1. The terrorists are not all out of Afghanistan. Curt Schilling is not a Yankees fan. Martha Coakley was not a great candidate. Telling people that electing Scott Brown would kill health care didn’t necessarily help her. Of course, she still should have won.
As a general rule, diagnosis should precede treatment. But last week, we saw in both the legislative and executive branches examples of the "treatment before diagnosis" mentality. In Congress, the first hearings of the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was held under the chairmanship of Phil Angelides, former California treasurer and former chairman of the California Democratic Party. The commission was "mandated" by law with reporting back to Congress by December 2010, "with a series of conclusions about what occurred, and recommendations as to how to avoid future market breakdowns. (Disclosure: I provide professional advice to some financial institutions.)
I know there have been a million blog posts about the Scott Brown race for the Senate. But I want to add a couple of points to the discussion.
Tax the bankers' profits, tax their bonuses, tax their golf scores. I mean it. Take their windfall, and give it to the taxpayers who bailed them out. Britain and France plan a 50 percent tax on banker bonuses -- coordinated lest their financial bigwigs think of crossing the channel for a better deal. President Obama's proposal to tax the big banks' extraordinary profits fits the theme.
Year One of the Obama administration ends Wednesday. Another era may come to an end the day before, when Massachusetts voters -- or at least those of them motivated enough to vote -- choose a senator to fill the three years remaining in the term of Edward Kennedy, who held the seat for 47 years.
Two weeks ago, Rasmussen Reports released a poll showing that Republican challenger Scott Brown had closed the gap in Massachusetts to single digits.
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell announced Thursday that he is dropping out of the California GOP gubernatorial primary and instead will run against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.
President Obama's misbegotten bank tax is precisely the wrong policy at precisely the wrong time. It will wind up backfiring across the board. Why? Because bank consumers and borrowers are the ones who will wind up paying this tax, creating an obstacle to economic recovery.
If liberal politics and good intentions helped all students learn, then Berkeley High School should be an exemplar to all California. Yet, according to its governance council, Berkeley High was identified last year as the high school with "the largest racial equity/achievement gap in the state."
If Harry Reid's private remarks about the skin tone and speaking style of Barack Obama were offensive, the Republican crusade to oust him from his leadership position is worse.
The “New Socialism” – as columnist Charles Krauthammer adroitly calls the global governmental power grab and wealth redistribution schemes lurking beneath the “green economy” – has kicked into high gear in Washington, D.C. already this year.
Once every decade--in years that end in zero--true political junkies get to spend an entire year basking in the glow of the national campaign over redistricting. For them, it's like the Super Bowl, March Madness, the World Series, and the Daytona 500 all wrapped up in one, but spread out over dozens of key states.
In his New York Times column last week, David Brooks contrasted "the educated class," which supports Barack Obama and his liberal worldview, with the tea party movement, "a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against ... the concentrated power of the educated class."
The federal trial of Prop 8 -- the California anti-gay marriage amendment whose constitutionality is currently being challenged -- was about to be a grand experiment in televised trials until the Supreme Court abruptly pulled the plug Monday morning.
Anti-anti-Islamic radicalism is growing amongst Western elites. In the aftermath of the Fort Hood Islamist terror attack on our troops by United States Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the Christmas day airline Islamist terror attack attempt, it is becoming ever more obvious that there is a widening gap between public common sense and governing class idiocy when it comes to spotting Islamist danger in our midst -- and doing something about it.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spent the weekend trying to finesse the news that he told "Game Change" authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in 2008 that he believed Barack Obama could win the White House
Fifty years ago this month, a lawyer living in a posh New York suburb with his former model wife was being investigated for embezzlement. Julian Andrew Frank of Westport, Conn., took out nearly $900,000 in life insurance and then, investigators believed, boarded a National Airlines plane with a bomb and blew it up over North Carolina, killing himself and 33 others.
On the surface, three recent polls on the upcoming Massachusetts special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy seem to tell three different stories.
In Evelyn Waugh's novel "Scoop," the best book on journalism ever written, Lord Copper, proprietor of the Daily Beast, is followed around by a flunkie who responds to every statement he makes. When Lord Copper says something that is true, the flunkie says, "Absolutely, Lord Copper." When he says something that is false, the flunkie says, "Up to a point, Lord Copper."
In the days that followed a foiled attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253, the Obama White House clearly thought that it could bluff its way past the near disaster.
