Lane Scott, The Daily Caller
My college friend’s two-year-old son was born with a rare genetic disorder that severely compromises his immune system. He has been in and out of the hospital with life-threatening incidents since he was six months old, nearly dying seven times. His medical team consists of more than ten specialists, and dozens of nurses and physical therapists. My friend and her husband have health insurance, but their son’s medical costs eat up an entire salary from their two-career income. My heart aches for her; she has to endure not only her son’s terrifying illness, but...
Make Wall St. Choose: Go Small or Go Home
On April - 24 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Sens. Brown & Vitter, NYT
PROGRESSIVES and conservatives can debate the proper role of government, but this is one principle on which we can all agree: The government shouldn’t pick economic winners or losers.In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, the government stepped in and decided which Wall Street banks were so large and interconnected that they would receive extraordinary help from the government to enable them to survive. They were deemed, to use a now ubiquitous phrase, too big to fail. Meanwhile, smaller banks in communities across the country, including Cleveland and Covington, La., in the...
PROGRESSIVES and conservatives can debate the proper role of government, but this is one principle on which we can all agree: The government shouldn’t pick economic winners or losers.In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, the government stepped in and decided which Wall Street banks were so large and interconnected that they would receive extraordinary help from the government to enable them to survive. They were deemed, to use a now ubiquitous phrase, too big to fail. Meanwhile, smaller banks in communities across the country, including Cleveland and Covington, La., in the...
3 Cheers for the Internet Tax!
On April - 24 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Daniel Gross, The Daily Beast
On Monday, the Senate approved a measure that would let states tax retailers based in other states when those retailers sell to their own residents. In other words, states may soon get the green light to tax e-commerce.It’s about time.Here’s why.Governments are starved for revenue, particularly at the state and local level. We may be in a golden age of federal deficit reduction, but the federal deficit is still large. States and cities, which can’t run deficits, have been cutting jobs and spending across the board for lack of revenue. Since the beginning of 2009,...
On Monday, the Senate approved a measure that would let states tax retailers based in other states when those retailers sell to their own residents. In other words, states may soon get the green light to tax e-commerce.It’s about time.Here’s why.Governments are starved for revenue, particularly at the state and local level. We may be in a golden age of federal deficit reduction, but the federal deficit is still large. States and cities, which can’t run deficits, have been cutting jobs and spending across the board for lack of revenue. Since the beginning of 2009,...
Of Presidents and Duty
On April - 23 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Charles Murray, AEI Ideas
I have been examining the inaugural addresses of all the presidents to see how their description of the American project has changed over the years. In the course of this, I ran across an intriguing finding: Presidents don’t talk about their duty nearly as much as they used to. From Washington through McKinley, every single one of the twenty presidents who gave an inaugural address used duty or its plural, referring to it in relation to the duties imposed on him by the office in at least one of them. Among the eighteen presidents who have given inaugural addresses since McKinley,...
I have been examining the inaugural addresses of all the presidents to see how their description of the American project has changed over the years. In the course of this, I ran across an intriguing finding: Presidents don’t talk about their duty nearly as much as they used to. From Washington through McKinley, every single one of the twenty presidents who gave an inaugural address used duty or its plural, referring to it in relation to the duties imposed on him by the office in at least one of them. Among the eighteen presidents who have given inaugural addresses since McKinley,...
The Immigration Trap
On April - 23 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Ben Domenech, The Transom
The Democrats have gotten the great Republican hope, Marco Rubio, to sign on to a measure that accomplishes nearly all of their goals on immigration:“The pre-bill marketing campaign — driven by leaks that seemed to come from Republican negotiators — focused on stringent new border-control measures and a long, difficult path to citizenship. The goal was to minimize conservative opposition by creating a first impression of the bill as a tough solution to the country’s illegal immigration problem. But when Democrats got a look at the 844-page measure, they...
