Monthly Archives: March 2010

Can a broken news network be fixed?

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Drill, ‘Bama, Drill?

President Obama got some good publicity today by purporting to open up offshore areas for oil exploration and development. But is his announcement really a step forward for our economy? The Institute for Energy Research doesn’t think so: This is a huge step backward for America’s energy security. Prior to today’s announcement, the vast majority of OCS areas were open for business. No longer. Today, while President Obama may have »

The Illegitimacy of Obamacare

Many millions of Americans regard the Democrats’ takeover of health care not just as bad public policy, but as illegitimate government action. This is partly, but not entirely, due to the chicanery through which the legislation was adopted. The conventional wisdom is that voters don’t care about process, but Obamacare, as Byron York notes, is an exception to the rule: A new Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans »

Is Obamacare Unconstitutional?

At PJTV, Glenn Reynolds and Randy Barnett discuss the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate. A number of states, among others, are poised to litigate that issue. Do they have a chance? My instinct is to be highly skeptical. Our courts have justified pretty much anything the federal government has undertaken involving any kind of commercial transaction under the interstate commerce clause. In order to lose that battle, Congress has just »

Just say no

We still don’t know for sure what demands President Obama presented to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last week in Washington, but based on reports that have “trickled in,” the Jerusalem Post offers a plausible compilation. According to the JPost, the demands include: stopping Jewish construction in east Jerusalem for four months, not proceeding with plans to build in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, stopping the demolition of Arab homes in east »

A word to our Dartmouth readers — please vote

Dartmouth alums have only one week left in which to vote in the current round of alumni elections. Voting closes on Wednesday, April 7. This year, we are electing two Trustees, but only one slot is contested. In that race, our friend Joe Asch is running against John Replogle. For the reasons set forth here, I voted for Joe. The other race is for the Executive Committee of the Association »

Don’t tread on me

Michael Barone devotes a superb column to explicating the true meaning of the Tea Party movement. In “Tea partiers embrace liberty, not big government,” Barone situates the Tea Party movement at one end of “an argument between the heirs of two fundamental schools of political thought, the Founders and the Progressives.” Barone describes it as an old argument that has “been raised again by the expand-government policies of the Obama »

Evan Coyne Maloney remembers

Evan Coyne Maloney is the documentary filmmaker and proprietor of Brain Terminal. During the Bush administration, Evan was out in the field with his camera observing protests and interviewing protesters. He is therefore in a good position to recall the signs and symbols of the left-wing opposition to the Bush administration’s post-9/11 national security policies. How do they compare to the Tea Party protesters expressing their opposition to Barack Obama’s »

Obama as a reluctant prop

French President Sarkozy was in Washington today. He and President Obama held a joint appearance before the press — the kind of appearance Obama declined to stage with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu when he was in town last week. Obama’s performance during the joint appearance is worthy of note, not because of what Obama said (though he did say, in response to a question, that he expects some sort of »

Lame punditry from the president

President Obama has offered his analysis of the Tea Party movement. According to Obama, the movement is a “loose amalgam” whose “core” consists of “folks who just weren’t sure whether I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist.” Around that core, the president acknowledges, is a “broader circle of people, who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may »

Independents thinking independently

CNN reports an encouraging shift in public opinion about whether the Guantanamo Bay detention facility should be closed. When President Obama took office, polling showed that 51 percent of Americans wanted Gitmo shut down. Today, that number is only 39 percent, with 60 percent believing the facility should continue to operate. The change is driven by a dramatic swing in the views of independent voters. According to CNN, in January »

Nuts

Coincidentally, three of yesterday’s major news stories bear directly on recent controversies over the threat (real or imagined) of political violence. First, nine members of a “Christian militia” were arrested, following an FBI investigation, for plotting to murder police officers. The arrest was accompanied by much hoopla, with Eric Holder calling the group, Hutaree, “a dangerous organization that today stands accused of conspiring to levy war against the United States.” »

Al Sharpton plies his trade

When Don Imus sought absolution for his characteristic display of poor taste, he bent his knee to Pope Al Sharpton. How is it that Al Sharpton has become the arbiter elegantiae for matters pertaining to race and etiquette? Though he is accorded an absurdly respected role in the Democratic Party, he is easily one of the most vile men active in American public life. Jay Nordlinger reviewed Sharpton’s record as »

Should General Mixon serve openly?

A member of the military in active service forwards the following comments while asking that his identity be shielded: Lieutenant General Benjamin Mixon was taken to the woodshed last week by the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. Mixon’s offense was a letter to the editor of Stars and Stripes. General Mixon wrote: The recent commentaries on the adverse »

Dems hurting in Florida

Obamacare isn’t exactly playing to rave reviews in Flordia. According to a Mason-Dixon poll, only 34 percent of Florida voters support the new law, while 54 percent are against it. Seniors seem somehow not to appreciate seeing Medicare slashed; they oppose Obamacare by a margin of 66-25. Independents are not much more impressed; they oppose it by a margin of 62-34. President Obama is also none too popular among Floridians. »

Disparate Treatment

Michael Ramirez sums up the perversity of Barack Obama’s foreign policy; click to enlarge: »

Non-Enforcement: A Feature Or A Bug?

The individual mandate is one of the most controversial features of Obamacare, so when it came out that the law makes no provision to enforce the mandate, many were nonplussed. Morgen Richmond, in the linked article, writes: [W]ithout an effective mechanism of enforcing the individual mandate, the entire system is likely to collapse. (The individual mandate is the “third leg of the stool” as many a liberal has been pointing »