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May 10, 2013

Why the Benghazi Hearings Are Likely to Be a Bust by Scott Rasmussen

Foreign policy matters rarely top the list of voter concerns. That's especially true in times of challenging economic news. In recent weeks, though, national security topics have been working their way into the headlines. First came the Boston Marathon bombings and questions about terrorist connections. The civil war in Syria entered the news with reports of chemical warfare followed by an Israeli bombing near Damascus. Finally, congressional hearings have provided additional details about what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on the day Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other Americans were murdered during a terrorist attack.

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May 9, 2013

Watergate Revenge: Republicans Yearning to Impeach Obama Over Benghazi 'Cover-Up' By Joe Conason

Less than four months after Barack Obama's inauguration, the right-wing propaganda machine is already promoting the only imaginable conclusion to a Democratic administration that dares to achieve a second term: impeachment. Once confined to the ranks of the birthers, the fantasy of removing President Obama from office is starting to fester in supposedly saner minds.

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May 9, 2013

College Bubble Bursts After Decades of Extravagance by Michael Barone

Markets work. But sometimes they take time.
That's the uncomfortable lesson that proprietors of America's colleges and universities are learning.

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May 8, 2013

Live Free or Move By John Stossel

Forty-three million Americans moved from one state to another between 1995 and 2010 -- about one-seventh of Americans.

It's good that we can move! Moving provides one of the few limits on the megalomania of state bureaucrats.

Americans have moved away from high-taxed, heavily regulated states to lower-taxed, less-regulated states. Most don't think of it as a political decision. They just go where opportunities are, and that usually means where there's less government.

They're leaving my state, New York, in droves. California, despite its great weather, also lost people, and wealth. Other biggest losers were Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio.

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May 7, 2013

Bangladesh and Us By Froma Harrop

You know a corner's been turned when someone in a legion of foreign sweatshop workers is given a face. That's happened in Bangladesh, home of hideous factory conditions -- as seen in the ruins of Rana Plaza, a former eight-story work warren. Death toll: over 600.

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May 6, 2013

Fewer Border Crossings, E-Verify System Justify Bill By Michael Barone

Many loud voices in the debate over immigration have been insisting that effective border enforcement must precede any steps that legalize the status of current illegal immigrants.  

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May 3, 2013

How to Get Fit Without Really Trying By Froma Harrop

We may not have time for exercise, but there's always time to read about exercising. And while the motivation to exercise may not be tops, the motivation to shop for "aids" to exercise seems forever strong.   

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May 3, 2013

Voters Don't Like Political Class Bossing Them Around By Scott Rasmussen

There are many ways to describe the enormous gap between the American people and their elected politicians. Most in official Washington tend to think that their elite community is smarter and better than the rest of us. Many hold a condescending view of voters and suggest that the general public is too ignorant to be treated seriously. Only 5 percent of the nation's voters, however, believe that Congress and its staff members represent the nation's best and brightest.

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May 2, 2013

Overdue Questions: What Might Be Missing From Bush's Presidential Library By Joe Conason

Like all such monuments that former presidents construct to edify the public, the George W. Bush Presidential Center -- opened with great ceremony in Texas last week -- is mounted from its subject's point of view.

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May 2, 2013

Obama's Blink on Syria Could Bring Peril to Allies By Michael Barone

"We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked," Secretary of State Dean Rusk famously said during the Cuban missile crisis.   

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May 1, 2013

Train Wreck Ahead By John Stossel

Most Americans -- even those who are legislators -- know very little about the details of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare. Next year, when it goes into effect, we will learn the hard way.

Many people lazily assume that the law will do roughly what it promises: give insurance to the uninsured and lower the cost of health care by limiting spending on dubious procedures.

Don't count on it.

Consider just the complexity: The act itself is more than 906 pages long, and again and again in those 906 pages are the words, "the Secretary shall promulgate regulations ..."

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April 30, 2013

Legal Pot Means More Money for States, Less for Gangs By Froma Harrop

The good things that should happen after marijuana is legalized are happening in Colorado. In November, voters in Colorado -- and Washington state -- legalized pot for recreational use. (Many states allow medical use of marijuana.)

What are the good things?

For starters, money, money, money for the state coffers. As of last week, lawmakers in Denver were still tussling over how heavily to tax marijuana sales. A leading plan centers on excise and sales taxes totaling 30 percent. The tax can't go so high that it encourages a black market.

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April 29, 2013

Benghazi Report Revives Troubling Questions By Michael Barone

"What difference, at this point, does it make?"   

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April 26, 2013

Free the 'Work Beasts' By Froma Harrop

We who work through colds, bad backs and low moods -- however liberal we might be -- have permission to resent those who could hold a job but don't, preferring to collect disability checks unto the decades. You see them at the coffee shop, refilling their cups in leisure, or even pumping iron at the gym.   

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April 26, 2013

Americans Seem to Be Taking Terrorism in Stride By Scott Rasmussen

The news from Boston over the past couple of weeks has been the stuff of nightmares. Homemade bombs killing and injuring innocent people at a high-profile public event were followed by a massive manhunt. People in the surrounding suburbs were ordered to stay inside, businesses closed, and SWAT teams overwhelmed a typically quiet community. The Boston police commissioner warned everyone: "We believe this is a terrorist. We believe this is a man that's come here to kill people."

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April 25, 2013

The Newsmaker Memo: An Interview With Pioneering Climate Scientist James Hansen By Joe Conason

Having directed NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies for most of the past four decades, Dr. James E. Hansen retired this month to devote himself to the scientific activism that has brought both awards and catcalls during his long and distinguished career. On April 24, he will receive the Ridenhour Courage Prize in Washington, D.C., for "bravely and urgently telling the truth about climate change."  

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April 25, 2013

As Bush Stays Silent, His Reputation Steadily Gains By Michael Barone

Tomorrow, the George W. Bush Presidential Center will be dedicated at Southern Methodist University in Texas. It's a good time to look back on the performance of the 43rd president, who has been almost entirely missing from the public stage these past four years.    

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April 24, 2013

The Education Blob's Revenge By John Stossel

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. 

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April 23, 2013

The Bombers and Who Gets In By Froma Harrop

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."    

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April 22, 2013

At Every Turn, Things Were Spinning out of Control By Michael Barone

Chaos. Things seemed to be spinning out of control on many fronts this week.    

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