobs
Thursday, November 12, 2009
In the last week, there have been four major events with the potential to dominate news coverage for many, many days: the off-year elections, the Fort Hood shootings, the House passage of Obama-PelosiCare, and the rise of unemployment to 10.2 percent. In most discussions -- in the papers, on television, and on radio -- unemployment has ranked fourth among the four. The others were newer, or more immediate, or more compelling, at least for a while.
Can the Dems Keep Putting Up with Joe Lieberman?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Senate Democrats are used to the lashing their Republican colleagues dish out every week on the Sunday-morning political shows, but lately their biggest headache has been one of their own. And while they would dearly love to fire back at Joe Lieberman of Connecticut after his almost weekly bomb-throwings, there is little they can do but bite the insides of their cheeks and bear it.
Freewheeling Young Voters Scare Both Parties
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
In November 2008, 658,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 782,000 did so in Virginia. In November 2009, 212,000 Americans under 30 voted in New Jersey and 198,000 did so in Virginia. In other words, young-voter turnout this year was down two-thirds in New Jersey and three-quarters in Virginia. These numbers are extrapolations from exit poll results and should be regarded as approximate and not precise. But they tell a vivid story, and one with scary implications for both Democratic and Republican political strategists.
Up Against a Wall of Debt
Monday, November 9, 2009
In my latest NEWSWEEK column, I suggested that the unthinkable had become thinkable: some advanced society—say, the United States, Spain, Italy, Japan, or Great Britain—might someday default on its government debt. It wouldn't pay its creditors all they were owed or wouldn't pay them on time. Just a few days later, and completely coincidentally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a report that, without saying so, added credence to this unsettling hypothesis.
The Ellsworth dodge fails to fool pro-life ObamaCare critics
Friday, November 6, 2009
Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) will get a vote on his amendment that ostensibly blocks federal funds from directly funding abortion services, while Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) has been denied a vote on his. Ellsworth has gotten token opposition from Planned Parenthood over his amendment, which would supposedly force people to pay for abortion coverage with their own funds — but still allows the sale of abortion coverage through government-run exchanges, which apply subsidies for overall coverage.
Election 2009: Change I Can Believe In!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
On election night, conservatives-eating-Republicans resulted in an 18-point landslide for McDonnell, who beat his Democratic opponent 59 percent to 41 percent -- winning two-thirds of all independent voters and ending the Democrats' eight-year reign in the Virginia governor's office.
Jeremiah Wright: He's Baaack!
Wednesday, October 4, 2009
Halloween may be behind us, but the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is one political zombie that keeps rising from the dead to haunt President Obama. Video has just surfaced of of Wright speaking in September at the sixtieth anniversary gala of Monthly Review, a socialist publication. In his remarks, Wright bragged of his support of communists in Central America and the Libyan government. He further praised Monthly Review saying, "You dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word socialism or Marxism" and referred to America as "the land of greed and home of the slave."
Good reasons to be wary of Obamacare
Tuesday, October 3, 2009
There's been no shortage of nonsense and misinformation regarding opposition to President Barack Obama's plans to overhaul America's health care system. Unfortunately, the recent contribution on these pages by Pinchas Landau only makes matters worse.
Bill O'Reilly: Getting Radical
Monday, November 2, 2009
In the beginning, there was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a fire-breathing Chicago preacher who believes America is a bad place. The reverend and Barack Obama were friends for 20 years. Radical Catholic priest Michael Pfleger, another Chicago cleric, was also part of the Obama neighborhood gang. Father Mike was the guy who mocked Hillary Clinton, portraying her as a white woman of entitlement.
We're Governed by Callous Children
Friday, October 30, 2009
The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren't rising, they're bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over.
Massachusetts Health Care Costs Keep Rising
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Three years after Massachusetts enacted its sweeping health-reform legislation, rising health costs continue to bedevil the state and threaten to derail reform efforts. Despite a significant restructuring of the state's health sector and dominance of nonprofit health plans, Massachusetts still has the highest health-insurance costs in the nation, averaging $13,788 for a family, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Public plan mirage
Monday, October 26, 2009
In the health-care debate, the "public plan" is all things to all people. For supporters, it would discipline greedy private insurers and make health-care coverage affordable. For detractors, it's a way station on the path to a single-payer insurance system of government-run health care. In reality, the public plan, also known as the public option, is mostly an exercise in political avoidance: It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn't.
