I wrote recently how teachers unions, parent-teacher associations and school bureaucrats form an education "Blob" that makes it hard to improve schools. They also take revenge on those who work around the Blob.
The uncle of the accused Boston Marathon bombers got the boys right. They were unable to settle into American life, Ruslan Tsarni told reporters from his home in Maryland, "and thereby just hating everyone who did." He called the two brothers "losers." I prefer the term "weaklings."
Chaos. Things seemed to be spinning out of control on many fronts this week.
During the big health care fight, the right told older Americans that Obamacare was grabbing money from their Medicare and giving it to young people. Now it tells young workers that Medicare and Social Security are draining their take-home pay to support retirees sitting around the pool.
Mitt Romney's secretly recorded comment that 47 percent of Americans are "dependent on the government" and "believe they are victims" isn't the only reason he lost the presidential campaign. But the candidate himself acknowledged after the election that the comments were "very harmful."
What can Americans learn from the bitter debate over the gun reform bill?
"More tears are shed over answered prayers," the 16th century nun St. Teresa of Avila is supposed to have said, "than over unanswered ones."
As we discussed last week, the Democratic Party’s presidential field in 2016 hinges greatly on the decision of one person: Hillary Clinton. The Republican Party’s early primary picture is much more complicated, and the top-tier contenders are grouped much closer together at the starting gate.
Even parts of government that look like a business never get run with the efficiency of a business. Just look at the post office.
"Without legislative language," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy declared in a statement March 20, "there is nothing for the Judiciary Committee to consider this week at our markup."
Gun control advocates sound puzzled by congressional resistance to relatively modest gun control legislation.
Not only is a Senate plan for reforming the immigration program smart, it may actually become law. Those two things don't necessarily go together. That it is bipartisan would seem a near miracle.
The "Group of Eight" reformers -- led by Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York -- would demand concessions from both open-border and closed-border hardliners. Most importantly, they are the right concessions.
Amid all the suffocating claptrap celebrating Margaret Thatcher in the media, only the British themselves seem able to provide a refreshing hit of brisk reality. Over here, she is the paragon of principle known as the "Iron Lady," devoted to freedom, democracy and traditional values who bolstered the West against encroaching darkness. Over there, she is seen clearly as a class warrior, whose chief accomplishments involved busting unions and breaking the post-war social contract.
"Divisive." That's a word that appeared, often prominently, in many news stories reporting the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
One senses the writers' disapproval. You're not likely to find "divisive" in stories reporting the deaths of liberal leaders, although every electoral politician divides voters.
"Divisive" here refers to something specific. It was Margaret Thatcher's special genius that she systematically rejected the conventional wisdom, almost always well-intentioned, of the political establishment.
Instead, she insisted on hard, uncomfortable truths.
British Conservatives like Harold Macmillan accepted the tyranny of trade unionism because they had guilty memories of the slaughter of the working-class men who served under them in the trenches in World War I.
Thatcher, who as an adolescent before World War II saved money to pay for a Jewish girl to escape from Austria to England, felt no such guilt.
People say government must "help the little guy, promote equality, level the playing field."
In honoring Margaret Thatcher, some of her greatest fans complain, "They don't make conservatives like that any more."
We Americans are lucky, though we seldom reflect on it, that we have good neighbors.
In East Asia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines face challenges from China over islands they have long claimed in the East China Sea.
In Europe, Germany and other prosperous nations face demands for subsidies from debt-ridden nations to avoid the collapse of the Euro.
When Southern Europeans look across the Mediterranean, they see Muslim nations facing post-Arab spring upheaval and disorder.
By all accounts, Hillary Rodham Clinton has not yet decided whether to seek the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. But the prospect of her candidacy, combined with her undeniable popularity, is agitating certain commentators so deeply that they simply cannot withhold their bile.
There's a strong desire among many Americans today to address a growing problem of income inequality. That desire helped President Obama raise taxes on upper-income Americans a few months ago. It's reflected in the fact that just 35 percent believe the U.S. economy is fair to the middle class, and only 41 percent believe it's fair to those willing to work hard. Still, it's not really the inequality that bothers people. After all, 65 percent believe that it's fair for those who create very successful companies to become very rich. The problem comes when some people earn big bucks simply because they can game the system in ways that aren't available to most Americans.
