In the opening hours and days of an unanticipated event -- such as the current off-shore oil leak, usually not much can be reliably learned about the details of the intruding event -- but much can reliably be learned about the humans responding to it.
SAN ANTONIO -- It was over frozen lattes three blocks from the Alamo that Lydia Camarillo and I discussed the wave of Latino voters expected to change politics in Texas -- and America. Camarillo is vice president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a group that signs up new Hispanic voters and spurs them to the polls.
"Meg 2010, Building a New California," the glossy 40-plus-page "policy agenda" for former eBay CEO and GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, is so slick that it sat on my desk for weeks before I could finish it. I would pick it up, think that, like her candidacy, it is overly packaged, and toss it back on the pile of papers that litter my desk. It does a great job of laying out California's financial woes and suggesting possible reforms -- but it leaves out how she'll get things done in Sacramento.
Left parties are in trouble in the Anglosphere. Here in America, Democrats are doing worse in the polls than at any time in the last 50 years.
President Obama has appointed three new doves to the Federal Reserve Board, thereby taking command of the nation's central bank. But there's a split developing inside the Federal Reserve System: The Reserve Bank presidents, appointed by their own district boards of directors, are increasingly likely to wage a battle royale against the central-bank headquarters in Washington and its free-money, ultra-easy policies.
Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, has become my go-to guy for good-government issues. His wife, Joan, he recently confided, calls him "the Sisyphus of reform."
For months now, this election has been compared to that of 1994, when Republicans scored huge gains and won both houses of Congress. It is a decent model. But given the recent passage of health care reform – something that did not happen in ’94 – this might be a good occasion to look at another midterm election for instruction, that of 1966.
Let me lead with what should be an unremarkable observation: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer did not write federal immigration laws that require permanent residents to carry green cards, employers to check documentation or limits on the number of legal immigrants admitted each year. Washington did.
HOUSTON -- Houston faces a crossroads, or to be more precise, a five-level stack interchange. Is it going to nurture compact walkable neighborhoods? Or is it going to do what it has always done -- stand back and watch developers build anything anywhere?
With a furious majority of American voters demanding security from the depredations of Big Capital, all of the filibustering and bargaining in Congress will inevitably produce a bill described as "financial reform." Partisan sniping aside, neither Democrats nor Republicans so far have proposed a deep and thorough cleansing.
Setting legislative priorities has been one of the chief tasks of American presidents for the past century. Sometimes, they concentrate on changing public policy. At other times, they highlight issues for political reasons, with an eye to the next election.
In its quest to ram perpetual bank bailouts and draconian new government regulations through the U.S. Congress under the guise of “financial services reform,” the administration of Barack Obama and its allies have seized upon a convenient new enemy – Goldman Sachs.
In the last few weeks, I have found myself debating on radio and TV programs whether various financial instruments have any social utility -- any "real world" purpose other than "speculation or gambling." (Disclosure: I give professional advice to a number of financial organizations.)
Republican senators are playing with fire. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is perfectly content to pile on the logs.
President Obama is right that Arizona's tough immigration law is "misguided." And Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is right that her state has been "more than patient waiting for Washington to act." The two are not unrelated.
The Obama Democrats' stealth strategy for increasing the size and scope of the federal government is well underway, despite huge voter backlash. Federal spending has been increased from a 30-year average of 21 percent of gross domestic product to 25 percent, and a bipartisan commission tasked with reducing the deficit may recommend tax increases.
Political observers have had their attention directed to state attorneys general of late, due to the court suits against the federal health care reform bill initially filed by fifteen AGs (14 of them Republican, and a lone Democrat from Louisiana).
More service is not necessarily good service. And bad service dressed as good service is even worse. Here are examples:
Let me be clear at the outset: I love dogs. Not like them, love them. Of course, I love mine the best: Judy J. Estrich, Molly Emily Estrich and Irving A. Estrich. Judy is named after one of my dearest friends, Judy Jarvis, who died of cancer 10 years ago. Molly is named after her dog, who took care of her when she was sick and taught me not to be afraid of big dogs.
When he first began his career as a crusading consumer journalist in the 1970s, John Stossel believed fervently that higher taxes and greater government involvement in the marketplace were integral checks against corporate greed and malfeasance.