Obama's War on Limbaugh and Fox Will Backfire With Voters
Friday, October 23, 2009
The president has learned it's easier to burn bridges than build them. And despite having been elected in part to unify all Americans and put an end to partisan division, the administration is intent on lighting as many fires as it can. In doing so, Obama is essentially creating a liberal version of Richard Nixon's "Enemies List."
Obama Hits Opponents With Chicago Brass Knuckles
Thursday, October 22, 2009
"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers' father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility, from 1964 to 1980.
ObamaCare: The (Doc) Fix Isn’t In
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A dozen Democrats — and Independent Joe Lieberman — joined all 40 Senate Republicans to block a permanent repeal of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) payment formula for doctors, as there was no consensus over how to pay the $247 billion 10-year price tag. Sen. Maj. Ldr. Harry Reid wanted the “doc fix” as a payoff to keep the American Medical Association on board for ObamaCare — so naturally, he blamed the AMA for failing to deliver 27 GOP votes.
Obama strategy: Marginalize most powerful critics
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
President Obama is working systematically to marginalize the most powerful forces behind the Republican Party, setting loose top White House officials to undermine conservatives in the media, business and lobbying worlds. With a series of private meetings and public taunts, the White House has targeted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest-spending pro-business lobbying group in the country; Rush Limbaugh, the country’s most-listened-to conservative commentator; and now, with a new volley of combative rhetoric in recent days, the insurance industry, Wall Street executives and Fox News.
Does Obama Believe in Human Rights?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Nobody should get too hung up over President Obama's decision, reported by Der Spiegel over the weekend, to cancel plans to attend next month's 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Germany's reunited capital has already served his purposes; why should he serve its?
Outfoxing The Spin
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Now we know why the Democrats who run Washington declared war on Fox News. The feisty network is spoiling their policy of controlling Americans' diet of information. When Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who earlier this year was set to be the Obama administration's secretary of commerce, warned on CNN on Sunday the U.S. was on track toward "banana republic" status, he was talking about "throwing debt on top of debt" to the tune of a trillion dollars or more a year.
Gag Order Admission
Monday, October 19, 2009
There's nothing like a Friday evening news release to hide a Washington embarrassment. In last week's episode, President Obama's health appointees lifted their outrageous gag order against health insurers for the sin of informing their customers about how ObamaCare would affect their insurance.
Cash for Oldsters: Obama "Buying" Seniors' Support
Monday, October 19, 2009
No one ever went broke underestimating political cynicism, but these days even we can't keep up: On Wednesday, President Obama announced that he wants to send every American senior a $250 check. "Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession," Mr. Obama said. Of course it's a mere coincidence that these checks are being proposed, and probably passed, just as Congress is about to vote on health care.
The monster behind the mask
Friday, October 16, 2009
Halloween takes on a new meaning as we face a monster of lies and deceit. The Baucus health care reform "plan" is finding its way to daylight just as the Halloween holiday approaches. It would appear that the timing for this monster is appropriate, as it lurks toward us disguised behind a mask of compassion, caring and fiscal responsibility.
The Rush Limbaugh media lynch mob
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Which public figure can be quoted as having said something bigoted and disgusting and it doesn’t matter whether he did or not because he might have? Who can Big Media brand a racist without checking the facts? Who has to prove he did not say something racist, rather than the accuser proving he did?
The Lesson of State Health-Care Reforms
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously envisioned the states serving as laboratories, trying "novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." And on health care, that's just what they've done. Like participants in a national science fair, state governments have tested variants on most of the major components of the health-care reform plans currently being considered in Congress. The results have been dramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health-care costs, and reduced access to care. In other words: The reforms have failed.
States Show How Not To Fix Health Care
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Since the debate over the government takeover of medical care exploded onto the national stage, advocates of market-based, patient-centered reforms have pointed to the failed government health care systems of Canada and the U.K. as examples of what America should not replicate. And rightfully so. Democrat proposals have duplicated many components of these systems, creating frighteningly similar base lines here to these unsuccessful foreign models of "universal" coverage.
Unexpected outgrowths of the Tea Party movement
Monday, October 5, 2009
Is God back? While watching the Glenn Beck program, three women — yes, I said three — boldly proclaimed their Christianity and how their decision to follow Christ has affected their politics. Other than religious programs, people do not talk about their faith on TV without being portrayed as fanatics or nut cases. It was truly refreshing. Could this mean God is back from exile from the public square?
