Every bit of news must be weighed against common sense, not cynically, but clinically. Does what is being reported make good sense? Does it describe the way real people act? Remember that “real people” include dishonest people, uninformed people, good people, evil people, people with a different outlook on problems than you do, and people who may have MORE information than you have. Do the | Read More »
April 30, 2013–Washington, DC–The White House In a news conference this morning, President Obama was asked a question about the Affordable Health Care Act by reporter Chuck Todd: “Why does Senator [Max] Baucus… believe that this is going to be [a train wreck], and why do you believe he’s wrong?” The President’s answer is enlightening. “…A huge chunk of it’s already been implemented. And for the 85 | Read More »
I’ll try to remain respectful toward the office, but it’ll be hard. After all, the man is either lying to our faces or under the influence of Potomac Fever. He went from conservative Congressman to fellow-traveler in about three months. My statement is provoked by a column, supposedly written by Senator Jeff Flake, which appeared April 20 in the National Review Online, titled “The Conservative Case | Read More »
Another in an sporadic series of short commentaries on current events Marriage Equality? “Marriage Equality” is a recently-coined euphemism for “gay marriage,” which is itself a euphemism as well. Our tender psyches apparently don’t respond well to euphemisms that get too close to saying what they mean, especially in advocacy advertising. Still, it’s a great phrase that conveys exactly what its proponents want to convey–that | Read More »
Another in an unscheduled series of short commentaries on current events Maybe because we’ll miss them the most. Because the President has forgotten he’s already been elected and he’s been campaigning across the country to defeat his own idea, there are too many sources to quote regarding the dire consequences President Obama sees if the sequester, or Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), isn’t averted. So | Read More »
Another in an unscheduled series of short commentaries on current events Setting the stage Dr. Benjamin Carson ruffled some feathers with his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast a couple of weeks ago. You can’t blame the Left for being ruffled–the speech was a High Right Fastball under the chin. They didn’t like anything he said, and they didn’t like the way he said it. | Read More »
Sequestration is to arrive soon, allegedly to the surprise of the President, the Democrats, and the popular press. According to at least one source in that popular press, if sequestration is allowed to take effect there will be numerous programs and services to the public curtailed. Other sources, such as Chris Cillizza of WaPo, provide a less pessimistic view. A good President would seize this opportunity | Read More »
In response to Ben Howe’s It’s the Messaging, Stupid. It’s the Stupid Messaging. More than the messengers? I mostly agree. [D]umb, ill-prepared and gaffe-tastic candidates will always be a part of American politics. You don’t win by making a strategy that consists of preventing people you think are too dumb en masse from picking a candidate. You win by effectively selling your ideas. Yes. To | Read More »
How is it possible that we lose to Democrats? Perhaps you have been asking yourself that question. After all, we win the debate on all the big issues, as verified by polls as recently as today, with questions in the form of “Do you agree with President Obama on…?” The majority of respondents don’t agree with him on anything except defense in general, while they | Read More »
In a recent diary, I made a case that we are too often distracted by “shiny objects” put into play by the Democrats and kept in the public eye by their minions in the press. Examples I used included gun control, but the shiny new issue of Immigration Reform has been rolled out since then, with the help of our two Arizona Senators, Marco Rubio, | Read More »
Talk of “comprehensive immigration reform” bubbled to the surface last week. We’ve seen this coming for some time. Since long before the last election. In fact, as long ago as July, 2006. Then, today, CBS Miami, 1/28/2013: Rubio Pitching Bipartisan Comprehensive Immigration Reform “A bipartisan group or [sic] Senators including Senator Marco Rubio are set to unveil a new comprehensive immigration reform package at a Monday afternoon | Read More »
Mike DeVine recently commented on Redstate (about the gun-control debate) that “The real issue is whether the DC police charge [David] Gregory with the crime he committed on national TV [displaying a rifle magazine]. If not, its just another nail in in the coffin of what used to be the Rule of Law in America.” I couldn’t agree more. The Rule of Law has become Rule by the | Read More »
Your man won. You even increased your lead in the Senate, although it seems we may have increased our own majority in the House. But that doesn’t matter, because the fact is House Republicans can’t get anything they really want past the Senate’s majority or the President’s veto. The best they can do is to come to some kind of agreement with your Senate Democrats | Read More »
