We don’t recall when wordsmithing was used so liberally (by both parties) to confuse or mislead the public. George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” pales next to the complete abandon with which President Obama eloquently manipulates language and information to influence public
The President’s Rope-A-Dope strategy has failed. President Obama tried to convince the Republican House Leadership that a fair deal would be to trade a reduction in spending, which given the nation’s burgeoning debt and deficit, should be the country’s first
Sometimes we wonder if what has become obvious to a majority of Americans really has eluded our ruling class in Washington. “We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting,” said Federal Reserve Chief
It all seems so remote, not just in geography, but as a unique economic issue affecting only Greece and, perhaps, the rest of the EU. But it isn’t. The world is very interconnected. Many Americans directly or indirectly (through their
Following last week’s essay, “The American Dream: Is It Dying a Death of a Thousand Cuts?” a loyal reader of long standing urged, in a thoughtful comment, that we spend more time focusing on the solutions we would propose to
No, we’re not talking about cuts in the gargantuan federal budget. We’re talking about the endless array of smothering regulations, budget-busting entitlements, special interest ear-marks, economically regressive taxes and bureaucratic agencies that have been steadily extinguishing the dream, the American
The Democrats in Congress are crowing about the upset victory by Kathy Hochul in the special election to fill a Congressional seat in upstate New York, which has been consistently held by Republicans. Ms. Hochul based almost her entire campaign
The spin-doctors at the White House are, no doubt, busily patting themselves on the back about how well the President has finessed his “67 border precondition” (yes, he has made it a defacto pre-condition) which he recklessly inserted into the
We’re defining “here” in the headline above as the hard realities that exist on the ground, as well as some of the apparent conditions laid down by President Obama last Thursday during his speech on the Middle East. We hasten
Earlier this year, under the title “Who Needs Congress: Legislation by Regulatory Fiat,” we expressed concern that the Obama Administration was moving to checkmate the 2010 Republican electoral sweep by getting its acolytes and bureaucrats in the regulatory agencies, which
So Hamas and Fatah have reconciled just as the summer push gets underway to have the United Nations, when it convenes in September, recognize Palestine as the 193rd member of this august world body. How nice. The usual pontificators who
No offense to the classic movie thriller, “Friday the 13th ” but heees baaack! Yes, James Earl “Jimmy” Carter is, once again, sticking his nose and misguided views into international relations and continues, further complicating American policy in the world’s
As we have opined in the recent past, we believe the Ryan budget plan is still a work in progress and not a panacea for the nation’s budget, deficit and debt woes. It is, however, the first serious congressional attempt
The ink wasn’t dry yet in the Saturday editions of the NY Times and the Washington Post and the news stories were all about “winners and losers” from the last minute agreement which had been reached to avert a government
Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal is not a panacea for the nation’s debt and deficit woes. The Ryan proposal is, however, a bold, brave, and, we think, an extraordinary step forward by the House Budget Committee, which Mr. Ryan chairs,
History books are filled with examples of unplanned and unexpected events. U.S. presidents like any head of state anywhere in the world must be capable of responding to sudden, serious and totally unexpected turns of events. As renowned historian Arnold
Few seem to be. At least not in the Administration they aren’t, nor among the spenders in Congress or the government-employee unionists who are manning the barricades (in some cases, quite literally) in state capitals throughout the country. Herb Stein
The upheaval in the Mideast has brought gasoline prices front and center once again. Traders are building a risk factor into forward purchase contracts and gasoline prices per gallon now hover around $4 a gallon with no end in sight.
The mind-numbing, esoteric mumbo jumbo that dominates so much of the reporting and commentary on public-sector pension funds seems designed to cause the tax-paying public to surrender and acquiesce to letting their civil servants or elected officials iron it out.
For weeks the discussion among talking heads and columnists has been about a “looming” government shutdown. Then, last week, our elected officials gave us, through yet another Continuing Resolution (CR), another two weeks to debate a budget for the year
It was like a root canal without the benefit of Novocain, watching and listening to the harangue on RT (Russia Today) about how the protests in Madison Wisconsin, Cairo, Libya, Bahrain, and Tunis are all one in the same, that
The stunning speed of events in the Middle East that brought about the fall of Tunisia’s strong-arm dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, followed by the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak might suggest that our intelligence services were
That’s the way Winston Churchill, whose 1939 words we borrowed for our headline this week, were he asked about America, might answer that question today. In foreign affairs we have spent much of the past two years trying to reset
Last week we expressed disappointment in the President’s State of the Union address. While it contained the tone of a leader seeking common ground, and talking the talk of deficit and debt reduction, it was bereft of specifics. Now having
