Political Commentary

December 26, 2013

Social Security Gets More Politically Secure by Froma Harrop

Proposals to raise Social Security benefits are a refreshing antidote to portrayals of the program as a mere drain on the Treasury. Details of some such plans are troubling -- for reasons I'll go into -- but the change in tone is most welcome.

Democratic Senators Tom Harkin of Iowa and Sherrod Brown of Ohio are leading a campaign to raise benefits by about $70 a month and alter the cost-of-living adjustments to the beneficiary's advantage. The higher payments would be covered by raising the income cap, which is now $113,700, on paying Social Security taxes.

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.

December 26, 2013

Drive Free by John Stossel

Regulators want their fingers in everything. A new idea gives them an excuse to draw attention to themselves as "consumer protectors." In addition, existing taxi companies request regulation. They want politicians to regulate new competition out of existence.

Luckily, technology and capitalist innovation sometimes move faster than the lazy dinosaur that is government. Lyft, Uber and Sidecar have quickly become popular, and this may help them avoid being crushed. By contrast, politicians don't hesitate to destroy things that people think of as weird or dangerous.

December 23, 2013

Who Is Really Waging War on Christmas? Look in the Mirror, Scrooges by Joe Conason

Spreading holiday cheer, a Western tradition for hundreds of years, no longer engages our so-called conservatives as the end of the year approaches. In fact, the innocent phrase "happy holidays" only infuriates them. The new Yuletide ritual exciting the right is the "War on Christmas" -- an annual opportunity to spread religious discord and community conflict, brought to us by those wonderful folks at Fox News.

December 23, 2013

Reality Has Its Risks by Froma Harrop

The honchos at A&E, professing shock that an old Southern redneck from their reality TV hit "Duck Dynasty" made the sort of homophobic remarks one would expect from an old Southern redneck, yanked Phil Robertson off the show. A culture war skirmish ensued.

Gay rights groups condemned Robertson, who shared his raw opinions in a GQ Magazine interview. Religious conservatives, meanwhile, accused A&E of censoring the Louisiana duck hunter. What Robertson said, they noted, is right there in scripture, in Corinthians I.

December 20, 2013

Security Versus Privacy by Froma Harrop

This week, a guard insisted on looking into my handbag as I entered Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular. He had absolutely no reason to suspect me or the hundreds of other patrons whose bags he similarly inspected of carrying guns or explosives. But none of us objected to the incursion.

Speaking for myself, I didn't want to get blown up by a terrorist or other psychopath bent on mayhem in this iconic and people-packed venue. A minor invasion of my handbag seemed a fair trade-off.

December 20, 2013

Obamacare Shows America's Aversion to Big Government Policies By Michael Barone

As the fifth year of the Obama presidency draws to a close, it may be time to examine the unspoken but powerful assumption behind the policies of the president and his party.

December 19, 2013

Look Back in Liberty 2013 by John Stossel

This wasn't a great year for liberty. A few disasters that government caused:

- Obamacare. It was supposed to "bend the cost curve" downward. The central planners had lots of time to perfect their scheme. For a generation, the brightest left-wing wonks focused on health care policy. The result? Soviet-style consumer service comes to America.

- Government shutdown. The real disaster was the unnecessary panic over it. Zoos would shut down, and baby pandas would starve. The media made it sound like America might not survive even slightly limited government. They were happy to echo the politicians' claim that there's no wasteful or stupid spending to cut.

December 18, 2013

John Boehner's Successful Year on Policy and Politics by Michael Barone

All this year, House Speaker John Boehner has been taking criticism from all quarters.

He is a squish selling out to the Obama administration and the Democrats, many conservatives charged when he engineered bipartisan (mostly Democratic) approval of higher tax rates on high earners rather than go over the fiscal cliff.

December 17, 2013

Living to Oneself in the Age of Twitter By Froma Harrop

Let us repair to the wild English hearth of 1821, where William Hazlitt is contemplating contemplation.

December 13, 2013

Mandela's Crucial Lesson For America -- and the Republicans Who Never Learn by Joe Conason

Beyond the eulogies bestowed this week on the late and truly great Nelson Mandela -- a visionary, revolutionary and peacemaker -- there is much for Americans to learn from the story of his vexed relationship with our country. We will forget the mistakes perpetrated in dealing with him at our own peril.

To put it simply, the same Washington figures who so wrongly coddled Pretoria, South Africa's apartheid regime three decades ago -- people like Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives -- now tell us, wrongly again, that the United States should abandon negotiations with Iran and continue the embargo of Cuba. (And, of course, these are the same experts, politicians and pundits who promoted war against Iraq while assuring us the invasion would be a cheap cakewalk.)

To find out more about Joe Conason, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

December 13, 2013

Obamacare's Rocky Rollout Improves Republicans' 2014 Outlook By Michael Barone

Democratic National Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz says that Obamacare will be a vote-winner for Democrats in 2014. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the same thing.

December 12, 2013

How We Really Feel About Economic Inequality by Froma Harrop

Americans don't care much about rising economic inequality, recent surveys suggest. But that's not quite right.

The public may know that the top 10 percent pulled in about half of pretax income in 2012 -- and that income inequality is the widest it's been since right before the Great Depression. Its brain understands that these trends are not good for the society.

December 11, 2013

Celebrity Hypocrites By John Stossel

I'm annoyed that so many Hollywood celebrities hate the system that made them rich.

Actor/comedian Russell Brand told the BBC he wants "a socialist, egalitarian system based on the massive redistribution of wealth."

Director George Lucas got rich not just from movies but also by selling Star Wars merchandise. Yet he says he believes in democracy but "not capitalist democracy."

Actor Martin Sheen says, "That's where the problem lies ... It's corporate America."

December 10, 2013

About That Biden 'Gaffe' in Tokyo By Froma Harrop

We know that about 20,000 pseudo-, semi- and real journalists "cover" Washington. We know that mid-December is slow-time in the nation's capital as the public turns its attention to the holidays. But big news or no, the scriveners tending political websites must still, as they say, "feed the beast" and take it out for a walk three times a day.

December 10, 2013

Obama Abandons Friends Abroad in Hopes of Appeasing Foes by Michael Barone

Watching the twists and turns of American foreign policy while reading Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is an unnerving experience.

Clark's history, unlike many on the outbreak of World War I, starts not with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, but a dozen or so years earlier. He examines the muddled internal politics behind the foreign policies of major and minor powers -- and how often they were incomprehensible to each other.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

December 6, 2013

Consumer Finance Needs Better Morals by Froma Harrop

Drawing moral lines in our rough-and-tumble capitalist system can be hard. But it should not tax too many ethical muscles to set aside some protections for trusting, unsophisticated borrowers of modest means. That is, unless you're a politician working on behalf of predatory lenders.

And it's amazing how many politicians do, making the recent successes of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seem all the more miraculous. The CFPB was created in 2010 to set rules of the road for consumer financial products -- mortgages, student loans, payday loans and such.

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.

December 6, 2013

Obamacare's Architects Plugged Their Ears and Misled Public By Michael Barone

In 1970 the eccentric but insightful economist Albert Hirschman published a book called "Exit, Voice and Loyalty." It explored how people respond when a private firm's or a government agency's performance is deteriorating.

December 5, 2013

Why Republicans Can't Address Rising Inequality By Joe Conason

So far, the Republican response to President Barack Obama's historic address on economic inequality has not veered from the predictable cliches of tea party rhetoric. It was appropriately summarized in a tweet from House Speaker John Boehner, complaining that the Democrat in the White House wants "more government rather than more freedom," ignoring his challenge to Republicans to present solutions of their own.