Obama's lewd schools czar
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Obama administration isn't adequately vetting important presidential appointees. When it was exposed that former "green jobs czar" Van Jones believed in crazy conspiracies about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it was questionable whether anyone had even bothered to Google individuals before they received presidential appointments. In that case, the White House strategy was to refuse to answer questions and hope interest faded away. That approach worked for most of the media, which carried water for President Obama's scandal-plagued pick.
Government-Run Health Care by Next Thursday?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Washington Post front page blares today: “Prospects for Public Option Dim in Senate.” Don’t believe it. Yes, the Senate Finance Committee did vote down two amendments that each would have added a government-run insurance plan to the committee’s health care bill. But two key Democrats who voted against Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) public plan, Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Tom Carper (D-DE), voted for Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) version.
Why Obama Bombed on Health Care
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Someday this country will have a health-care debate that's not abject in its idiocy. It will involve a term used by Congressional Budge Office chief Doug Elmendorf, who has become a notoriety for harping on the word "incentives." The same word was used the other day by Warren Buffett, about what's missing from the health-care plan on Capitol Hill.We actually prefer the formulation of Duke University's Clark Havighurst, who speaks of restoring the "price tags" to health care.
The Three R's in the Age of Obama: Rappin', Revolution and Radicalism
Friday, September 25, 2009
When the White House announced plans for the president's nationwide address to schoolchildren two weeks ago, worried parents were dismissed as "kooks." We pointed to the subtext of "social justice" activism rampant in American classrooms. It's time for a big fat Told You So. Out of the spotlight, politicized lessons continue to supplant core academics.
Obama's Time Warp: The U.S. Is Still the Bad Guy
Friday, September 25, 2009
In the early 1980s, while planning a vacation in Latin America, I went to bookstores to look for histories of the region. All I could find were Marxist tracts arguing that "the people" were exploited by greedy corporations and military dictators, all propped up by the United States. Available literature on Latin America today includes much more sensible accounts. But some people, including Barack Obama, whose college thesis written in those years has never been made public, seem stuck in a time warp in which the United States is the bad guy.
Prez comes across as a gullible sap
Friday, September 25, 2009
President Obama yesterday did his best impression of a high-school soph omore participating in his first Model UN meeting, retailing pious clichés he learned from his pony-tailed social studies teacher. Even Woodrow Wilson might have blanched at the mushy-headed exhortations to world peace and collective action better suited to a college dorm-room bull session or a holiday-season Coca-Cola commercial. "No nation can or should try to dominate another nation," Obama intoned. "No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold."
Obamacare is to Medicare what ACORN is to Children's Protective Services
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
That's the line that was best received by the 600-plus-person audience at a debate on Obamacare I participated in along with University of Colorado Law School professor Paul Campos on Thursday night in Denver. Campos, who writes for the Daily Beast and is a reliable lefty, earned enormous points with the mostly hostile-to-Obamacare crowd simply for showing up to defend the general outlines of the various "reform" proposals under consideration by the Congress. That's more than most Democratic members of Congress will do, and with reason. Obamacare can't be defended if the right questions are asked of its proponents -- questions almost never posed by the legacy media.
Strangers to Dissent, Liberals Try to Stifle It
Monday, September 21, 2009
It is an interesting phenomenon that the response of the left half of our political spectrum to criticism and argument is often to try to shut it down. Thus President Obama in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress told us to stop "bickering," as if principled objections to major changes in public policy were just childish obstinacy, and chastised his critics for telling "lies," employing "scare tactics" and playing "games." Unlike his predecessor, he sought to use the prestige of his office to shut criticism down.
Storms of Protest Follow Obamacare
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The torrents of rain that changed direction with the wind did not deter the 2,000 hurrying into a town hall meeting on Sept. 11 in Sarasota, Fla. The topic was Healthcare Reform, and the host was Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.. The attendees shaking out their umbrellas — young and old, students and teachers, small businessmen and retirees, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, people of all colors — filled the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, the cultural heart of the city.
Obama's Dissolving Credibility
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Remember Barack Obama's famous speech on race, back in March of 2008? Obama had spent 20 years listening to the sermons of Jeremiah Wright, full of venomous anti-Americanism and attacks on "white America." Yet when the reverend's rants were revealed to the public, Obama tried to convince us that he just happened to be missing from the pews on any well-documented Sunday, and that the Jeremiah Wright we saw and heard was not the Jeremiah Wright he knew.