The Democrats have gotten the great Republican hope, Marco Rubio, to sign on to a measure that accomplishes nearly all of their goals on immigration:“The pre-bill marketing campaign — driven by leaks that seemed to come from Republican negotiators — focused on stringent new border-control measures and a long, difficult path to citizenship. The goal was to minimize conservative opposition by creating a first impression of the bill as a tough solution to the country’s illegal immigration problem. But when Democrats got a look at the 844-page measure, they...
Climate Change: Lost in the Flood
On April - 23 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Coral Davenport, National Journal
The tide is rising fast on Louisiana. A report late last year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that along the Gulf Coast, the sea level is surging three times faster than the global average—and studies have for years singled out New Orleans as the U.S. city most vulnerable to destruction from the effects of climate change. Louisiana’s rapidly rising threat from the sea was even the subject of a 2012 Academy Award-nominated film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, which depicts an impoverished community devastated by rising waters and vicious...
The tide is rising fast on Louisiana. A report late last year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that along the Gulf Coast, the sea level is surging three times faster than the global average—and studies have for years singled out New Orleans as the U.S. city most vulnerable to destruction from the effects of climate change. Louisiana’s rapidly rising threat from the sea was even the subject of a 2012 Academy Award-nominated film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, which depicts an impoverished community devastated by rising waters and vicious...
In Gun Loss, Questions About Obama’s Effectiveness
On April - 22 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Shear & Baker, NYT
WASHINGTON — Senator Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, asked President Obama’s administration for a little favor last month. Send your new interior secretary this spring to discuss a long-simmering dispute over construction of a road through a wildlife refuge, Mr. Begich asked in a letter. The administration said yes.
WASHINGTON — Senator Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, asked President Obama’s administration for a little favor last month. Send your new interior secretary this spring to discuss a long-simmering dispute over construction of a road through a wildlife refuge, Mr. Begich asked in a letter. The administration said yes.
Obama Couldn’t Sell a Candy Bar to Fat Kid
On April - 22 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Yates Walker, Daily Caller
American boot prints in moon dust. That’s the legacy of John F. Kennedy. Putting an American on the moon wasn’t preordained. It was a wild notion presented to the American people. That’s how effective presidents operate. They traffic in ideas. They build coalitions behind them. They insist on change and galvanize majorities to achieve it. They dare. They challenge. They persuade and inspire. To successfully lead from the White House, a president must sell his ideas, both to the American people and to their elected representatives. Food will win the war, the...
American boot prints in moon dust. That’s the legacy of John F. Kennedy. Putting an American on the moon wasn’t preordained. It was a wild notion presented to the American people. That’s how effective presidents operate. They traffic in ideas. They build coalitions behind them. They insist on change and galvanize majorities to achieve it. They dare. They challenge. They persuade and inspire. To successfully lead from the White House, a president must sell his ideas, both to the American people and to their elected representatives. Food will win the war, the...
The Conservative Paranoid Freakout
On April - 22 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast
Liberals and civil libertarians shouldn’t yet be saying that there’s utterly no way that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be declared an “enemy combatant.” The post-9/11 law, whatever one’s opinion of it, does say that an American citizen affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban “or associated forces” engaged in hostility with the United States can be declared an enemy combatant. It doesn’t seem like he’s that, but who knows, he may shock everyone when he comes to by saying that he and his brother were precisely...
Liberals and civil libertarians shouldn’t yet be saying that there’s utterly no way that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be declared an “enemy combatant.” The post-9/11 law, whatever one’s opinion of it, does say that an American citizen affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban “or associated forces” engaged in hostility with the United States can be declared an enemy combatant. It doesn’t seem like he’s that, but who knows, he may shock everyone when he comes to by saying that he and his brother were precisely...
A Senate Friendship Born of Tragedy
On April - 21 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Albert Hunt, Bloomberg
These days, most dispatches from Washington focus on petty partisanship, posturing, impasses and a political culture that rewards confrontation.Here’s a respite: a story of kindness, comity, generosity reaching across the political divide.It’s about the two senators from Illinois, Dick Durbin, a 30-year veteran of Congress, and Mark Kirk, a freshman. Durbin is the Senate Democratic whip; Kirk represents the bluest, or most Democratic, state of any Republican senator.
