Spring Clean Government By John Stossel
Spring cleaning is a healthy tradition. If only politicians did it!
Political Commentary
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March 19, 2014
March 18, 2014
Democratic Strategists in 2014 Are Like French Generals in 1940 By Michael Barone
It is reminiscent of the quandary faced by Gen. Maurice Gamelin on the evening of May 15, 1940. Suddenly he realized that German panzer troops had broken through the supposedly impassable Ardennes.
March 18, 2014
People Sin, Not Music Festivals by Froma Harrop
A curious discussion followed the tragedy at the recent South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Many of the festival's fans and critics turned the awful event into a call for "soul-searching" about what the festival had become.
What happened was that a drunken driver plowed through a police barricade, killing two people and injuring another 23. Some festival aficionados seemed to see an intoxicated driver's causing havoc on a packed Austin street as the inevitable outcome of an event that had lost its innocence.
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM
March 16, 2014
Senate Update: Domino Effects By Kyle Kondik
To demonstrate just how Republican this year’s Senate playing field is, consider this: Of the 36 Senate elections this year (33 regularly scheduled and three specials), the Crystal Ball sees 16 as at least potentially competitive at the moment. Of those races, 14 are currently held by Democrats, and just two are held by Republicans.
March 13, 2014
The Limited Meaning of Florida’s Special House Election By Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik
Rep.-elect David Jolly (R, FL-13) overcame money, some internal division among Republicans, and a name recognition and prestige deficit to defeat Alex Sink (D) in a much-watched special election in Florida’s Tampa-area 13th Congressional District Tuesday night.
March 13, 2014
Hipsters Have Children, Too By Froma Harrop
Disapproving of white urban liberals can be a career for right-leaning sociologists. A decade or two ago, their story was that the American future lay in fast-growing exurban counties, with their cheap land and virtuous Republican voters.
Now that many American cities have become the hot, hot, hot place for jobs and ambitions, the story has to be rewritten.
"Are cities without children sustainable?" ask Joel Kotkin and Ali Modarres in the culturally conservative City Journal.
March 12, 2014
War on Women By John Stossel
You've probably heard that Democratic Party leaders decided that a way to win votes this November is to shout loudly that Republicans wage "war on women." Politico calls this a "proven, persuasive argument."
March 11, 2014
Size of State Governments Not Washington's Business By Froma Harrop
We who applaud the boldness of Rep. Dave Camp's tax reform plan need not like everything in it. The part that would repeal the deduction for state and local taxes is an abomination, to put it mildly.
March 11, 2014
For Good Highways, Use Tolls and Ditch the Gasoline Tax By Michael Barone
Last month, Barack Obama traveled to snowy St. Paul, Minn., the same place where in the sunnier days of June 2008 he predicted that his clinching of the Democratic presidential nomination would be remembered as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and the earth began to heal."
This time in St. Paul he addressed a lesser problem, one within the ambit of a president's powers: transportation.
March 7, 2014
Lying Again? Scholars Detect Deception in Ryan's Poverty Report by Joe Conason
For the sake of America's poor, a sincere conservative effort to improve the programs that serve them is very desirable -- especially so long as Republicans control the House of Representatives, where they habitually yearn to cut or defund those same programs. For months, Washington has eagerly awaited the latest version of "compassionate conservatism," promised by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and his publicists.
Appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Ryan denounced government programs that serve the poor, including food stamps and free school lunch: "What the left is offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that."
To find out more about Joe Conason, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM
March 7, 2014
Obama's Mistaken Belief That Others See the World as He Sees It By Michael Barone
Solipsism. It's a fancy word that means that the self is the only existing reality and that the external world, including other people, are representations of one's own self and can have no independent existence. A person who follows this philosophy may believe that others see the world as he does and will behave as he would.
March 6, 2014
Who Belongs Downtown? By Froma Harrop
Many American cities now enjoy an amazing reversal of fortune. Once hollowed-out shells mainly for those too poor to move -- or those so rich they didn't have to deal with the poor -- cities are again filling up with educated and aspiring young people.
March 5, 2014
Budget Baloney By John Stossel
This week, President Barack Obama proposed "a budget that will create new jobs in manufacturing and energy and innovation and infrastructure, and we'll pay for every dime of it by cutting unnecessary spending, closing wasteful tax loopholes!"
What? I must have fallen asleep and woken up in 2008. That could not be something he'd claim after five years in office -- years after making similar claims and not delivering on them.
March 4, 2014
Where Anyone Can Act by Froma Harrop
This year, two big dress-up events fall in the same week. But the Academy Awards and Mardi Gras couldn't be more different. At the Hollywood party, the common people are supposed to venerate the stars. In Mardi Gras, the commoners are the stars.
And that's what makes Mardi Gras feel so much more modern than the bouncer-dominated world of movie celebrity. Never mind that "Fat Tuesday" -- for many Christians the carnival preceding the somber period of Lent -- dates back to medieval times and the Oscars to 1929.
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM
March 4, 2014
Don't Write Those Tea Party Obituaries Just Yet By Michael Barone
February marked the fifth anniversary of the reemergence of the label "Tea Party" in American politics. It was in February 2009 that Rick Santelli delivered his famous rant on CNBC, and a few days later, a group calling itself the Tea Party Patriots was organized.
March 3, 2014
To Defeat GOP's Restrictive Voting Laws, Debunk 'Voter Fraud' By Joe Conason
Growing up in Jim Crow Arkansas, Bill Clinton saw how the state's dominant political and racial elite maintained power by suppressing the rights of minority voters who threatened its authority -- and as a young activist, worked to bring down that illegitimate power structure. So when Clinton says, "There is no greater assault on our core values than the rampant efforts to restrict the right to vote" -- as he does in a new video released by the Democratic National Committee -- the former president knows of what he speaks.
February 28, 2014
Protesters in Ukraine and Venezuela Seek the Rule of Law By Michael Barone
What motivates people to demonstrate in central squares, day after day and week after week, against repressive regimes at the risk of life and limb? It's a question raised most recently by events in Ukraine and Venezuela.
February 27, 2014
Hurray for GOP Tax Plan by Froma Harrop
A Republican leader is doing something right ... and good. He is Rep. David Camp of Michigan. Camp has issued a detailed plan for simplifying the tax code. That's his duty as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax law.
Reforming the 70,000-page abomination that is our tax laws -- and making them fairer -- has long been a stated goal of both parties. But it is a notoriously unpleasant job because it involves doing away with tax loopholes that have vocal and deep-pocketed supporters.
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM
February 26, 2014
Codgers Freaking Out By John Stossel
America's most popular cable news host is upset. "Marijuana use, video games and texting (are) creating major social problems," says Bill O'Reilly. "This is an epidemic that will lead to a weaker nation!"
Give me a break.
Crotchety old geezers always complain about "the kids." The Boston Globe frets about "Idle Trophy Kids." The New York Post asks if millennials are "The Worst Generation?" Older folks (my age) complain that young people spend so much time texting each other that they can't communicate. And because they spend hours playing violent video games, violence is up.
Bunk.
February 25, 2014
Mass Transit Is for the Young By Froma Harrop
I frequently ride one of those cheap buses connecting my small city with a big city. At first, I expected my fellow passengers to be largely poor and old -- the folks who can't afford to drive or are unable to.
