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August 31, 2010

Obama Isn't Being Smart About Arizona By Debra J. Saunders

The latest CBS poll found that 59 percent of Americans view Arizona's SB1070, the immigration bill that allows Arizona to prosecute immigration violations, as "just right," while another 14 percent think the bill doesn't go far enough. So why does President Obama continue to hammer Arizona's law? And why did the State Department include a reference to the Arizona law in a report for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on America's human rights record?

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August 30, 2010

Boehner's Pro-Growth Message by Lawrence Kudlow

It's a bit too early for House Republican leader John Boehner to measure the drapes and pick out new wallpaper.

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August 27, 2010

Ready, Fire, Aim by Susan Estrich

House Minority Leader John Boehner has a brilliant idea.

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August 26, 2010

Incumbent Defeats By The Numbers By Larry J. Sabato

At the Crystal Ball we receive many requests for information about the history of congressional elections, and there are many ways to look at this topic. In the two simple bar graphs below, we present one way to conceptualize a key part of the contests for Congress. How many incumbents lose for the House and the Senate?

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August 26, 2010

The Mosque and the 'American Street' by Froma Harrop

The circus around the mosque should start to lose audience. New York officials have the authority to decide whether an Islamic center may be built near the tragic site of the attacks on the Twin Towers.

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August 26, 2010

Redistricting Could Prolong the Democrats' Pain By Michael Barone

Every 10 years, it's time for reapportionment and redistricting. The framers of the Constitution created the first regularly scheduled national census and required, for the first time that I am aware, that representation in a legislature be apportioned according to population.

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August 25, 2010

Prelude to Appeasement by Tony Blankley

Neoconservatives, Reaganites and other militarily assertive factions in the United States are sometimes accused of thinking it is always 1938 (Britain's appeasement of Hitler at Munich) -- that there is always a Hitler-like aggressor being appeased and about to drag the world into conflict.

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August 25, 2010

Leaving Home by Susan Estrich

For the past two weeks, I've been traveling across the country interviewing law students who have applied for jobs at my law firm.

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August 23, 2010

Stimulus and Health Care Have Democrats on Defensive By Michael Barone

Like many Democrats over the past 40 years, Barack Obama has hoped that his association with unpopular liberal positions on cultural issues would be outweighed by pushing economic policies intended to benefit the ordinary person.

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August 22, 2010

A Federal Law Against Lying By Debra J. Saunders

In 2005, Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., sponsored the Stolen Valor Act that made it a federal crime to lie about receiving military medals or honors from the military.

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August 21, 2010

Barney Frank Comes Home to the Facts By Lawrence Kudlow

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? In politics, the answer is usually no. Most elected officials cling to their ideological biases, despite the real-world facts that disprove their theories time and again. Most have no common sense, and most never acknowledge that they were wrong.

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August 20, 2010

Ground Zero on the Tolerance Issue by Debra J. Saunders

The mission of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's Cordoba Initiative is not just to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center near ground zero, but also to build "interfaith tolerance and respect."

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August 20, 2010

The Senate: All Classes Aren't Equal By Larry J. Sabato

Our astute political readership is well aware that the United States Senate has been divided into three classes since the beginning of the Constitutional Republic. That’s because, with a six-year term for each senator, only one-third of the Senate is elected every two years. Senators were elected by the state legislatures until the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913, of course, but the classes were maintained with the electoral reform, and as new states were added to the Union, the principle of “one-third every two years” has been continuous. While the U.S. House of Representatives is (theoretically) “refreshed” in its entirety by the People at each election, the Senate is much more stable, since two-thirds of the Senate membership is immune from popular uprising in any given election. Passions are given a chance to cool, or to reconstitute, before the next election rolls around.

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August 20, 2010

“What’s good for the GOP goose…” By Howard Rich

There’s a disturbing hypocrisy emerging from within the “establishment” wing of the Republican Party lately – a belief that it’s okay to work against fiscal conservatives who garner the support of the vast majority of GOP voters, just not fiscal liberals.

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August 19, 2010

Washington Saved Our Economic Hide By Froma Harrop

Clarence the angel has a tough job in "It's a Wonderful Life." He must show the suicidal George Bailey what terrible things would have happened had he not been born. Two prominent economists are playing Clarence to the multitudes who believe that forceful government intervention during the financial meltdown should never have been.

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August 19, 2010

Big Government Forgets How to Build Big Projects By Michael Barone

When I drive from downtown Washington to Reagan National Airport, I often encounter delays on the George Washington Parkway due to construction of a small bridge over an inlet of the Potomac.

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August 19, 2010

Courage and Lower Manhattan By Joe Conason

Nothing tests a president like standing up against a wave of fear and prejudice, even at potentially great cost to his own party and prospects. That is what Lyndon Baines Johnson did when he signed the civil rights acts he knew would forfeit the South to the Republicans for a generation or more.

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August 18, 2010

Watch Out for Haley Barbour by Susan Estrich

The Drudge Report headline declaring that "Murdoch Gives $1 Million to Haley Barbour" is not technically accurate.

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August 18, 2010

Summertime 2010 By Tony Blankley

With apologies to George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward and their 1935 classic song, "Summertime" (and the living is easy):

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August 18, 2010

Arnold and Jerry Take a Legal Holiday By Debra J. Saunders

When 52 percent of California voters passed Proposition 8 in November 2008, Attorney General Jerry Brown said he would defend the measure during the inevitable appeals. Then, as is his fashion, Brown changed his mind.  Ditto Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who twice vetoed same-sex marriage bills passed by the Legislature in deference to California voters who passed an earlier same-sex marriage statute in 2000. 

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