The convenient fantasies of President Obama
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The resignation over the Labor Day weekend of White House "green jobs" czar Van Jones tells you some interesting things about the Obama administration. One of them is that a man who proclaimed himself a "communist" in the 1990s and signed 9/11 "truther" petitions suggesting Bush administration complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks was considered fit for a White House appointment. Liberal columnists have been attacking Republicans because some of their voters are "birthers," believers in the absurd charge that President Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. But they have failed to identify any "birther" who occupied a position in the Republican firmament comparable to that of "truther" Van Jones in the Obama administration.
Read MoreAbusing School Kids With Pro-Obama Propaganda
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
My wife Diane seldom gets upset about politics. But President Barack Obama’s recent demonstration of megalomania in insisting on beginning the school year by simultaneously addressing all public school kids in the United States elicited a concise response: “it’s sick.”
Read MoreAnother Failed Presidency
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.
Read MoreEnough is enough, Harry: Stop the childish bullying
Monday, August 31, 2009
We're still here doing what we do for the people of Las Vegas and Nevada. So, let me assure you, if we weathered all of that, we can damn sure outlast the bully threats of Sen. Harry Reid. On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber's board members for a meet-'n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal's director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.
Read MoreA Test of Kennedy Currency
Friday, August 28, 2009
If you read the newspapers or watch the news, you will encounter a long list of accomplishments by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. One thing you're less likely to hear, however, is that in his death, Kennedy proved Rush Limbaugh right. In March, the talk-show host and bete noir of progressives everywhere said that the health care bill wending its way through Congress would eventually be dubbed the "Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill." At the time, the official position of the Democratic Party was outrage and disgust.
Read MoreObama's Health Rationer-in-Chief
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.
Read MoreObamaCare's Contradictions
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Over the past week, President Obama has held three town-halls to make the case for his health-care plan. While he didn't say much that he hasn't said a thousand times before, his remarks did offer another explanation for the public's skepticism of ObamaCare. Namely, the President contradicts himself every other breath. Consider: He likes to start off explaining our catastrophe of a health ...
Read MoreWe Don't Spend Enough on Health Care
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Americans are being urged to worry about the nation spending 17% of its gross domestic product each year on health care—a higher percentage than any other country. Addressing the American Medical Association in June, Barack Obama said, "Make no mistake: The cost of our health care is a threat to our economy." But the president is mistaken. Japan spends 8% of its GDP on health care—the same as Zimbabwe. South Korea and Haiti both spend 6%. Monaco spends 5%, which is what Afghanistan spends. Do all of these countries have economies that are less "threatened" than that of the U.S.?
Read MoreSorry, Snobs: Town-Hall Rage Is Real Democracy
Friday, August 14, 2009
The best moment of almost every YouTube video of the raucous town-hall meetings on health care is the same: It's the nonplussed look on the face of the senators and congressmen who have rarely suffered such indignity. Be assured: No one talks to them that way in the "members only" elevators in the US Capitol. Nancy Pelosi and Co. insist that the town-hall protesters are the tools of special interests. Not likely. Almost all of the special interests have been enticed or bullied into cooperating with ObamaCare.
Read MoreHealth Reform and the Polls
Friday, August 7, 2009
For all the back and forth about the “public option,” Congressional Budget Office estimates and proposed tax hikes, the fundamentals are really what make health-care reform a hard sell to American voters. As members of Congress head home for the August recess, they should take a close look at some poll numbers before they attempt to pass any new legislation.
Read MoreGingrich: Listen to Barney Frank or Listen to America? President Obama's Big Choice
Thursday, August 6, 2009
America is sending President Obama a message. By asking questions at town hall meetings and answering questions from pollsters, Americans are telling President Obama that they don’t trust big government plans for health care. At the same time, liberals in Congress are pushing for big government plans for health care. And so President Obama faces a choice: He can listen to the American people.
Read MoreObama’s Great Race to Change America
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Why does President Obama want to implement radical changes in American foreign policy, environmental policy, education, health care, and the tax code all at once? The answer is easy: If he does not achieve these initiatives soon, he never will. Almost none of Obama’s proposed policies any longer enjoy majority support among voters — and many of them were not clearly outlined to voters during the campaign.
Read More‘Blue Dogs’ or Corporate Shills?
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Capitalism is said to be in terrible trouble these days, with the profit motive suffering rampant badmouthing. Entrepreneurs are facing criticism, damnable criticism. And this criticism must stop. If we don’t watch what we say, some warn, the supermen who shoulder the world will soon grow tired of our taunting, will shrug off their burden and walk righteously away, leaving us lesser mortals to stew in our resentment and envy.
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