These days, most dispatches from Washington focus on petty partisanship, posturing, impasses and a political culture that rewards confrontation.Here’s a respite: a story of kindness, comity, generosity reaching across the political divide.It’s about the two senators from Illinois, Dick Durbin, a 30-year veteran of Congress, and Mark Kirk, a freshman. Durbin is the Senate Democratic whip; Kirk represents the bluest, or most Democratic, state of any Republican senator.
HBO’s Veep and the Inanity of Washington
On April - 21 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Kyle Smith, New York Post
If the antidote to “Sex and the City” is “Girls,” then the cure for “The West Wing” is “Veep.”Aaron Sorkin’s motor-mouthed idealists, with their adorable enthusiasm for progressive dogma and their courageous battles against anyone so evil as to disagree with them, have been rendered ridiculous by the much funnier and yet far more credible “Veep,” which just launched its second season on HBO.And here’s the funniest part: The show that is mercilessly exposing the fatuousness...
If the antidote to “Sex and the City” is “Girls,” then the cure for “The West Wing” is “Veep.”Aaron Sorkin’s motor-mouthed idealists, with their adorable enthusiasm for progressive dogma and their courageous battles against anyone so evil as to disagree with them, have been rendered ridiculous by the much funnier and yet far more credible “Veep,” which just launched its second season on HBO.And here’s the funniest part: The show that is mercilessly exposing the fatuousness...
Five Myths About Abortion
On April - 21 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Rickie Solinger, Washington Post
When debating whether a fetus’s “right to life” trumps a woman’s “right to choose” — or whether the news media has paid enough attention to the trial of a Philadelphia doctor who allegedly killed seven babies born alive during late-term abortions, as well as a pregnant woman — Americans are bitterly divided on abortion. Before abandoning facts for rhetoric, let’s tackle some misunderstandings about this procedure’s history and impact.
When debating whether a fetus’s “right to life” trumps a woman’s “right to choose” — or whether the news media has paid enough attention to the trial of a Philadelphia doctor who allegedly killed seven babies born alive during late-term abortions, as well as a pregnant woman — Americans are bitterly divided on abortion. Before abandoning facts for rhetoric, let’s tackle some misunderstandings about this procedure’s history and impact.
Inside the Mind of a Terror Suspect
On April - 20 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Charles Blow, New York Times
While the Boston area lay paralyzed by a lockdown, with one terror suspect dead and another on the loose as a massive manhunt filtered through the area’s arteries, we got a better sense of the second young man.It’s complicated.The suspects were brothers. The one who was on the loose was taken into custody on Friday evening.
While the Boston area lay paralyzed by a lockdown, with one terror suspect dead and another on the loose as a massive manhunt filtered through the area’s arteries, we got a better sense of the second young man.It’s complicated.The suspects were brothers. The one who was on the loose was taken into custody on Friday evening.
The Climate Circus Leaves Town
On April - 20 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Steven Hayward, The Weekly Standard
If you had told environmentalists on Election Day 2008 that four years later there’d be no successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, that a Democratic Congress would not have enacted any meaningful climate legislation, that domestic oil production would be soaring even after a catastrophic offshore oil spill, and that the environmental community would be having a lively internal debate about whether it should support reviving nuclear power, most might have marched into the ocean to drown themselves. Yet that’s the state of play four months into President Obama’s...
If you had told environmentalists on Election Day 2008 that four years later there’d be no successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, that a Democratic Congress would not have enacted any meaningful climate legislation, that domestic oil production would be soaring even after a catastrophic offshore oil spill, and that the environmental community would be having a lively internal debate about whether it should support reviving nuclear power, most might have marched into the ocean to drown themselves. Yet that’s the state of play four months into President Obama’s...
Obama’s Agenda Is Collapsing
On April - 20 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard
Things are looking up for Republicans. President Obama’s agenda is collapsing before our eyes. Obama is pointing to the 2014 midterm elections to capture the House and revive his presidency. “My job is not simply to occupy the Oval Office,” he said at a San Francisco fundraiser. “My job is to make sure we move the country forward, and I think we can best do that if Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House once again.” Obama said Pelosi is “thought ful” and “visionary” and “never lets ideology cloud...