President Obama has already been exposed as not even an empty suit, but an empty chair. It’s time to expose his foreign policy attempts for what they are–empty words. Almost any set of policies can have enough cohesion to generate a “three-legged stool” analogy. For the Reagan Administration the legs might have been (1) Strength through a military strong enough to be feared, (2) Diplomacy carried | Read More »
The human brain is a marvelous thing. Each one is unique. Some work better than others, but many of them see things the same way. It’s evolutionary. We’re programmed to look for patterns, and if a pattern is identified we all tend to see it. But sometimes what is obvious isn’t real. And sometimes we need to stop and think about what pattern we should | Read More »
Two things may happen this week: A contempt-of-congress order against Attorney General Eric Holder may be issued by the full House. The U.S. Supreme Court may find that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. Both of these are big news. Really big news. Only one of them, however, is of a nature that will be almost 100% favorable to the Republican Party, and that’s the | Read More »
So President Barack Obama wants to criticize Governor Mitt Romney’s record of leadership in Massachusetts. Let’s compare that record to Obama’s record in Illinois. Romney worked with a Democratic legislature to bring Massachusetts back from deficit financing to prosperity. To do that, he had to negotiate, to make real decisions, to pick a path. Barack Obama, while a state senator in Illinois, also made decisions–including | Read More »
I was an elected delegate to the Arizona Republican Convention. It was a first for me and obviously it was interesting, but it was also disappointing. Disappointing because Non Paul conservatives in the party couldn’t make the effort to actually participate in party activities and mount some competition for the Ron Paul activists. That isn’t in any way a slam at the Ron Paul delegates; | Read More »
Taking some time off from obsessing about the national security, political, and policy problems we face as we careen towards the abyss, I have a book review that might be helpful as you browse garage sales and bookstores this weekend. The book is Killing Lincoln, 2011, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugas. Unlike many marketing descriptions, O’Reilly’s blurbs this time are very accurate–”With an unforgettable | Read More »
Why do we believe the individual mandate is necessary to pay for “universal” health care? The Administration has told us repeatedly that the mandate is necessary to help hold down the cost of health insurance. Nobody has objected yet; we should have. The mandate is supposed to hold down costs by forcing everybody to buy health insurance whether they want to or not. Supposedly, fifty | Read More »
‘Oyez, oyez, oyez, Decision Day on the Supreme Court of the United States Live! will come to order. I’m your host, Chuck Flannely. The Court is sitting en banc today, to announce its decision in the Affordable Health Care Act dispute; Chief Justice John (WhiteBread) Roberts presiding. He’s a Harvard man, a Californian, the only Justice with extensive experience arguing cases before the Court himself; | Read More »
No matter how much we spend, it doesn’t help if we spend it on the wrong things, and we don’t know which things are right. Ground rules: This isn’t about President Obama. Nothing he or his Energy Secretary has said or done is really about finding an alternative to Middle East oil. This is about concepts, not details, so there may be some generalities that | Read More »
President Obama seemed to have stepped in something earlier this week. The news hit the street that the Department of Health and Human Services (whose very existence is supposedly validated by the goal in the preamble of the Constitution to “promote the general welfare”) had decided that the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Affordable Health Care Act, aka ObamaCare, empowered them to rule that Catholic (and all other) hospitals | Read More »
Bret Baier on Fox News Channel’s Special Report reported today that ”Congressional Budget Office figures indicate the deficit is increasing at a slower pace. The CBO says the federal government accumulated a budget deficit of 349 billion dollars in the first four months of the fiscal year 2012. That is 70 billion less than the shortfall reported for the same period last year. The deficit | Read More »
Or perhaps their timidity, or their stupidity. I’m not a big fan of Greta van Susteren of Fox News Channel, but Thursday night she was right on target. She interviewed Iowa’s Representative Steve King, the only Congressional questioner who was prepared to ask Attorney General Eric Holder the key question, “Who was the DOJ official who authorized Fast and Furious?” vS: “…no one will tell | Read More »
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