It's a Wonderful Life Working for the Government By Michael Barone
It looks like a happy new year for you -- if you're a public employee.
Political Commentary
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December 31, 2009
December 31, 2009
Let House Prices Do What They Must By Froma Harrop
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, the bubble's not over till the last drop splatters. That is certainly the case with the housing bubble. Home prices that seemed to be strengthening over the summer have again slipped, according to the S&P Case-Shiller index. Neither low interest rates nor a fat tax credit for homebuyers has changed this reality.
December 31, 2009
Market-Based Variables Point to a Mini Boom in 2010 By Lawrence Kudlow
Despite the historic expansion of the federal government’s involvement in, intervention in, and control of the economy — including Bailout Nation; takeovers of banks, car companies, insurance firms, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, GM, Chrysler, and GMAC; large-scale tax threats; overregulation; an attempted takeover of the health-care sector; ultra-easy money; a declining dollar; and unprecedented spending and debt creation — despite all the things that would be expected to destroy the economy — all this socialism lite and the degrading of incentives and rewards for success — despite all this, the U.S. economy has not been destroyed.
December 30, 2009
“Plato O Plomo” – Washington’s Gangster Way By Howard Rich
During the 1980’s, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar built a global cocaine cartel of unrivaled power and influence based on a simple philosophy, Plato O Plomo.
December 30, 2009
Fear of Flying By Susan Estrich
Now is the time for those of us on vacation to start talking ourselves back onto the planes we have to board to get home. Here I am in paradise -- actually, the Grand Wailea in Maui, which looks like paradise to me -- and around the pool and on the beaches, almost everyone is squinting into BlackBerries and iPhones trying to figure out exactly what is going wrong in the rest of the world.
December 30, 2009
Afghan War Policy Fractured By Tony Blankley
Franklin Roosevelt was famous for being able to give people on all sides of a policy dispute the impression that he supported each person's position. Such artfulness helped him manage domestic politics for 12 years in the presidency. Similarly, President Obama wrote in his book "The Audacity of Hope" that "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them."
December 29, 2009
We'd Be Happy to Do This 'Strip Tease' By Froma Harrop
U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz proudly championed a measure last spring that bans whole-body imaging as a primary screening technique at airports. "You don't have to look at my wife and 8-year-old daughter naked to secure an airplane," the Utah Republican said.
December 29, 2009
Warning, Satire Alert: Liberal Take on Terror! By Debra J. Saunders
Gosh darn, I feel great to live in a country that gives full constitutional rights to a foreign national who, on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, was tackled by passengers and crew as he reportedly was trying to blow up the plane.
December 28, 2009
Texas Shows Its Swagger in New Population Estimates By Michael Barone
Every year roundabout Christmastime, the Census Bureau releases its population estimates for each state for the 12 months ending on July 1. The numbers look dry on a sheet of paper (or on an Excel spreadsheet on your computer), but they tell some vivid stories. The more so when they reflect, as the numbers for 2008-09 do, the effects of a sharp downward shift in the nation's economy.
December 25, 2009
The Future of Paper By Froma Harrop
All through the long winter night, my digital gadgets lay snug in their recharging docks as Enya crooned on the iPod. It was on such a wintertide eve last December that I resolved to figure out all the things these wonderful devices could do -- other than have me tend to their ravenous energy needs and update their programs.
December 25, 2009
The Year of Living in Everybody's Face By Debra J. Saunders
It was the year of the Octomom, the balloon boy and the White House party crashers. The year of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" -- minus Jon. The year Tiger Woods ran into a tree, revealing a scandal that linked him not so much to another woman as duplicates of a pouty-lipped prototype.
December 24, 2009
The Yield Curve Is Signaling Bigger Growth By Lawrence Kudlow
What's a yield curve, and why is it so important?
December 24, 2009
When Legerdemain Is Used to Pass an Unpopular Bill By Michael Barone
It's time to blow the whistle on two erroneous statements that opponents and proponents of the health care legislation being jammed through Congress have been making.
December 23, 2009
'Yet, Freedom!' By Tony Blankley
Taking stock this second Christmas after the election of Barack Obama to the presidency -- as a conservative Republican (with growing "tea party" tendencies) -- I'm filled with a thrilling, unexpected hopefulness that the president may be well on his way to losing his battle for the hearts and minds of the American people -- tempered by a shocked disbelief that so much long-term damage could be perpetrated on our economy, national security and way of life in just 11 months of ill-judged governance.
December 23, 2009
Merry Christmas By Susan Estrich
Or happy holidays.
Does it really matter?
Once again this year, there are folks howling about the so-called "War on Christmas." With real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention painfully high unemployment that has left parents struggling to play Santa, you'd think people would have better things to worry about. Think again.
December 22, 2009
A Cool Wind Braces the Hot-Air Crowd By Debra J. Saunders
For years, global warming alarmists have pointed to every drought and heat wave as proof that global warming was a real environmental threat. They had few qualms about blurring the line between weather and climate to make a PR point.
December 22, 2009
About the So-Called Republican Moderates By Froma Harrop
Many have bemoaned the near-extinction of the political species known as the moderate Republican. Once thriving in cold habitats, particularly New England, socially liberal but fiscally conservative Republicans were gradually displaced by Democrats. The loss of these bridge-builders has left the Republican Party largely in the hands of the bridge-burners, and to the detriment of America.
December 21, 2009
When Liberal Dreams Collide With Public Opinion By Michael Barone
In the Bella Center on the south side of Copenhagen and in the Senate chamber on the north side of the Capitol, we're seeing what happens when liberal dreams collide with American public opinion. It's like what happens when a butterfly collides with the windshield of a speeding SUV. Splat.
December 20, 2009
Stop Me Before I Call Again By Debra J. Saunders
Gavin Newsom is at it again. The San Francisco mayor's latest foray into annoying nanny statism is a proposal, reported in The Chronicle last week, to require the city's cell phone retailers to post the radiation levels of their products.
December 18, 2009
Tiger's True Test By Susan Estrich
It's not exactly surprising to read major news organizations confirming that Elin Nordegren, the No. 1 search name on Google of late, is planning to divorce Tiger Woods.