Things are looking up for Republicans. President Obama’s agenda is collapsing before our eyes. Obama is pointing to the 2014 midterm elections to capture the House and revive his presidency. “My job is not simply to occupy the Oval Office,” he said at a San Francisco fundraiser. “My job is to make sure we move the country forward, and I think we can best do that if Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House once again.” Obama said Pelosi is “thought ful” and “visionary” and “never lets ideology cloud...
Senate Vote May Signal ’16 Problems for Gun Lobby
On April - 20 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Ron Brownstein, NJ
The outcome of Wednesday’s dramatic Senate vote on expanding background checks simultaneously demonstrated the difficult geography confronting gun-control advocates in the Senate and the potentially daunting math facing gun-rights proponents in the Electoral College.On the one hand, the defeat showed how difficult it is for gun-control advocates to reach the 60-vote threshold required to break a filibuster in an institution whose two-senator-per-state apportionment magnifies the impact of small, heavily rural states where guns are interwoven into the culture.
The outcome of Wednesday’s dramatic Senate vote on expanding background checks simultaneously demonstrated the difficult geography confronting gun-control advocates in the Senate and the potentially daunting math facing gun-rights proponents in the Electoral College.On the one hand, the defeat showed how difficult it is for gun-control advocates to reach the 60-vote threshold required to break a filibuster in an institution whose two-senator-per-state apportionment magnifies the impact of small, heavily rural states where guns are interwoven into the culture.
That Spineless Gun Vote
On April - 20 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Joe Nocera, New York Times
On April 20, 1999, Katie Lyles, a high school sophomore, was taking a math test when she heard a popping sound. “I assumed it was a prank,” she says.It wasn’t. The fire alarm soon went off, and a teacher shouted, “This is not a drill. Go, go, go!” Katie and several classmates ran through the neighborhood, seeking shelter. All around them, they could hear the screams of sirens and the whir of helicopter blades.
On April 20, 1999, Katie Lyles, a high school sophomore, was taking a math test when she heard a popping sound. “I assumed it was a prank,” she says.It wasn’t. The fire alarm soon went off, and a teacher shouted, “This is not a drill. Go, go, go!” Katie and several classmates ran through the neighborhood, seeking shelter. All around them, they could hear the screams of sirens and the whir of helicopter blades.
The “Co-Exist” Bombers
On April - 20 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Mark Steyn, National Review
This has been a strange and deadly week in America. On Monday, two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon, the first successful terrorist attack on a civilian target on American soil since 9/11. And yet a mere two days later, Boston’s death toll was surpassed by a freak fertilizer accident at a small town in Texas.In America, all atrocities are not equal: Minutes after the Senate declined to support so-called gun control in the wake of the Newtown massacre, the president rushed ill-advisedly on air to give a whiny, petulant performance predicated on the proposition that one...
This has been a strange and deadly week in America. On Monday, two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon, the first successful terrorist attack on a civilian target on American soil since 9/11. And yet a mere two days later, Boston’s death toll was surpassed by a freak fertilizer accident at a small town in Texas.In America, all atrocities are not equal: Minutes after the Senate declined to support so-called gun control in the wake of the Newtown massacre, the president rushed ill-advisedly on air to give a whiny, petulant performance predicated on the proposition that one...
After Boston, We Must Not Live in Fear
On April - 20 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Michael Tomasky, Newsweek
It is, obviously, understandable that people are shocked when something like the Boston bombing happens. Such an attack is a shocking thing—the images, the video, the beautiful faces of the three young people whose lives were taken; all shocking.But in today’s world, it isn’t really a surprising thing. After 9/11, how can anyone be surprised? In fact, I would take it back further. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and after Oklahoma City, how could anyone have been surprised? I remember the 1993 bombing very well.
It is, obviously, understandable that people are shocked when something like the Boston bombing happens. Such an attack is a shocking thing—the images, the video, the beautiful faces of the three young people whose lives were taken; all shocking.But in today’s world, it isn’t really a surprising thing. After 9/11, how can anyone be surprised? In fact, I would take it back further. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and after Oklahoma City, how could anyone have been surprised? I remember the 1993 bombing very well.
How Vladimir Putin Could Help Boston
On April - 19 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Fred Kaplan, Slate
Just hours after the Boston Marathon bombings, Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the act as a “disgusting” crime and offered to help in any way he could.Now’s his chance.The Tsarnaev brothers appear to have Chechen roots; the older, now-deceased brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, may have touted radical Islamists on his YouTube site. (The only question is whether the site’s holder is the same Tamerlan Tsarnaev.) There is no doubt, then, that Putin has a big interest in helping out with the FBI’s investigation—a much bigger interest...
Just hours after the Boston Marathon bombings, Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the act as a “disgusting” crime and offered to help in any way he could.Now’s his chance.The Tsarnaev brothers appear to have Chechen roots; the older, now-deceased brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, may have touted radical Islamists on his YouTube site. (The only question is whether the site’s holder is the same Tamerlan Tsarnaev.) There is no doubt, then, that Putin has a big interest in helping out with the FBI’s investigation—a much bigger interest...
Barack Obama: A "wide majority of NRA households … supported this legislation" on gun background checks.
On April - 19 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Barack Obama says a “wide majority of NRA households" supported gun legislation
After the Senate failed to advance an amendment that would expand federal requirements for background checks on gun purchasers, President Barack Obama took to the White House’s Rose Garden to denounce the vote, calling it "a pretty shameful day for Washington." Flanked by relatives of some of the slain children from Newtown, Conn., and assassination survivor Gabby Giffords, Obama emphasized how broadly Americans support expanded background checks for gun purchases. At several points in his remarks, Obama invoked his gun-policy adversary, the National Rifle Association. "To the wide majority of NRA households who supported this ...
>> MoreObama’s Sad Role as National Grief Counselor
On April - 19 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Walter Shapiro, Yahoo!
Just moments after he raised his right hand to take the oath of office at a time of economic despair in 2009, Barack Obama spoke of the resilience of the American people. In that first inaugural address, Obama paraphrased the lyrics from a 1930s Fred Astaire musical as he declared, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” Thursday afternoon, at a memorial service in Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama invoked the story of 78-year-old marathoner Bill Iffrig who was knocked off...
Just moments after he raised his right hand to take the oath of office at a time of economic despair in 2009, Barack Obama spoke of the resilience of the American people. In that first inaugural address, Obama paraphrased the lyrics from a 1930s Fred Astaire musical as he declared, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” Thursday afternoon, at a memorial service in Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama invoked the story of 78-year-old marathoner Bill Iffrig who was knocked off...
The Excel Depression
On April - 18 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
Paul Krugman, New York Times
In this age of information, math errors can lead to disaster. NASA’s Mars Orbiter crashed because engineers forgot to convert to metric measurements; JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” venture went bad in part because modelers divided by a sum instead of an average. So, did an Excel coding error destroy the economies of the Western world?
In this age of information, math errors can lead to disaster. NASA’s Mars Orbiter crashed because engineers forgot to convert to metric measurements; JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” venture went bad in part because modelers divided by a sum instead of an average. So, did an Excel coding error destroy the economies of the Western world?
Barack Obama: "The NRA used to support expanded background checks."
On April - 18 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS
The Truth-o-Meter says: True | Barack Obama says, 'The NRA used to support expanded background checks.'
After the Senate failed to advance an amendment that would expand federal requirements for background checks on gun purchasers, President Barack Obama took to the White House’s Rose Garden to denounce the vote, calling it "a pretty shameful day for Washington." Flanked by relatives of some of the slain children from Newtown, Conn., and assassination survivor Gabby Giffords, Obama emphasized how broadly Americans support expanded background checks for gun purchases. At one point, Obama invoked his gun-policy adversary, the National Rifle Association. "Even the NRA used to support expanded background checks," he said. "The current ...
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